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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.research,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Nobel Prizes
Message-ID: <2222@looking.UUCP>
Date: 29 Oct 88 03:41:56 GMT
References: <16016@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <22172@beta.lanl.gov>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Distribution: na
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 23

Rosalind Franklin didn't get the Nobel prize because she was dead at
the time.  The rules expressly forbid giving the awards to dead people.

I think, in general, that this is a good rule.  It does mean that
there will be some great researchers not awarded with a prize that
everybody agrees should be theirs.   But if they could award it to
dead people, they would do so far too often.  It's a well known trend
with awards and distinctions.  So non-controversial.


And after all, the dead person doesn't care she gets an award or not.

The real tragedy is that the Nobel committee often takes too long to give
an award -- long enough for somebody to die.  I think there is no question
that the structure of D.N.A. is one of the most fundamental discoveries
of the century in biology (or perhaps any field), and the Nobel committee
should not have waited.  But that's another issue.

Perhaps the Nobel committee could set up a special category for people
who "should have gotten awards, but died too soon to get them."  This would
have no money, and it would not replace the awards for living people.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473