7 most high-profile scandals associated with the Nobel Prize

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Nobel Prize was first awarded in 1901 and has since become one of the most prestigious awards in the world. But this award was not spared by scandals and intrigues, amazing, without exaggeration, the whole world. Her story has had dubious winners and perceived conflicts of interest. Our today's review contains the loudest scandals in the entire history of the Nobel Prize.

Creator personality

Alfred Nobel, the founder of the award, had a far from the best reputation in society due to the fact that he was not only the inventor of dynamite and several types of explosives, but also owned the Bofors concern, which became one of the largest weapons manufacturers. Against this background, the story of the premature release of Nobel's obituary looks not surprising. Then the brother of the inventor died, and one of the French newspapers published a message about the death of the "merchant in death", meaning Alfred Nobel himself. The article, among other things, was about a rapidly wealthy scientist who made a fortune on the creation of deadly weapons. It cannot be ruled out that the creation of the award was an attempt by the scientist to restore his reputation and good name.

Gender inequality

Throughout the history of the award, among the winners, there are only 5% of women from the total number of awarded. This became the reason for suspicion of neglect of the achievements of the fair sex. The loudest scandal involved the British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell. It was she who discovered cosmic sources of radiation (pulsars) in 1967 and published an article about this in collaboration with Anthony Hewish. However, in 1974, Anthony Hewish and his colleague received the Nobel Prize for this discovery, and the name of the woman discoverer, who was still studying at the time of the discovery, was not even mentioned.

Controversial Peace Prize

This direction is one of the most controversial in the history of the award, and the most striking example of the ambiguity of the choice of the winner is Yasser Arafat. It was he who, in 1994, together with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, was awarded an award for work on an agreement concerning the settlement of the conflict between Palestine and Israel. The reason for the dispute was that Yasser Arafat was the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was rightly called the focus and embodiment of international terror.

Jokingly and seriously

Hard to imagine, but in 1939, Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. True, his candidacy was withdrawn after the outbreak of the scandal, announcing Hitler's nomination was not a very good joke.

I have the honor to refuse

Receiving the Nobel Prize is considered very prestigious and significant, but there are cases of refusal to receive the award. For example, the French philosopher Jean-Paul-Sartre has never, in principle, received any official awards under any circumstances. He made no exception for the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature. And in 1974, the Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho, nominated for an award for his work in the name of peace in Vietnam, did not receive the peace prize, saying that peace in his country was still too far away.

the Forbidden fruit

All the same Adolf Hitler banned all his fellow citizens from receiving the Nobel Prize after Karl von Osetzky became the winner in 1935, who sharply criticized Hitler himself and his policies. When the journalist received the Peace Prize, Adolf Hitler was enraged and created an alternative German Prize for Science and Art. As a result, Richard Kuhn and Adolf Butenandt refused the Chemistry Merit Prize in 1938 and 1939, respectively, and Gerhard Domagk did not receive the Physiology or Medicine Prize in 1939. Fortunately, after that they still received their awards.

Conflict of interests

A lot of controversy arose around the presentation of the 2008 prize to Harald zur Hausen, who discovered the connection between the human papillomavirus and the development of cancer. But later it turned out that AstraZeneca, the manufacturer of the HPV vaccine, was a sponsor of the Nobel Prize website. In addition, two of those who voted for the victory of Harald zur Hausen were associated with the same company. The subsequent inspection did not reveal any violations, but the presentation of the award drew a flurry of criticism.

The Nobel Prize ceremony is held annually on December 10 in Stockholm. All awards, except for the Peace Prize, are presented by the King of Sweden, and after the award ceremony, all laureates and their guests are invited to a special Nobel Banquet. The menu of the banquet, held since 1901, has never been repeated, and the entire course of the gala dinner has been verified to the second, moreover, the timing of its conduct was not violated even once.