Past Present Future

The History of Bad Ideas: Nobel Prizes

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Episode notes

For our latest bad idea with an interesting history David talks to the geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about what’s wrong with Nobel Prizes. Why do we revere the winners of the science prizes when we know how contrived the other prizes are? What makes us so attached to this relic of an outmoded idea of scientific progress? And what happens when someone is struck down with ‘Nobelitis’?

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Next up on Bad Ideas: The Marketplace of Ideas

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