3 ms·
There are egregious cases in history (e.g., Rosalind Franklin) but nowadays most of modern research is conducted as a group so it's logistically hard to award i
by uyt 5y ago
There are egregious cases in history (e.g., Rosalind Franklin) but nowadays most of modern research is conducted as a group so it's logistically hard to award it to anyone other than the principal investigators of the lab.
It's a bit sad that the original purpose of the prize is lost but that just reflects that we're past the age of lone genius contributors making a difference. No one person really matters. You can replace that grad student or PI with another and the machine will still chug along.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- distribot 5y agoThat last part doesn't ring true. It's like saying a championship sports team would just chug along without any particular player or coach.
- uyt 5y agoBut you would agree that the sport won't just die if we lose any particular player or coach right? Likewise research is so competitive/redundant nowadays that there are always multiple labs vying for the same results. If we lose any particular lab we will be set back at best a few months. (For another example from history, despite the vast contributions by Newton, even if he didn't exist, we would still have discovered calculus at approximately the same time frame)