Friday, July 27, 2007

Women and the Physics Nobel Prize

I continue to be amazed at some of the errors being reported in the media, even if it is simply a report of somebody else's mistake. The fact that the reporter and the editor didn't catch it is quite a glaring reflection on how much (or little) they pay attention to science.

I mentioned earlier about the mistake done with regards to Dyson and the Nobel Prize. A news report made a mistake of assuming that Dyson has won a Nobel Prize. He hasn't. So now comes another blunder. This reporter attended an "economic conference" where a speaker said this:

Finally, as Steven Pressman, an economist at Monmouth University, noted, "Female economists rarely receive the highest accolades or the tangible symbols signifying approval or distinction." He’s right! Since 1969 (when the Nobel was first awarded in economics), women have won Nobel prizes in all categories except economics and physics. Even Joan Robinson and Barbara Bergmann, two of the most distinguished female economists in history, have been snubbed.


Er... Hello? What did Marie Curie won the Nobel Prizes in? She did it once in Physics, and another one in Chemistry. I mean, this is not even considered an "obscure" fact because this is such a major accomplishment. Not only that, we have a second woman that won the Nobel Prize - Maria Goeppert-Mayer did it in 1963.

So really, there's no excuse.....

Zz.

edit:

OOOPS! It is my mistake this time.

The writer clearly wrote "Since 1969.... ", which I obviously didn't pay attention to. Rather than delete my boo-boo, I'm going to leave it here just to remind me to be MORE CAREFUL in reading these things in the future and not to be too fast to jump all over it.

Zz.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's the beauty of science, see?

It's self correcting :p

Anonymous said...

I enjoy your blog and all but you are too silly in it with all the extra letters, i can't understand you