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Posted on 10/09/2003 4:21:34 AM PDT by tdadams
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP)--If the Nobel Prizes are a good indicator, Americans are the world's best doctors, physicists, economists and chemists.
They're not as good at writing or making peace though.
Six U.S. citizens were bestowed the top honor in medicine, physics, chemistry and economics this week as the Nobel Prize committees announced the 2003 winners, continuing a trend of American dominance in the science awards.
The literature prize last week went to J.M. Coetzee of South Africa. The peace prize will be announced Friday in Oslo, Norway.
Since the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901, 277 of the 661 winners--or 42 percent--have been Americans. Many of the other winners have been researchers at U.S. universities.
``There's a brutal predominance for the U.S.,'' said Jonas Foerare, a spokesman for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which picks the winners in physics, chemistry and economics. ``This shows that the American investments in their university system are very successful.''
Foerare was speaking from experience. He did post-doctoral work in biology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
The academy on Wednesday awarded the chemistry prize to Americans Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon for studies of tiny transportation tunnels in cell walls, work that illuminates diseases of the heart, kidneys and nervous system.
American Robert F. Engle shared the 2003 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Briton Clive W.J. Granger, the first non-American to win that award since Amartya Sen of India in 1998.
``We don't take into consideration where people are from. It's just that the best American universities are very good and they attract gifted researchers from the whole world,'' said Lars Calmfors, Professor of International Economics at Stockholm University and member of the committee that selects prize winners in economics.
Calmfors said the Nobel award committees are sometimes criticized by people who believe they should try harder to find laureates outside of the United States.
``But there isn't a widespread dissatisfaction. Everyone is aware of the situation,'' he said. ``They (Americans) have resources and there are opportunities to pay competent researchers high salaries.''
Thirty-five of the 56 economics winners have been Americans.
Professor Charles F. Zukoski, vice chancellor for research at the University of Illinois, said this year's awards show his state in particular is a good example of the benefits of investing in academic institutions.
``Investments made probably 40 years ago built these programs,'' Zukoski said. ``That created an environment where really creative people can do really creative things. It says the educational institutions in this state are very strong.''
Alexei A. Abrikosov, a Russian and American citizen based at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois; and Anthony J. Leggett, a British and American citizen based at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, were among three winners of the physics prize.
Paul C. Lauterbur, an American at the University of Illinois, was a co-winner of the medicine prize and even Coetzee, the literature laureate, teaches at the University of Chicago.
There also is a possibility that the final Nobel Prize to be awarded this year will go to an Illinoisan.
Former Gov. George Ryan has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for declaring a moratorium on the death penalty and commuting the sentence of everyone on the state's death row.
Ryan said he'll be delighted if he receives the award but is not counting on it.
``If it doesn't happen, I'm honored to have been nominated,'' he said. ``I'm not holding my breath.''
Americans are not as well represented among peace and literature prize winners, the most well-known to the public.
Last year, former President Jimmy Carter became the 19th American to win the Nobel Peace Prize. There have been 110 laureates in that category.
The worst American track record is in literature, with 11 of 100 winners. The last American to win the literature prize was Toni Morrison in 1993.
The prizes are presented to the winners on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of their founder, Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896.
Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, gave the selectors little guidance with his will that established the prizes in literature, physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology and peace, although he said they should be given to those who ``shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.''
Sweden's central bank set up the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1968, but it is grouped with the other awards.
This lefty writer can't miss an opportunity to take the focus off of America's accomplishments and make a belittling snide remark.
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