Question of the day, #2

[mrissa]

One of the recent issues of New Scientist had an impassioned plea for adding a biology Nobel Prize. What do you think of this? More generally, when do you think it's the right idea to expand an existing prize and when is it better to come up with a new prize? And how much should determining the intent of the originator of the prize matter?

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

The current prize categories are strange. The peace, literature, economics, and physiology/medicine prizes seem very targeted at current real-world concerns (and I was surprised to find the economics prize on nobelprize.org, since it's awarded by a separate group), but physics is quite often (if not this year) for quite abstruse stuff. I haven't followed the chemistry prize in detail, perhaps you can tell me where that fits? And these prizes don't at all cover the full range of human endeavor, and were clearly never intended to.

If, in accordance with Alfred's will, it's really all about peace -- I think they've already gone fairly far wrong.

Biology can fit into the overall "peace" view, and it's also an important and legitimate science. A high-visibility biology prize would not be out of place (but what's in place now? I don't know) in a general sort of sense, and even in the Nobel view from what little I understand of it.

A new Nobel prize would get instant status. But convincing the Nobel committee or whoever is the final decider on that would be, I suspect, considerable effort. And it would be out of the hands of the creators.

I'm pretty sure that any Nobel prize carries more weight anywhere except within the individual field than the Field medal does (big math prize; I'm sure Mris knows that, but probably somebody doesn't). A newly-created prize in a field would have even less weight. I can see wanting to take the shortcut of hooking your new prize to the Nobel, if you can make it work.

I Has A Bias! Let Me Shows You It!

[guppiecat]

The Nobel committee has been pretty adamant in not adding new prizes.

But, in the spirit of the question...

I think that the intent behind the prize is for those who "have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind". Thus, there should be categories for those who have done so. However, drawing the line can be a bit fuzzy. Is Ecology different from Biology? Should there be one for that too? At some point, the award gets watered down.

Perhaps instead of saying "let's add Biology" (and ignore that the funding source isn't set up that way), at present, there is: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace... and the booby prize "The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel".

As I see it, it should properly break down into:

* Two prizes in "Hard Science" (Physics, Chemistry)
* Two prizes in "Squishy Science" (Physiology, Medicine, Biology)
* One prize in "Pretend Science" (Economics (or, what the hell, Psychology))
* One prize in "Not Science At All, But We Like It Anyway" (Literature, Art, etc)
* One prize in "Not Science At All, And No One Likes It Or Agrees With Us" (Peace)

:)

[brooksmoses]

What's generally in place for biology is the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This unfortunately means that a lot of good pure-chemistry work has been passed over for a Nobel in place of good biochem work.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

I think they should dump the Economics Nobel-that-isn't-really-a-Nobel and replace it with a biology Nobel-that-really-is-a-Nobel.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, I do sort of notice that a lot of the Chemistry stuff was bio-chem.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I think it's silly to try to tinker with the Nobel trust/will. The money was earmarked in very particular ways, it was sheer hell to get the will pushed through in the first place, and if the committee exceed or break the original limits of the trust the heirs of Alfred Nobel will have legitimate standing to claim that the will has been broken and use that to try to claim the remaining endowment. If people want a new prestige prize in biology, they need to invent something hugely profitable and endow their own prize.

[redbird]

"Physiology or medicine" also includes a significant amount of biology, in part because, if I understand correctly, the people awarding those prizes are interpreting "physiology" rather more broadly than most speakers of English would in 2009, on the grounds that this is how Nobel is likely to have understood the word. A prize that can cover both identifying the structure of DNA and identifying Helicobacter pylori as the cause of stomach ulcers when everyone else thought they were caused by stress seems like a pretty good biology award. (Yes, focused on humans, but if you're going to use one model organism for Animalia, given our existing dataset as well as priorities, you could do a lot worse than Homo sapiens.)

[barondave.livejournal.com]

The Prize that's deliberately left out is Mathematics. According to rumor, Nobel's wife was having an affair with a mathematician, and I'm too lazy to look up the verification.

Alfred Nobel left a will, not an institution. If you want to start a Pataphysics Prize, go ahead.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I think the relevant criteria are (a) what the Nobel Foundation Board of Directors wants to do and (b) what the Nobel Foundation Board of Directors can get away with. To the extent that Alfred Nobel's intent influences (a) and (b), it is relevant. I haven't read the New Scientist plea, so I don't know if I agree with their rationale. I do know that, in general, "there should be a Nobel Prize for X" is inherently less convincing to me than "the Nobel Foundation Board of Directors should want to, and can, award a prize for X."

Along the same lines: When should a prize be expanded? When one already controls or influences a prize-awarding organization, and the new variation seems like a good fit. When should a new prize be established? When one doesn't have the award infrastructure anyway, or if one deliberately wants to avoid the associations of an existing infrastructure.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The Field Medal is exactly what I think should happen here, frankly. Mathematicians didn't get a Nobel, and they didn't try to argue their way into one, whether it was for reasons related to Alfred himself or not. They just said, "All right then, this is for stuff that's good in our area of work." And no, nobody's aunt is nearly as impressed when they win the Field Medal as they would be if they won the nonexistent Nobel Prize for Mathematics, but at a certain point you have to recognize that you're not doing the work to impress your aunt or that one person who made fun of you in junior high. But the more somebody cares about math, the more likely they are to know what the Field Medal is, and to be impressed if you win it, and I don't see any reason biology couldn't build something similar.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is not at all irrelevant. I think a lot of people don't know how difficult it was to get the thing through the courts in the first place.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

From what I hear of the Nobel committee, they don't react very well to being pushed on new prizes, either. The Field Medal is a good example both ways -- recognition in the field, and lack of recognition outside. It's what one can reasonably achieve, with work.

One specific goal for wanting a prize is to get high-level visibility for the field, and a new prize doesn't much fulfill that goal. But maybe, with the right kind of funding and publicity campaign, you could move that direction. And it might well be easier than getting the Nobel committee to do what you want.

[cathshaffer.livejournal.com]

I agree. Medicine is not adequate to cover the amazing breakthroughs we've had in biology.