10/14/2005
Nobel Prizes, by Yossi Ben-Dak

When it comes to science, medicine and economics, I see in the Nobel institution a tool of progression in cumulative knowledge with true interest in a unified science tools and even -- more and more often -- a subtle ideology of building a multidimensional ideology for comprehension and forecasting. Example: giving the prize to R.J. Aumann now, and previously to Daniel Kahneman. I loved Kahneman's autobiography where he highlights insight into intuitive prediction all the way to consequences of pupil size. His treatment of behavioral economics and his zeal to borrow from any and every discipline becomes, in his concluding observation, his wish for a legacy of efficient procedures for the conduct of controversies. His using the www.nobelprize.org site to remember the 1996 loss of our common friend, Amos Tversky, is also relevant to why I hold the Nobel prize in these areas as a major human compass.

Amos, never to receive a Noble award, was the kind of person who would have real insight into what other scholars said, all too often more than they had themselves to offer. He was concerned with carefully listening in to his fellow scholars and students and drawing always the most from "what the terrain gives" by way of cross-discipline and milking out all that a phenomenon offers, first ideographically in terms of the original explicator and then, nomothetically, for future science. All in all, this is true for both this year's Nobel laureates in economics, and Danny Kahneman and to a degree for all others, particularly the Chicago school. It should be often the perspective to recall in speculation as well.

When it comes to peace and literature, the selection system seems to be quite consistent in choosing the wrong people. Arafat and Koffi Anan come to mind. Pinter is a lesser choice than any of the others nominated this year, in my opinion. Of course, there are the cases of Schmuel Yosef Agnon (1966) and Mrs. Shirin Ebadi of Iran (2003) -- so it proves that it is not a tautology altogether and they make "good" mistakes once in a while. The peace award is worse than the literature selection because there are so many great, expressive minds that ought to be rewarded in literature as they often provide rare insights into civilization and its stresses and the quest for human liberty and decency. Yet there are so many people who should be screened out, under a minimalist perception of contribution to mankind, both in the present list of Nobel peace laureates and the future ones that may include, perhaps a Mugabe ["a deeply religious person who is concerned with true equality of his people and punishing white oppressors in Africa...."], given the redundant and uninspiring rationalizations for choice. I kind of expect now a major catastrophe in nuclear blackmailing given this year's choice of IAEA, just like the selection of contributors to peace in the Middle East or Vietnam or constructive reform in the UN system.

It is a pleasure to see the erudite and informed nature of contributors to this Web site when they extend their joy to fairly worthy but not too popular writers whom they not only read but meet in the farthest places . This is a mark of celebration of the human spirit in these, our, quarters.

Prof. Joseph D. Ben-Dak is an expert in international security, responses to terror, technology and global politics. He has served in numerous high-level international posts at the United Nations and other organizations. He holds a doctorate in Organizational Sociology and Research Methods from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.