The Peace Prize has it’s fair share of whoppers (Henry Kissinger!), but the science ones are usually not quite that clueless. This oversight though, this one is pretty baffling to me.
The peace prize is also very different from the science prizes.
The peace prize is handed out by politicians (members of the Norwegian parliament), whereas the science prizes are handed out by scientists.
The members of the peace committee are _selected_ by Stortinget but no member of the committee currently serves as a member of parliament (although some are former members/politicians).
Isn't that exactly why they should not give a prize for mRNA vaccines. The Norwegian Nobel Committee (the people who hand out the peace prize) has a history of handing out the prize too early (Obama, Arafat, etc) while the Swedish Research Council are much more cautious when handing out prizes.
I am sure people said the same for lobotomy back when Moniz won the prize. I am personally all for the mRNA vaccines and am vaccinated with Pfizer myself but I understand why they are cautious when handing out prizes. What harm is there in waiting a few years?
- https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/world/asia/obama-apologiz...