P212121

We have been running a poll here on P212121 for the past couple of weeks. Here is the distribution of the 88 votes:
An easy way to offend others is to give them advice – when they know more about the subject than yourself.

Paul comments:
“I guess with science becoming ever-more collaborative, this kind of stuff will become more and more common.”

I agree. The Hindu points use to a similar controversy in last year’s Nobel Prize selection in chemistry.

Abhishek comments:
“What you should be really doing is to dig more as crystallographer and come up with a technical comparison of their contributions.”

How about the percent of ribosome each investigator solved?
That would seem wrong since the difficulty of attaining (and importance of) a particular section can vary greatly. To complicate the matter, the award was also given for biochemical studies. We all know that a structure is worth a thousand gels, but are four assays more valuable than a structure? Depends.

Should I be coming up with a technical analysis to determine who wins a Nobel Prize by comparing contributions? Not interested.

The results of the poll reflect my feelings on the subject of ‘No idea’ and ‘They got it Right’. Unfortunately, I lack the background on the ribosome to determine if the Nobel Prize committee made a mistake. I would like to thank all those that gave their insight into this topic. I learned a lot, thanks.