alt Hacker NewsNobel Disease
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I am convinced that a similar proportion of non-prize winner scientists across all fields of natural sciences share "scientifically unsound ideas" or "scientifically unsupported or discredited beliefs", or however else we want to call them. I am not even confident that age may be a decisive factor.
As an (almost retired) anthropologist with background in genetics, I do certainly nurture yet unverified and pretty unorthodox convictions, if only as a matter of hypothesis. Looking around me among colleagues who have a wealth of experience, cultivating strange ideas seems to be very common and indeed part of the discovery process.
How can one find new insight without erring ?
A lot of these aren't "strange or scientifically unsound ideas" but downright racism. Whether Nobel prize recipients are less or more racist than their contemporaries is debatable but I'm not sure they fit the same category as "believed in ghosts" or "claims to have talked to a fluorescent racoon".
I'm surprised the article doesn't address the Occam's Razor probability that... _most people_ hold ideas that the (a?) majority does not... and that increased media attention is likely to "discover" these beliefs.
Or rather, I see no attempt to make an argument that Nobel laureates are statistically _more_ likely than other "well-known" non-politicians to hold non-majoritarian ideas... nor any attempt to argue that the ideas followed rather than preceded the award.
While he didn't win a Nobel prize, I'm reminded of Dr Henry Heimlich (inventor of the Heimlich maneuver), who went on to become a proponent of malariotherapy: the deliberate infection of people suffering from HIV, Lyme disease, and other ailments with malaria as a treatment. It goes without saying that malariotherapy is not a scientifically well-supported procedure.
This has always felt like such a weird quirk in human behavior.
Imagine a 5 year old who is good at basketball. His parents notice it and enroll him in a class. Coaches recognize his talent and dedicate special time to him. He trains every morning, every night and entire weekends through primary, middle and high school. Gets barely any time for classes, but he anyways just needs a passing grade (which teachers are happy to help him with). He joins advanced youth academies, travels for tournaments across the country. No time for distractions. No TV, no parties, barely any social time at all. He gets a sports scholarship in college. Finally goes pro. Continues training hard for every waking minute. Plays hard for years and is considered one of the best players in the world. Absolute peak of achievement in his field.
Then the night he wins a championship a reporter shoves a microphone in his face and asks "what are your thoughts on the geopolitical crisis developing in the East China sea?" And whatever he says will make the front page, generate countless social media clips and will undoubtedly influence the opinions of millions.
And this applies to every field. Look at all the VCs who make a lucky bet and then sit on a hundred podcasts proclaiming "world peace is easy, actually".
From the examples given in this article it is absolutely impossible to tell whether the "incorrect beliefs" (be it racism, mushroom aliens, vitamins curing cancer, whatever) are in any way connected to the Nobel prize.
For all I know, they all could have been racists, psylocibe users, etc. long before they received any prizes and the associated attention.
In fact, it could even be possible that they had much worse and radical beliefs earlier in life which were tempered by the burden of being a thought leader.
I'd go as far as to say that this is a good example of an article that should be removed from Wikipedia.
This article linked at the bottom is interesting too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne_supra_crepidam
"Let the cobbler not judge beyond the shoe"
Nobel laureates are just normal humans and sometimes believe in garbage ideas. Surprise.
In the article, Milton Friedman sums it up well I think by describing the attention is 'corrupting'.
It cannot be good for you for everyone to assume that you are somehow omniscient all of a sudden.
At either extreme, it isn't good. You start believing it and overestimating yourself more and ore, or you are buried under an ever increasing sense of impostor syndrome.
I think there are two things at work here:
-An expectation that because a scientist is incredibly good at one thing, they must be good at another, entirely different type of thing. This seems to uniquely apply to scientists.
We don't judge a phenomenal football player for not being an incredible archer, but then we do judge a Nobel prize-winning physicist for believing in astrology.
-I think this can sometimes be two sides of the same coin: The same divergent thinking that helps you make revolutionary discoveries (you're unwilling to take the status quo for granted) also makes you explore "strange" ideas.
The first entries are a bit weird to me. They are mostly about eugenics for people who got their Nobel prices in the early 1900s. The thing is that in those days even the state of California promoted eugenics [1]. And according to Wikipedia, so much so that they might have even played a role in influencing Germany [2].
However Noble Rot is delightful:
Billionaires are also susceptible to extreme forms this disease. It was also known as hubris to the ancient Greeks.
> Luc Montagnier co-discovered HIV in 1983 […]
> During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montagnier promoted the idea that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately created and escaped from a laboratory
My understanding is that quite some researchers think that the lab leak hypothesis is possible, but unprovable at this point. I know Wikipedia treats it as some fringe hoax, but to me it seems almost religious. In the sense that the idea has been marked as a conspiracy theory at the very beginning and nothing can change that stance anymore. When a scientist supports it, it discredits the scientist instead of supporting the theory.
(For transparency, my personal opinion on covid origin is that I find it difficult to believe either side of the debate when it claims it is 100% sure.)
I think all ideas can be entertained without an association with how it manifested, we should be able to have any level of discussion (be it dismissive, reductive, or enriching and productive) about anything.
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself.” - Richard Feynman
Milton Friedman being the main quoted figure in the article, and that he attempts to link it back to his own field, is a huge irony. He’s certainly one of the most “wild ideas beyond his domain” public intellectuals of his century.
> In his autobiography, Mullis professed a belief in astrology and wrote about an encounter with a fluorescent, talking raccoon that he suggested might have been an extraterrestrial alien.
Absolutely wild shit whoa
I’d argue it is even more common among successful startup founders.
Well I'll guess they'll need to make an edit to post on Luc Montagnier.
There's a statistic similar to this showing that socially successful people tend to think they're above the law.
I think that once people achieve a certain level of success, they start to think, 'I can get away with this much.'
That's why I'm not successful. I'm trying not to lose my critical perspective. I consider that critical perspective my treasure.
Some of these symptoms are also exhibited by Nobel Prize Whiners like a certain gentleman who has been hankering for a Nobel Peace Prize.
What I've (noticed) is that many of their beliefs overlap.
Nobel prize winners are the smartest people on the planet, people go out of their way to extend them a carpet everywhere they go, we are supposed to do that, but then are we also supposed not supposed to believe what they say?
I'm truly confused, this part of the training definitely needs a review.
People that enjoyed success in any field tend to think they can replicate in others.
See Musk, whom believes that if he's done A or B right, makes him an expert on the entire alphabet.
> an informal term for the embrace of strange or scientifically unsound ideas by some Nobel Prize winners, usually later in life. It has been argued that the effect results, in part, from a tendency for Nobel winners to feel empowered by the award to speak on topics outside their specific area of expertise
Sounds pretty much like every founder out there who strike gold once in the past now believing their genius now clearly applies to everything everywhere, including country governance, economics and sociology. It probably doesn't help that others around them are affected in similar ways and become more sycophantic because of the "award" these two types of people win.