Should there be another Nobel Prize? Or perhaps there are too many already!
By John Welford
@indexer (4852)
Leicester, England
October 4, 2015 6:58pm CST
At present you can win a Nobel Prize for Chemistry, Physics, Medicine/Physiology, Economics, Literature or Peace. The Nobel Committee made a decision some years ago that no further categories would be added, but should they be persuaded otherwise?
It seems to me that there are spheres of activity that do not get the sort of attention they deserve, and that a new Nobel Prize might be appropriate for drawing attention to important work being done in those fields.
Two that come to mind immediately are Engineering and Environmental Science. I'm sure there are others!
11 people like this
9 responses
@LadyDuck (502729)
• Italy
5 Oct 15
It seems to me that the Nobel prizes, most of the time, are no more given to the right people. They should read better Alfred Nobel instructions to award the prizes. There is no reason to add more, because this was not in the spirit of Mr. Nobel.
2 people like this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
5 Oct 15
I suppose the question then is - should the prize committee abide strictly to the wishes of the founder, or should they allow the tradition to move with the times? One can argue about this, but there is a good case to be made for the latter approach.
2 people like this
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
5 Oct 15
I am only really concerned about areas of activity that have important effects on the world but are not given full recognition. I would not, for example, include sport or entertainment as possible categories, because their practitioners already get quite enough attention!
@bunnybon7 (50970)
• Holiday, Florida
5 Oct 15
you are right about the environmental science. i think it would encourage more great scientists to work in that
1 person likes this
@TiarasOceanView (70020)
• United States
5 Oct 15
I agree there should be Nobel prizes in many fields.
As I am not sure of which ones do get the prize, I cannot say which should also.
Of course anything to do with the helping of poverty and humanity.
@cmoneyspinner (9218)
• Austin, Texas
7 Oct 15
Nobel Prize or not - just please don't make any more dynamite.
@Kchitij2007 (445)
• Pune, India
5 Oct 15
Nobels are set to award those ''areas'' of human efforts that have a ''considerable impact'' on humanity as a whole- its functioning, development and thriving. In these measures, Sciences had the obvious first hand but as humanity grew of age; other important factors came into play- Economics & Peace.
Trouble with Engg and Env Sciences is that they derive their fundamentals from sciences only and hence though fulfilling the ''considerable impact'' criterion, they do not fulfill the ''area'' criterion.
@topffer (42155)
• France
5 Oct 15
The Nobel committee follows the wishes of Alfred Nobel. Nobel did not wanted to create prizes for everything. He excluded for example mathematics and natural sciences. If you give money for something, you would not like to see your money used for something else. For the domains forgotten by Nobel a prize has been created and is given like the Nobel prizes by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Crafoord prize.
@kevinakash (2084)
• Sri Lanka
5 Oct 15
I think no one thinks of the nobel prizes when he /she is undertaking a complex activity in their field. The person will remain to do his/her service in the future also though he is not awarded.
