With the arrival of autumn comes the first event of the scientific holy days – Nobel week. For the next 7 days, the brightest minds await the ringing of the telephone at ~2:30AM pacific time – hoping to hear the warm greeting "The Nobel selection committee calling...". This is the week that we celebrate the mind. We recognize the great ideas, discoveries and literary works that have advanced mankind toward a higher ideal.
With rare exceptions, the scientific Nobel selection committees make careful choices that are grounded in years of contemplation about the importance of each contribution and the key people responsible. The great scientists of the world are invited over the years to participate in symposia and conferences in Stockholm, where the members of the selection committees have the opportunity to engage the unofficial candidates. In many cases these interactions occur over a decade, allowing the careful Swedes to reach their decisions. It is extremely rare for a scientific prize to be awarded quickly.
One of the greatest challenges in the selection of the scientific prizes is the limitation that there can be no more than 3 winners per prize. Increasingly science is a collaborative exercise in which many researchers work together, making this limitation a roadblock to recognizing some key events. The sequencing of the human DNA (the genome) is such a case – the credit belongs to too many people to narrow the prize winners to three. This year one of the favored subjects for Monday morning’s Medicine prize runs up against this limit – the discovery and characterization of stem cells. The key advances are many and broadly spread. It appears that a consensus is emerging that there will be several prizes over the coming years to recognize different aspects of the work. This year there appears to be growing consensus that McCulloch and Till might get the prize for their 1960s discovery of bone marrow stem cells. Bookending their work, there could be a prize to Shinya Yamanaka for his recent 2006 work that demonstrated how to create stem cells from skin cells. Of course this could all be wrong – there are others who predict prizes for the study of obesity genetics or an overdue prize for the discovery of cancer development.
Two prizes have somewhat different processes – both with greater ties to politics.
The prize for literature has oft been used to make a statement about politics, respecting the ideals of peace and freedom. However, the staid literature selection committee more often than not selects prize winners that reflect their academic perspective as literature professors. Before her death, the Swedish public pushed for recognition of the great children’s literature author Astrid Lindgren. As far as I know, no children’s author has ever been recognized with the prize, and the committee members apparently scoffed at the idea that such dreck deserved consideration. While a few popular authors have taken home the medal, it seems more likely that we will see yet another prize go to a largely unknown writer. I have no idea who it might be. If I ran the world, I’d probably give it to Richard Dawkins to tick off the religious right. [Comments below point out the prize is generally for a body of work in fiction (or poetry by my reading of the past winners).]
As you will recall from last year’s Peace Prize, the great pooh-pah of the awards, the Norwegian selection committee can make surprising jumps of logic. The Peace Prize is the only Nobel that must be based on the contributions of the past year – meaning that the committee faces a difficult task in some years. In such dry years, they often have to stretch. One way to circumvent a bad year is to award the prize to a peace promoting organization (UN, Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, etc). Last year they shocked the world by giving the prize to Barack Obama, apparently for the singular accomplishment of not being George W. Bush. This year? Rumors point to the recognition of Chinese political dissidents.
After Monday’s medicine prize announcements, the rest of the prizes will come steadily: Physics (Tuesday), Chemistry (Wednesday), Literature (Thursday), Peace (Friday) and the pseudo-Nobel for economics (the following Monday).
Please jump in with your predictions or desires for any of the prizes.