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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

But the award and prize are today managed by the same governing body?

This seems incredibly nitpicky. We wouldn't say a Harvard degree in physics is not a real Harvard degree just because it wasn't offered by John Harvard himself.

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It seems like that governing body should get to decide what it's called, and while this distinction is news to me it appears that they indeed do not call it a Nobel Prize.

The Foundation uses the longer name when being formal, but regularly includes the Economics Prize as a 'Nobel Prize' in headers & lists - such as their top-level menu 'Nobel Prizes' (which includes the 'Prize in Economic Sciences'), and their master list of 'Nobel Prize laureates'.

So headlines calling it a 'Nobel' match the Nobel Foundation's usage in similar summary/header contexts.

But that's the name of the prize: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Call it by its name.

The prize in Physics is the "Nobel Prize if Physics", and so are the other ones. The difference is intentional.

A self-respecting discipline starts its own prize instead of buying legitimacy.

Computer Science has the Turing Award, not the ACM Prize in Computer Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

If I create a school called "The University in Harvards Honor" and give myself a diploma, am I a Harvard alumni?

The Nobel Memorial Prize is still administered by the Nobel Foundation. This isn't a made up connection.

If Harvard decided to give it to you, then maybe?

Well this link is on nobelprize.org, the website of the official organization in charge of the Nobel Prize Committee.

Thus, it's more like the comment you were replying to — creating a new degree program within Harvard University that John Harvard didn't authorize.

Your analogy would be more accurate if this were not in fact created, endorsed, and run by the Nobel Foundation.

You're right, but it was endorsed as a prize in his honor, not as a Nobel Prize with all that entails. Therefore it's incorrect to call it such. It's never called (or at least very seldomly) a Nobel Prize in Sweden as that isn't true.

Counter-point: yes it is.

https://www.thelocal.se/20211011/trio-share-nobel-prize-for-...

well it somewhat works for some Oxford Brookes grads ;)

Ah a fellow Oxford alumni, which college were you in old sport?

Umm Brookes

It's irrelevant historical detail.

There are big questions about the amount of gravitas that mainstream economists are afforded by people in power.

Misnaming the econ prize as a "Nobel" prize and placing it's winners on the level of great physicists, chemists etc risks in exacerbating this problem.

Much of the research done by econ memorial prize winners is walked back or proven false later. It isn't hard science. Much of it is politically driven and advice and practitioners are used by politicians to justify certain actions, many of them dysfunctional or corrupt.

In quality metrics Econ Nobel is way ahead of literature and peace Nobel's.

> Much of the research done by econ memorial prize winners is walked back or proven false later. It isn't hard science.

This is not just true. Econ price almost always well earned, like now. Maybe there is some, but I can't think anyone who don't deserve it.

What Nobel-in-Economics work has been retracted?

A Nobel-in-Chemistry went to an enthusiastic creator of chlorine gas chemical weapons (Haber). A Nobel-in-Medicine went to the inventor of the lobotomy (Moniz). Another Nobel-in-Medicine was awarded for false research about roundworms-causing-cancer (Fibiger). A Nobel-in-Peace went to the architect of secret carpet bombing that likely killed over 100,000 civilians in a non-combatant country (Kissinger).

The Econ prize's shorter, more modern history has a better record!

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