The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2020 | Hacker News Reader

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2020

nobelprize.org

FTFA:

This year’s Nobel Prize is awarded to three scientists who have made a decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis, a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in people around the world.

Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice made seminal discoveries that led to the identification of a novel virus, Hepatitis C virus. Prior to their work, the discovery of the Hepatitis A and B viruses had been critical steps forward, but the majority of blood-borne hepatitis cases remained unexplained. The discovery of Hepatitis C virus revealed the cause of the remaining cases of chronic hepatitis and made possible blood tests and new medicines that have saved millions of lives.

Has Houghton actually accepted? He's turned down past prizes because some of his colleagues weren't included.

(to answer my own question - yes, he has now."Houghton accepted the Nobel but said he hoped future award committees would recognise larger groups of scientists. “Great science, often, is a group of people and I think going forward we somehow need to acknowledge that,” he said"

This is a big issue with the Nobel Prizes in general, especially with how much science is done collaboratively now. I have a professor who missed winning the one for the expansion of the universe as he was the third or fourth author of the paper, and the committee caps the prize at 3.

He was the lead author of a different paper from the group which excited him more, and that's what cost him a chance at the Nobel Prize, though he still got to visit Stockholm and the ceremony. It's just in general a weird way to look at things, when teams are so big anymore.

Well deserved!

It's too bad George Kuo, Qui Lim Choo, and Daniel Bradley did not get recognized for the prize.

The arbitrary limit of three people to win a prize needs to be changed. The limit has done more harm than good. Important people are excluded every year for artificial reasons.

The alternative to this will then tend towards the extreme you see with papers like the one out of CERN that had more than 5000 co-authors. Eventually you need to set a limit and accept the fact that some people will get screwed, if not then it will become not much more than a participation trophy.

One does not need to accept the fact that people will get screwed. Breakthrough prize does not limit the number of awardees. There has been one award so far that was given to 300 people for the image of a supermassive black hole. The rest have been to groups of <10.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Prize_in_Fundamen...

There is nothing wrong with the idea but it is not legally possible to do otherwise. The Nobel Foundation was instated using instructions in Nobel's testament. The foundation can not just change the bylaws because more recipients would be better.

They seem to ignore this bylaw freely ... "shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind."

That's from the Norwegian Nobel Peace prize comittee, which has been grossly mismanaged for years. There are/were lawsuits from the Swedish Nobel family regarding this.

Oops. That language isn't specific to the peace prize even then though it kinda sounds like it it. Still, my comment stands.

Counterpoint: Economics "In honor of Nobel" Prize. The committee goes out of its way to enable this being viewed as a "real" Nobel, so if the bylaws were so strict, why do that?

Why does anyone get screwed here? Getting a prize is totally optional. It is not a salary or something.

What if instead there were honorees or something that still had some recognition?

then simply recognize the organization

Who's suggesting 5000 as the upper limit? That is an outlier.

The point is the Laureates have collaborators who they believe contributed equally, and according to internationally agreed-upon scientific standards, acknowledgement should be given to these scientists. The Nobel Prize is contributing to this "Great Man" theory of history, when in reality every "Great Man" has numerous collaborators who only get illuminated in the sub-paragraphs of the plethora of writing about these figures.

Interesting thing is that they (Nobel Foundation) are not allowed to make any changes to the statue that Nobel left, such as removing three person limit.

Same applies to that no prizes are awarded posthumously.

Edit: Seems i was wrong on this, not actually in the will. But would be true if it was in the will :)

Curious: What would happen if they did make changes? Who would enforce it?

I think the fund for it was set up from the trust of Alfred Nobel in accordance with his will. So presumably whatever law in Norway involves trusts and enforcing peoples last will would be binding on the fund, and thus on the committee

*Sweden

If I understand paragraph 1 of the statutes of the Nobel Foundation [1] correctly, a settlement between the Foundation and the heirs of Nobel forbid it from deviating from some "main principles", which include that the award shall not be divided into more than three parts. So presumably, if they amended this rule, they could be sued by the heirs. Also, paragraph 23 suggests that any amendments to the statutes must respect paragraph 1.

[1] https://www.nobelprize.org/about/statutes-of-the-nobel-found...

I don't think this is true; these are just policies set by his executors and the Foundation, not even in the will of Nobel [1]. Even the posthumous restriction is more an implicit reading of his phrasing, that the prize (money) should be awarded to such a person (rather than the person or in honor of the person).

And in fact the three person limit seems to already stretch his definition.

It seems that this would be easily changeable by the foundation, as there is nobody with standing or grounds to contest the changes, as Nobel and his executors have long since left us to our own devices.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Foundation, and https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/full-text-of-alfred-... for complete text.

I really like how the Nobel Prizes make the science understandable. I've enjoyed reading the various announcements over the years.

I wonder if any Nobel Prizes will be given for COVID research in the following years.

Probably - in 15-20 years from now. IMHO they typically wait a bit too long.

Right now Moderna's generalized approach towards creating a vaccine seems like a pretty good candidate for a Nobel prize in like 2035-2040.

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