I am absolutely buried in work, but it occurred to me in the process of something else that we’re now roughly a month away from the announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize winners. Which means we’re also about one month away from the annual spate of “The Nobel Prizes are Bad and you should feel Bad for caring about them” thinkpieces.
If you’re a long-time reader of mine, you may be thinking “Wait, I feel like I’ve read those words before…” That’s because you have, last year at around this time, when I wrote a very similar but longer piece on this same topic:
There are two basic beefs that people have with the Nobel Prizes, one historical and the other methodological. The historical complaint is that the Nobels, and the Physics prize in particular, have skewed white and male in a way that’s pretty much indefensible, and their failure to recognize women in the past is a blight. The methodological complaint is that the science prizes impose an artificial cap of three laureates max, which wasn’t necessarily an accurate reflection of the practice of science back in the 1900’s, and definitely isn’t how modern science is done.
I want to say right up front that I don’t disagree with either of these critiques. Their diversity track record isn’t good, and science is now and always has been more of a team-based endeavour than an individual pursuit. I would be perfectly happy to see them expand the pool of laureates to recognize a wider range of scientists, and to allow awards to collaborations. (With the caveat that human psychology means that those collaborations will almost inevitably come to be associated with a small number of individuals, limiting the impact of the methodological messaging.)
At the same time, though, I don’t really feel like either of these causes is advanced by Yet Another Thinkpiece about how Lise Meitner and Rosalind Franklin got done wrong back before 95% of the online readership was born. That’s a well-worn tale by now, and it doesn’t really need another recitation.
What we could use, however, is some promotion and celebration of people who aren’t dead yet and are thus eligible to have their work recognized, in a small step toward correcting the Nobels’ legacy of bias. Because, honestly, the biggest obstacle I see in terms of advocating for better representation in the Nobel pool is that I don’t know who to promote.
I’d love to see, rather than another round of “Jocelyn Bell Burnell’s advisor got the Prize for the work that she did,” a list of “25 Amazing Women Who Ought to Win a Nobel Prize in Physics.” If your gripe is primarily methodological instead, make it “15 Huge Collaborations Who Ought to Be Collectively Recognized.” Either of those would be more useful, and much healthier than endlessly re-litigating past affronts.
I recognize that this call is once again pretty ill-timed for the slow grinding of the mills of journalism; this kind of thing probably needs months of lead time to do right, identifying candidates and collecting information to profile them. I actually had made a note to myself to pitch this at some editors some months back, but right around that same time I learned I was going to become department chair and, hahahahahahaha, no.
But as the topic of the science Nobels is once again inching its way onto the radar screens, I want to repeat that call again, in hopes that somebody with more free time or the authority to commission pieces from people with more free time will take it up. (Actually, I can’t swear that nobody’s doing it this year, but I kind of doubt I have enough influence to have made it happen last year.) We don’t have to ignore or dismiss the wrongs of the past, but a focus on that to the exclusion of anything forward-looking (as we seem to get most years) is at best not helping, and at worst actively counter-productive for the causes that matter.
Please, writers and editors, leaven things out with some pieces that look forward to and help work for a better, more equitable future.
I’m squeezing this in around a bunch of other frantic activity, so I’m a little afriad it will be insufficiently carefully worded. On the other hand, that’s probably the best way to get some actual attention for it. Anyway, if you want to know immediately if I have to clarify or walk back any of this, here’s a button:
And if you want to suggest scientists or organizations who ought to be on a forward-looking Nobel list, the comments will be open:
(If you want to leave a comment to argue about the details of any of the high-profile past cases, I’m really not interested, but I can’t stop you. Just don’t expect much response…)