Only three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and the annual awarding of the Nobel Prize. For more than 100 years, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to those who have contributed the most to the “benefit of humankind” in areas of physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics. This year was no different.
On Oct. 7, 2022, the Norwegian Nobel Committee revealed its prestigious annual awards. Radios, newspapers, and televisions announced the results while praising the recipients. The awarded scientists celebrated and hosted press conferences. Teachers worldwide told children of the great intellectuals who won, and millions of students dreamt of emulating them.
What did these teachers forget to tell their students? That Nobel Prizes for science are not awarded meritocratically. If they were born in the wrong place or believe in the wrong ideology, it doesn’t matter how smart they are or how hard they work, they won’t have a chance.
We are taught from a young age that science is apolitical. That, no matter what our opinion is, the results of an experiment will stay the same. Yet, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which decides the Nobel prizes for science, does not seem to share this opinion.
Despite noteworthy contributions from around the world, of the 2022 awardees for scientific study, the only countries represented are the United States, Austria, and Scandinavia. No work is recognised from oriental or eastern countries, or the global south. This is nothing new. The Nobel prizes for science have always prioritised the Western sphere of influence and their research.
Over the last ten years, only five out of 27 laureates in Medicine have been non-Westerners. In Chemistry, the number is even lower, with only one non-Westerner receiving the prize in the last ten years. In physics, only four non-westerners have been awarded since 1983. This is all while countries like China, the United Arab Emirates, India, and Russia have increasingly growing intellectual communities with their own groundbreaking theories, ideas, and inventions.
However, nothing shows the politicisation of science by the Nobel Prizes more than the historical neglect of the USSR. For more than forty years, the USSR was the second most powerful country in the world, yet they only received a total of 5 awards for scientific discovery. This is not because the USSR did not come up with great scientific advances. The USSR is generally recognised to have advanced past the United States regarding astrophysics and space travel, while Russians also invented the Ternary computer, Anthrax Vaccine, Artificial Heart, and much more. Yet, none of these advancements received awards.
Science shouldn’t be political. Candidates who do the best work should be awarded, independent of their origin or ideology. Yet, the Nobel awards for science are not awarded to the smartest minds or the best scientists; they are awarded to those deemed worthy of a Western standard.
While commonly deemed apolitical, these scientific prizes are actually deeply intertwined with Western political priorities. No matter how ingenious an Indian or Russian researcher is or how much a Brazilian or Chinese scientist’s theory “benefits humankind” they will never win a Nobel award and it is time to stop pretending that they could.
The Nobel prize is not the meritocratic masterpiece it claims to be. The world must recognise it for what it is: a servant of Western dominance and a mechanism of Western bias.
