{"text":[[{"start":5.45,"text":"Visitors to the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm will see celebrations both of the life and achievements of Alfred Nobel, and the life and achievements of a thousand laureates — scientists, writers, politicians and even a few economists. Their personal effects, too: books, clothes and even a pair of skis are on display."}],[{"start":26.099999999999998,"text":"I was a visitor myself this year. What I failed to detect among the exhibits was much sign of self-doubt. The museum never quite claims that the Nobel Prize is a secular benediction, awarded by infallible institutions, raising its recipients to the level of intellectual saints, but the vibes are in that direction."}],[{"start":45.3,"text":"That is a shame. Leave aside those prizes for literature that somehow never were awarded to Virginia Woolf or Leo Tolstoy. (Even at the time, the omission of Tolstoy was something of a scandal.) Forget the small matter of the Peace Prize for Henry Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ. "}],[{"start":62.599999999999994,"text":"Don’t fret too much about the prize for economics, which offers its own diversions. It has repeatedly been split between people who disagree with each other on the central question of the prize. Gunnar Myrdal and Friedrich Hayek shared the prize in 1974; Myrdal was a champion of the Swedish welfare state, while Hayek warned that central planning was the road to serfdom. Robert Shiller and Eugene Fama were among the winners in 2013, Shiller for his demonstrations that stock markets are not efficient, and Fama for his demonstrations that they are. (I exaggerate . . . but not much.)"}],[{"start":99.55,"text":"Certain correspondents email annually to complain that the “Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel” is not a “real Nobel”. True enough. In 1968 the Swedish central bank cleverly hitched itself, and the field of economics, to the Nobel brand — quite a coup."}],[{"start":118.85,"text":"But such complaints may be taking the original prizes too seriously. Look at the prizes for physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine. These seem like they should display a diamond-tipped objectivity, and yet even here, the Nobel committees have been less than infallible. "}],[{"start":135.25,"text":"Johannes Fibiger was awarded the 1926 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine “for his discovery of the Spiroptera carcinoma”, a cancer-causing parasitic worm that, it turns out, does not cause cancer. Oops."}],[{"start":148.95,"text":"António Egas Moniz shared the 1949 prize “for his discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses” — that’s lobotomy to you and me. The Nobel Prize website placidly notes that it later “became apparent that it could lead to serious personality changes” and that the “use of lobotomies declined dramatically” in the 1950s. The website offers an article discussing the controversy over Moniz, concluding “there is no doubt that Moniz deserved the Nobel Prize”."}],[{"start":179.45,"text":"Otto Hahn is another intriguing case. He was awarded the 1944 prize in chemistry “for his discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei”. Undoubtedly, this was a breakthrough worthy of a Nobel, but should the prize have gone to Hahn? It is true that Hahn and his colleague Fritz Strassmann split the atom, but “discovery” stretches the point, as Hahn and Strassmann were bewildered by what they had done. The realisation that the atom had split, and an explanation of how the split had occurred, came from Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch. "}],[{"start":211.79999999999998,"text":"Hahn and Meitner had been colleagues for many years until he quietly campaigned to have her fired. Yes, they were old friends, but it was the 1930s, she was Jewish, the Nazis were in charge, and he worried that their association might damage his prospects. Despite this betrayal, she continued to advise him from her exile in Sweden."}],[{"start":233.54999999999998,"text":"David Bodanis, the author of E=mc2: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation (2000), tells me that Hahn was “just a very ordinary technician following her instructions”. Whether or not Hahn deserved his Nobel Prize, Meitner certainly deserved one. She didn’t get it, despite being nominated 19 times for chemistry and 30 times for physics. "}],[{"start":257.9,"text":"This omission may have been simple sexism, and if so it would not be unique to the Nobel prizes. Earlier in their career, Hahn was awarded the Emil Fischer prize for work conducted jointly with Meitner, while Meitner was simply given a replica of Hahn’s medal. But Meitner’s biographer, Ruth Lewin Sime, suggests she lost out on the Nobel thanks to a combination of personal animus from the Swedish academy, its inability to evaluate the interdisciplinary nature of her contribution and Hahn himself declining to support her claim at the decisive moment."}],[{"start":291.04999999999995,"text":"After the war, Meitner had the doubtful consolation of being the first recipient of . . . the Otto Hahn prize. “You can buy me a beer with the prize money,” he joked. Meitner may not have found the quip amusing."}],[{"start":302.29999999999995,"text":"Not every Nobel Prize goes to the most worthy recipient. None of this is to argue that Fibiger’s prize should be cancelled, or Hahn’s shared with or transferred to Meitner. There seems little to be gained by such gestures. "}],[{"start":315.94999999999993,"text":"But the Nobel Foundation could do more to highlight these stories. It tells me that “errors or controversies related to the Nobel Prizes” are occasionally discussed in public outreach activities and points to a conversation that occurred at this year’s Gothenburg Book Fair on the theme of “prizes that have been questioned and sparked strong emotions”."}],[{"start":336.49999999999994,"text":"Well, fine, and enjoy the subtext that the real problem here is not the prize but the strong emotions. Perhaps the best place for such a discussion is not a book fair in Gothenburg, but the Nobel website and museum itself. "}],[{"start":350.79999999999995,"text":"It is worth recognising two truths about science. First, that scientific theories are always provisional, subject to revision in the light of new evidence. If they were not, they would not be scientific theories. The surprise is not that Fibiger won a prize for discovering something that was not true, or Moniz for a treatment that was so widely rejected — it is that there have been so few similar errors among many hundreds of Nobel prizes. "}],[{"start":375.99999999999994,"text":"The second truth is that science is conducted by humans, with all their biases, feuds and rivalries. Meitner was a woman in a man’s world, a Jew fleeing Nazi Germany, a physicist making breakthroughs that were evaluated by chemists, and a refugee in Sweden with a strained relationship with senior members of the Swedish Academy. In a world where Nobel prizes were always handed out strictly on merit, she would have received at least one — and, arguably, a pair in physics and chemistry. But she did not live in such a world and neither do we. "}],[{"start":407.94999999999993,"text":"These are not mere footnotes. Science is worth celebrating, and so are scientists. The fallibility of both is not a sideshow, but an integral part of the story of scientific progress. "}],[{"start":419.04999999999995,"text":"Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend Magazine on X and FT Weekend on Instagram"}],[{"start":431.8999999999999,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1792213065_9178.mp3"}