"And the neurologist that you claim to be incredible (boy everyone is!!) is a Nobel Prize nominee - not exactly considered a hack."
I have seen this posted elsewhere - I think there may be a problem with this claim:
Each year there are 100 to 250 nominees for each prize. It should be noted that the expression "nominated for a Nobel Prize," when used to establish someone's credentials or expertise in a certain field, is not an essentially meaningless expression. Although anyone can be nominated, not anyone can nominate anyone else for a Nobel Prize. For example the website of the Nobel Foundation (http://nobelprize.org/) says that in the case of the peace prize the following people may nominate:
Members of national assemblies and governments of states
Members of international courts
University rectors
Professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology
Directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes
Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Board members of organizations who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
Former advisers appointed by the Norwegian Nobel Institute
...the Nobel Prize nominees are not publicly announced and they are not supposed to be told that they were ever considered for the prize. The records are sealed for 50 years. This is done to avoid turning the awarding of the prize into a popularity contest. Due to this secrecy it is questionable whenever someone uses a Nobel nomination as a qualification (how could you check it?).
Yes, I have since read that it was a congressman who nominated him. What a bad choice for a witness when there are others they could have chosen.
I don't know about that. I knew, personally, someone who was nominated but the prize went to someone else. Ten years after the fact, there was still a lot of bitterness over not getting the prize. At least in science, when someone gets a Nobel prize, other people familiar with the research (doing similar research themselves) know pretty much who else was considered.