October 4, 2015 by Hugues Honore!
The statue representing Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel at the Stockholm Concert Hall in Stockholm
The
statue representing Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel at the Stockholm Concert
Hall in Stockholm
Think
of the Nobel prizes and you think of groundbreaking research bettering mankind,
but the awards have also honoured some quite unhumanitarian inventions such as
chemical weapons, DDT and lobotomies.
Numerous
Nobel prize controversies have erupted over the years: authors who were
overlooked, scientists who claimed their discovery came first, or peace prizes
that divided public opinion.
But
some of the science prizes appear in hindsight to be embarrassing choices by
the committees.
When
the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize went to the Organisation for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons, it was perhaps a way of making up for the Nobel "war
prize" it awarded to German chemist Fritz Haber in 1918.
Haber
was honoured with the chemistry prize for his work on the synthesis of ammonia,
which was crucial for developing fertilizers for food production.
But
Haber, known as the "father of chemical warfare", also developed
poisonous gases used in trench warfare in World War I at the Battle of Ypres
which he supervised himself.
After
Germany's defeat in the war, "he didn't expect to win a prize. He was more
afraid of a court martial," Swedish chemist Inger Ingmanson, who wrote a
book about Haber's prize, told AFP.
"Some
saw it as a Germanophile prize. There were people who had wanted Sweden to join
the war alongside Germany."
The
prize remains one of the most contested Nobels ever awarded—the jury had to be
aware of Haber's role in, and the effects of, chlorine gas being used in the
trenches. But he had also brought the world revolutionary fertilizers.
French
chemist Victor Grignard, who also developed poisonous gases, won a Nobel prize
too, but that was in 1912, before the outbreak of World War I and before their
uses in warfare.
Odd
timing
The
1918 controversy might have encouraged the Stockholm jury to think carefully
about the laureates they choose after a conflict.
The 1962 Nobel Prize medal awarded to Dr. Francis Crick for discovering the structure of DNA
The 1962
Nobel Prize medal awarded to Dr. Francis Crick for discovering the structure of
DNA
Yet
in November 1945, just three months after atomic bombs were dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Nobel chemistry prize honoured the discovery of
nuclear fission.
The
laureate was another German, Otto Hahn, whose 1938 discovery was crucial to the
development of atomic bombs.
However,
Hahn never worked on the military applications of his discovery and upon
learning, while in captivity as a prisoner-of-war in England, that a nuclear
bomb had been dropped, he told his fellow captives: "I am thankful we (Germany)
didn't succeed" in building the bomb.
The
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' choice is bewildering, especially given its
apparent urgency right after the damages just wreaked by the bombs.
Nobel
archives reveal that the Academy had wanted to honour Hahn already in 1940. As
of 1944, he was considered by his peers as a "secret Nobel laureate"
who just needed to wait until the end of the war to collect his prize.
According
to a 1995 article in the scientific journal Nature, Hahn's nomination was
supported by academics who saw him—the only candidate nominated for the Nobel
Chemistry Prize in 1944—as a laureate worthy of the science prize regardless of
political considerations. Other jury members would have preferred to wait to
find out more about the US' top-secret war-time research on the bomb, but they
were in the minority.
Hahn
ultimately won the 1944 prize, though it was only awarded to him after the end
of the war in 1945.
Scorned
laureates
Hahn's
discovery as such was not so controversial, only the later application of it.
Portrait taken 3 march 1959 German physical chemist Otto Hahn, decorated with chain of president of Max-Planck-Society, for his 80th birthday
Portrait
taken 3 march 1959 German physical chemist Otto Hahn, decorated with chain of
president of Max-Planck-Society, for his 80th birthday
The
same cannot be said for some other Nobel research, including that of Portuguese
neurologist Egas Moniz, who won the 1949 Nobel Medicine Prize "for his
discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses".
Today
the brain surgery procedure is known as a lobotomy and is only used in rare
circumstances. The Nobel Foundation's website notes soberly that the surgery
was "controversial".
Bengt
Jansson, a psychiatrist and former member of the medicine prize selection
committee, wrote: "I see no reason for indignation at what was done in the
1940s as at that time there were no other alternatives!"
Chemical
treatments for mental illnesses were later developed.
And then there are the
laureates blasted by environmentalists.
A muslim livestock vendor covers his face, as Indian Municipal corporation workers spray DDT to prevent the spread of mosquito-borne dengue and chikungunya viruses
A muslim
livestock vendor covers his face, as Indian Municipal corporation workers spray
DDT to prevent the spread of mosquito-borne dengue and chikungunya viruses
One
year before Moniz, the medicine prize jury honoured Swiss scientist Paul
Mueller for his discovery that DDT could be used to kill insects that spread
malaria.
DDT
was later banned worldwide, after it was discovered to pose a threat to humans
and wildlife.
Nonetheless,
pesticides went on to play a role in another Nobel.
In
1970, US biologist Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for introducing
modern agricultural production techniques to Mexico, Pakistan and India,
including genetic crossbreeding.
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