The moral burden that Nobel's memory should bear is probably worth debating but we absolutely should take the opportunity to remind ourselves that the Nobel pri

The moral burden that Nobel's memory should bear is probably worth debating but we absolutely should take the opportunity to remind ourselves that the Nobel prize (whether the 'actual' one or this riksbanks thing) is one possible prize among many others much lesser known, and that there frequently is highly important research that never wins any notable prize at all. Examples: Freeman Dyson, Gilbert Lewis, Margaret Burbidge -- none of them won the Nobel but won other prizes for arguably equally important work. I'm not even suggesting going 'out there' and mentioning someone like Stephen Wolfram. The way that the Nobel prize gets referred to in American media sometimes makes me feel like it is an almost religious invocation (except that they do not actually say the words "hallowed" or "blessed") -- if a Nobel laureate has said X is the case, who are you to say X is not the case, etc.