Talk:Nobel Prize
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Discovery of what?
YO! User:Sid_3050, the sentence, "In two cases, the Nobel Prize was denied to the person most responsible for the discovery apparently..." meaning the discovery of what, exactly? Crackertalk 17:53, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
- ...why are you asking ME? I didn't add that sentence. Check the edit history. However, the two cases are shown in the following paragraphs. For what it's worth: The article doesn't state what discovery Hoyle should have received a Nobel Prize for, as I pointed out in my edit summary. General advice: Chill out, yo. --Sid 3050 17:59, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
Damadian's exclusion - possible reason
Actually if you look around you'll find other possible reasons that Damadian at least didn't get the Nobel (I'm not familiar with Hoyle). See, for example: [1]. It would be more accurate to say that some think it's because of his view of evolution, or something to that effect, since clearly other reasons have been put forth.--Murray 23:24, 13 March 2007 (EDT)
Reagan and the Pope
The article says "as the prize was not given to Ronald Reagan or Pope John Paul II" but does not state *why* they should have received the prize, or even which Nobel Prize.
- Hm, good point. I'll see if I can dig out what this sentence is based on. For now, the stub note and the fact tags are enough to say "This article should be taken with a grain of salt", but you are of course correct, and the sentence should go if it can't be backed and/or explained. --Sid 3050 10:33, 16 March 2007 (EDT)
- Reagan may be considered by some to be one of the US's great Presidents, but compared to the Red Cross, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu and the Dali Lama, I would think it would be hard to justify why he would receive the Nobel Peace Prize. --Todd 11:22, 16 March 2007 (EDT)
- But compared to Jimmy Carter, Yasar Arafat, Kofi Anan, and Al Gore, it would think that it would be easy to justify.
Thoughts after some initial research
The more I dig around, the more I feel tempted to just wipe out most of this article and start from scratch. Things I currently have issues with
- "The selection process has become political, as the prize was not given to Ronald Reagan or Pope John Paul II [...]"
- Says who? Anybody of interest? And what do they base their argument on? What makes Reagan and the pope so much more awesome than the other candidates? A search for "Ronald Reagan" "Nobel Prize" did not reveal a striking result from what I saw.
- "and has not been given to anyone who criticizes the theory of evolution"
- VERY hard to verify. Prizes for more than a hundred years in several fields.
- "The Nobel Prizes for literature and peace are mostly given to outspoken liberals, such as Jimmy Carter."
- What is "mostly"? Numbers would be nice. And what definition of "liberal" are we working with? This one? And what's the point?
- "He (Hoyle) was the leader on the project recognized with a Nobel Prize"
- The Nobel Prize went to Fowler and Chandrasekhar. I currently can't verify that they worked together in a project led by Hoyle. And while we're at it, I can't even verify that Hoyle and Chandrasekhar ever worked together.
- "Hoyle was an outspoken critic of the theories of chemical evolution."
- This is actually sourced, but initially said "...critic of the theory of evolution". While the previous version surely fits better into the ongoing theme, chemical evolution appears to be something else. In the current version, it's a nice side story, but it doesn't really fit into the whole Creationism theme, so it stands "a bit" out. (See also the section below)
- "Another omission was for Raymond Damadian, another critic of the theory of evolution, who invented the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner"
- The first part actually appears to be true, but the second part is a bit odd. As Murray pointed out above, there are other explanations that don't require the belief that there is a conspiracy against Creationists.
- "Recently, there have been proponents of an alternate scientific award given to scientists who support Biblical principles."
- Like with the first part: Says who? I wouldn't even know how to properly search for such an suggestion.
In the face of the current article, I will most likely do a from-scratch attempt these days unless there is great opposition. I might include Hoyle and Damadian's stories, but with a bit more balance and context. --Sid 3050 23:05, 16 March 2007 (EDT)
- Excellent Idea --Todd 9:51 18, March 2007 EDT
Hoyle and the Nobel Prize
While fishing around for more about Hoyle, I found this article. Here is an interesting quote:
Fowler was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 1983, and why Hoyle was not included in this award remains a mystery hidden in the confidential documents of the Royal Swedish Academy. The editor of the scientific journal Nature suggested that the academy did not wish to be associated with any endorsement of another idea then being promulgated by Hoyle. This was linked to Hoyle's belief that life must be of frequent occurrence in the universe. He argued that the primeval molecules from which life evolved on Earth had been transported from elsewhere in the universe. In itself this idea would not necessarily be rejected as absurd by the scientific community, but Hoyle had publicised a further argument that influenza epidemics were associated with the passage of the Earth through certain meteor streams, the particles of which conveyed the virus to Earth.
This was dismissed as fictional by nearly all members of the biological and physical scientific disciplines. Indeed, the idea belonged more to Hoyle's activity as a writer of science fiction for over three decades.
And I dunno, but this may have possibly influenced his reputation a little bit, too:
He was a fluent writer and speaker and became the main expositor of this new theory of the steady state, or continuous creation, according to which the universe had existed for an infinite past time and would continue infinitely into the future, as opposed to what Hoyle styled the "big bang" theory.
[...]
The conflict with the conventional idea that the universe had a specific origin billions of years in time past was absolute. Until the discovery of the cosmic microwave background in 1965, the observational evidence was inconclusive and the emotive feelings aroused led to one of the bitterest scientific divisions of the century. Hoyle never accepted the complete defeat of the continuous creation theory, and long after the "big bang" universe had become conventional scientific wisdom he continued to probe its defects.
Since it's 4am here, I won't draw binding conclusions here, but I think the material sheds some interesting light on Hoyle and the mystery of his denied Nobel Prize. --Sid 3050 23:05, 16 March 2007 (EDT)
Rewrite
I've rewritten the article basically from scratch to include sources and some general history. I left out all unsourced statements - not because I "censor" anything, but because they were unsourced and my searches could not verify the claims.
The part about Hoyle is currently missing completely. I might put him back in later, but I figured I'd submit this version for the moment so people can comment and stuff.
Potential expansions of the Damadian case should most likely be done in his article, but that's just my current opinion. Thanks to Bturpin for the additional source there, by the way. :) --Sid 3050 11:24, 18 March 2007 (EDT)
Very nice work
Bravo Sid 3050!! Very nice work. Cleaned it up real good like. Nice and neutral w/o the pejorative aspects of its former self. (I'm not a big fan of the "chip on the shoulder" tone that many articles here seem to have.) Again nice work. We'll have to get a list of winners and maybe flesh it out with a box or something. Crackertalk 11:42, 18 March 2007 (EDT)
- Thank you kindly! :) A list of the winners would be... long. Seven categories, more than a hundred years, yearly prizes... What might work would be an extra page per section, with this main article only listing the most recent winners and linking to the extra pages for more info. A template/box with info or links sounds like a nice idea, though!
- There is still quite a bit of history and stuff that could be added, but it'll take some long-term community work (long history pages like the Nobel Foundation one are dry reading for me =P). --Sid 3050 11:54, 18 March 2007 (EDT)
