[nabla9]

Somebody always comes up with this thinking that nobody else knows it.

The Nobel price in economics has much more prestige than two of the 'real' prices (Peace price and Literature price). Unlike committees for those prices, Riksbank pretty much always selects someone deserving the price.

[chki]

>The Nobel price in economics has much more prestige than two of the 'real' prices (Peace price and Literature price)

Prestige is of course somewhat subjective (as is definitely the very last part of your comment) but I would strongly disagree. Those two prizes are highly regarded and their announcements are widely reported. I can for example tell you both laureates of those prizes for this year from the top of my head but I can't name any other prize holder from the other categories. I guess you are projecting your own biases here and there is no real pecking order.

[nabla9]

Would peer evaluation suffice?

There is one peace prize winner criticized by other peace prize peers for her role in genocide.

Then there is the nomination of President Obama less than two weeks in office. He received it after less than nine months in the office. The prize was seen more as criticism of Bush administration than awarding Obama.

I nominate Samatha Power (Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights under Obama, then 28th United States Ambassador to the United Nations) and Cass Sustein (United States Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) to judge Obama's Peace price.

Experts from the book: "The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir" by Samatha Power

>In October of 2009, I awoke to a very different form of bad news: Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Less than a year into his presidency, Obama was receiving an award previously bestowed on Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

>When I relayed the news to Cass, he looked stricken, as if I had told him someone we knew had fallen ill. The choice seemed wildly premature,

[...]

>Jon Favreau and Ben Rhodes, Obama’s two gifted speechwriters, took on the difficult task of drafting the Nobel address. I popped into Jon’s tiny office on the first floor of the West Wing, and he told me that the President had decided to directly confront the awkwardness of receiving the prize so early in his presidency.

I mean, 60% of American did not understand why Obama received the award. Obama himself was not happy and felt awkward. People he worked with felt it was not deserved.

[chki]

Doesn't the premature nature and the ensuing criticism of the Obama peace prize show exactly how highly regarded the peace prize is? If the prize wasn't very prestigious people wouldn't care.

Now you could argue that those "wrong" nominations in the last year's have tarnished the peace prize "brand" so much that is no longer valuable. I would say that is in itself somewhat premature and since it's the most political prize there will always be controversy attached.

[kovek]

Maybe, chki and nabla9, you two had a different idea in mind when using the word prestige

[tzs]

It’s awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, not by Riksbank. Riksbank just created the endowment that funds it.

It is the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for the physics, chemistry, and economics prizes, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet for the medicine prize, the Swedish Academy for the literature prize, and a committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament for the peace prize.

[xiphias2]

I still think that CRISPR and Hep-C is even more prestigious. There’s just enough money in auction theory anyways that it wouldn’t get neglected however important it is, while CRISPR was basic research that wasn’t funded by drug companies until it was known how important it is for curing diseases.

[niij]

Prize

[oh_sigh]

Really? In my mind the Peace Prize gets the top billing.

If I knew someone had a Nobel prize in economics, I would think they were really smart, and really deep into economics. If I knew someone had a Nobel Peace prize, it's almost certain that they did something of extreme first hand importance to the lives of many.

[nabla9]

Publicity is different from prestige and reputation. The Peace prize has received publicity from controversies.

Peace prize has been given people who don't deserve it. President Obama was nominated less than two weeks in office and received it after less than nine months in the office. The prize was seen more as criticism of Bush administration than awarding Obama.

[raegis]

Obama said he didn't deserve the prize, and everyone agrees. It's more fair to look at the long history of recipients (MLK, Mandela, Mother Teresa) than to judge the prize on one or two errors. Otherwise, almost all prizes are meaningless.

[corin_]

Personally, I wouldn't include Mother Teresa in a list of examples of people who deserved it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa

[nabla9]

on one or two errors?

Kissinger, Moniz, Briand, Obama, Mother Theresa, Kim Dae-jung.

[mkl]

To save others the confusion, Moniz didn't win Peace but the "Physiology or Medicine" prize for inventing lobotomies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies

[saagarjha]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies#Peac...