On the Nobel Prize Committee
The May 2005 issue of the National Geographic has an interesting article on the Nobel committee and Albert Einstein. Apparently, the Nobel committee was really determined to deny Albert Einstein a Nobel Prize, even if the entire world demanded it. So much for the honesty and integrity of the Nobel committee. Quoting from the article:
In 11 different years, Einstein was nominated only to be rejected. One Nobel committee member wroteEinstein must never receive a Nobel Prize even if the entire world demands it.The entire world did demand it, and Einstein got the 1921 Nobel — for his contributions to physics and for his 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect. He showed that light behaves not only as a wave but also as a stream of particles, or quanta. The committe directed Einstein not to mention relativity in his acceptance lecture[emphasis added]. He did so anyway. — Heidi Schultz
This seems to be suggestive of why Hayek received the Nobel Prize only the year after Mises died, when it could no-longer be awarded to Mises. It is also arguable that just as Einstein could have (rather should have) received the Nobel for relativity, so too can an argument be made that Mises and Hayek could have received the Nobel Prize for their contributions to the socialist calculation debate. Of course, then, the mainstream economists — such as crackpot Paul Samuelson — were still thoroughly convinced that the USSR would overtake the US economically. In fact, in the edition of Economics just before the USSR collapsed, Samuelson still argued such. This, from an "economist" who claims adherence to the fact.
Comments (11)
What was the cause of the prejudice against Einstein? Because he was Jewish? Or because his theories were still controversial?
Published: September 6, 2005 12:21 PM
I'd suspect both, but more-so because his theories were controversial; or, rather, because those on the Nobel Committee were so closed-minded and stupid that they couldn't give them consideration.
Published: September 6, 2005 1:06 PM
I'd be interested in learning the complaints about Einstein.
As an aside, has anyone ever nominated Dr. Thomas Sowell for the Economics prize? Talk about an oversight!
Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/
Published: September 6, 2005 2:28 PM
I don't know (who does?) the insider politics of awarding Hayek the prize, but it was done slightingly by requiring him to share it for that year (including only receiving half the the prize money) with the avowed socialist Gunnar Myrdal, who wasn't even supposed to be an economist. (He was a sociologist, a very bad one at that, but that's another story.)
Most past winners like Samuelson and Tobin are quacks -- much like crafty astrologers who in an intellectual dark age are credited as leaders in the field of astronomy -- but at least on record they're putative economists. Here Hayek was paired with an intellectual opposite who shouldn't have been qualified even to be nominated for the prize. The whole thing reeked of damning Hayek with faint praise while bending over backward to elevate an anti-Hayekian who'd obviously never pioneered any substantive economic ideas.
Of course, the whole history of the Nobel Prizes, not just for economics, is permeated with politics -- usually awful politics at that. For all his faults, Milton Friedman deserves applause for noting that winning the prize meant nothing to him, that he has no respect for the committee of socialists that conferred the reward to him (presumably just to enhance the credibility of the prize by appearing to be "balanced" according to the dominant criteria of the economics profession -- probably similar to how Einstein eventually got the physics prize).
Published: September 6, 2005 2:40 PM
As far as I am concerned, the Nobel Prize Committee had a chance to greatly improve the integrity of the economics prize upon the collapse of the Soviet Union and almost every other “socialist� state in that they could have posthumously awarded the prize to Mises. Of course, they chose not to take the honorable course of action. In addition, the co-awarding of the prize to Hayek and Myrdal (two very disparate thinkers) can be considered as dilluting Hayek's achievement. However, given what passes for economics with the large majority of economists, it is not at all surprising that no member of the Austrian School has ever won the award except in the case of Hayek receiving the award jointly.
Also, it is my understanding (and someone please correct me if I am wrong) that Hayek was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for his contributions to business cycle theory, and not for his part in the socialist calculation debate. The Social Democrats, if not outright Socialists, that comprise the Nobel award committee would be committing heresy if they acknowledged the contributions of the Austrian School regarding this topic. The fact of the matter is that Mises’s 1920 thesis that economic calculation is impossible in a socialist state, and hence socialist society (other than a primitive household or at the most tribal economy) is impossible, has never been refuted. This conclusion has been very ably discussed by several scholars associated with the Mises Institute.
Published: September 6, 2005 7:16 PM
The Nobel Prize is another in a long list of illegitimate narcissist-validations that only incite encroaching socialism (i.e. "Let your betters make your decisions for you; we'll tell you who they are").
So you're smart and discovered something that will help humanity? Great, now get over yourself--you don't deserve any special recognition.
Published: September 6, 2005 10:45 PM
Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously.
Published: September 7, 2005 1:09 AM
Yes, Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously. And while I realize that doing so would present some logistical problems, awarding the Prize based on achievement and not whether the recipient happens to be alive, I believe would lend more credibility to the award. And based on scientific achievement, if anyone in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries deserves the Nobel Prize in Economics it is Ludwig von Mises.
Published: September 7, 2005 6:56 AM
I don't think there was any discrimination against Einstein. Simply, relativity theory was still controversial at the time and some very famous physicists (including Nobel prize winners) refused to accept it, among them Johannes Stark, of the "Stark effect" fame.
Published: September 7, 2005 9:33 AM
Not only did Hayek have to share the Nobel prize with Myrdal, but Myrdal rather ungraciously went on to call for the prize's abolition on the grounds that it had been awarded to such an unqualified person as Hayek. (This is the same Myrdal who once described Hayek -- of all people -- as a thinker who had "never been much troubled by epistemological worries.")
Published: September 7, 2005 11:42 AM
Perhaps because he "copied" work of others?
Special version of relativity theory was achievement of Lorentz and Poincaré.
General relativity was obtained by Hilbert.
more data and references on
http://canonicalscience.blogspot.com/2005/08/what-is-history-of-relativity-theory.html
a new extended anc corrected version is being prepared.
Published: September 15, 2005 8:23 AM