A couple of weeks ago we started our coverage of this year’s Nobel Prize awards, bigging them up as we do every year. One or two readers of the more thoughtful sort have certainly questioned our approach. There’s no room here to include all of their thoughts. But we recently came across an article which provides an interesting counterfactual, a right of reply if you will, to our “Let us Now Praise Famous Men” approach, and admirably addresses those readers’ points. But before that, a declaration of interest.
The piece, by Astronomer Royal Martin Rees, was not commissioned by us. In fact, it’s one of our usual hyperlinks to The Guardian.[1][2] It may even be (perish the thought) that Baron Rees, of Ludlow, OM, FRS, HonFREng, FMedSci, FRAS, HonFInstP, as his mates call him, is not a regular reader of LSS. And that the Editor of the Guardian isn’t either. So we beg our readers to be under no illusions that Baron Rees of Ludlow, OM, FRS, HonFREng, FMedSci, FRAS, HonFInstP, as the boys down the Dog and Duck call him, is one of our actual mates or solicited contributors.
But the Astronomer Royal is the Astronomer Royal, and when he pronounces, we listen His basic point is a simple one: science is a team effort. How can they give a gong to one or two people, when there were probably collaborative groups of more than a hundred persons involved in churning out the prize discovery? Isn’t time to think about a better way of handing out the backslaps, when all the chips are counted, and all the ships are in?
Good point, Baron Rees, of Ludlow, OM, FRS, HonFREng, FMedSci, FRAS, HonFInstP, and a fair riposte to us here at LSS.
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/12/nobel-winners-science-prizes-innovation-martin-rees-astronomer-royal
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rees
#nobel prizes #science #research #collaboration
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