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The Absurdity of the Nobel Prizes in Science (theatlantic.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article: Every year, when Nobel Prizes are awarded in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine, critics note that they are an absurd and anachronistic way of recognizing scientists for their work. Instead of honoring science, they distort its nature, rewrite its history, and overlook many of its important contributors. There are assuredly good things about the prizes. Scientific discoveries should be recognized for the vital part they play in the human enterprise. The Nobel Prize website is an educational treasure trove, full of rich historical details that are largely missing from published papers. And it is churlish to be overly cynical about any event that, year after year, offers science the same kind of whetted anticipation that's usually reserved for Oscar or Emmy nominees. But the fact that the scientific Nobels have drawn controversy since their very inception hints at deep-rooted problems. [...] The wider problem, beyond who should have received the prize and who should not, is that the Nobels reward individuals -- three at most, for each of the scientific prizes, in any given year. And modern science, as Ivan Oransky and Adam Marcus write in Stat, is "the teamiest of team sports." Yes, researchers sometimes make solo breakthroughs, but that's increasingly rare. Even within a single research group, a platoon of postdocs, students, and technicians will typically be involved in a discovery that gets hitched to a single investigator's name. And more often than not, many groups collaborate on a single project. The paper in which the LIGO team announced their discovery has an author list that runs to three pages. Another recent paper, which precisely estimated the mass of the elusive Higgs boson, has 5,154 authors.
The Peace prize isn't even awarded by the Nobel committee. It's just a way for Norway to make a political statement.
I think the reasoning behind giving one to Al Gore (whether you like the reasoning or not is another matter) was that climate change would lead to destruction of environments which would lead to migration and war over territory so preventing it would prevent wars.
Realistically though it was just a "Your Not George Bush" prize, which was much the same for Obama. I imagine that after four (or god forbid eight) years of Trump, another Democrat will get one for much the same reason.
As a tenured professor at an R1 institution, I had the same reaction to this year's Nobel Prizes as in the article. The article is spot-on. It's not about discontentment, it's about a scientific culture gone awry and in denial about its problems.
I've had similar thoughts in the past, but every year they get more and more pressing, and it becomes difficult to ignore. For some reason, this year, it was the very first reaction I had. I was relieved to see the Atlantic piece, to confirm I wasn't just losing my mind.
The science the Nobels celebrate is indeed worth celebrating. But that's not the point, because the Nobels aren't awarded for an idea or discovery, they're awarded to individuals as proxies. In the process, it ends up reinforcing a lie about how science works that has destructive consequences for everyone, and might lead to its downfall in the long run if nothing is done to change anything.
What many here and elsewhere don't realize is that the current socially conservative rejection of science and the problems with science are two sides of the same coin. Social conservatives are correct that science *is* political, and full of fads. It's cutthroat, and even as I type this I know there are many, many postdocs and grad students out there slaving for pennies on the dollar they deserve to prop up some PI who deserves a sliver of the recognition they get, even if they themselves mean no harm. I've suffered this myself, and see it referenced between the lines at talks. I've heard heads of massive research divisions discuss the exodus of students from research. The reproducibility crisis is almost everywhere, especially in biomedical research, and it gets ignored. Predatory journals exist because there's no stability in research. Tenure has been crippled of any teeth, even though people act as if it is the problem, and the federal grant system as it is is making things worse, being underfunded, faddish, and nepotistic, and whitewashing state underfunding of universities by compensating through "indirect funds."
Problems are getting worse.
I've always loved the Nobel prizes, but this time, for whatever reason, they struck me as a slap in the face of every researcher who doesn't get the credit they deserve. I feel like science has turned into a cult of TED-talk personalities. It's not what it once was.