
Disproved Discoveries That Won Nobel Prizes (2015) - wwarner
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/10/nobel_prizes_awarded_for_disproved_discoveries.html
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twic
The Golgi case seems dubious. Golgi was wrong about the nervous system being
continuous, but he did masses of other pioneering work in neurobiology and
cell biology. He discovered the Golgi apparatus, which continues to baffle
undergraduates to this day. He developed the staining technique which Ramón y
Cajal eventually used to prove him wrong! I don't think the Nobel was given
specifically for the idea that he nervous system is continuous, so it seems
justified even today.

~~~
masklinn
The joint nobel was awarded

> "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system"

Not cell biology, not lab techniques, but work on specifically the structure
of the _structure_ of the nervous system.

~~~
ketzu
But they also awarded it to two researchers proposing opposite
interpretations, so they obviously did not endorse his interpretation of a
continuous nervous system.

~~~
mannykannot
Insofar as the committee endorses specific discoveries (Nobel's criterion was
for conferring the greatest benefit on mankind), it notably did not endorse
relativity in awarding the 1921 prize to Einstein, either. It has been argued
that this was due to the indirect influence of Henri Bergson's philosophical-
and intuition-based objections.

[http://nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/this-philosopher-
helped...](http://nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/this-philosopher-helped-
ensure-there-was-no-nobel-for-relativity)

The committe went so far as delaying the award until 1922, saying, in 1921,
that none of the candidates that year had met their standards.

[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1921/summary/](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1921/summary/)

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wyxuan
I'm surprised they didn't include lobotomies in this list. That was a huge
blunder. Otherwise, the Nobel committee has a pretty good track record.

This is of course because they wait for the dust to settle on these
discoveries and for the scientific community to validate and build on those
conclusions.

This is why there is such a large lag time between the discovery and the
granting of the prize.

~~~
Ice_cream_suit
Functional stereotactic neurosurgery for psychiatric and neurodegenerative
disorders is actively practiced.

The popular media is not a good place to get your information from...

"Functional neurosurgeons at UVa are currently treating: Neuropsychiatric
conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression"
[https://med.virginia.edu/neurosurgery/services/functional-
ne...](https://med.virginia.edu/neurosurgery/services/functional-
neurosurgery/)

"We read with great interest the publication of Liu et al. [1 ]reporting
results from the largest published series of schizophrenia patients treated
with MRI-guided bilateral anterior capsulotomy with 2 years of follow-up. Let
us specify that a series of 87 schizophrenic patients operated, notably, by
capsulotomy - but associated with a cingulotomy, amygdalectomy or
thermocoagulation of the nucleus accumbens"

[https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/366005](https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/366005)

[http://med.stanford.edu/neurosurgery/divisions/functional.ht...](http://med.stanford.edu/neurosurgery/divisions/functional.html)

~~~
masklinn
> Functional stereotactic neurosurgery for psychiatric and neurodegenerative
> disorders is actively practiced.

Lobotomy is the removal of most or all of the prefrontal cortex. That its
descendant is now called "functional neurosurgery" does tell you how
disparaged and discredited lobotomy is.

It's not unlike nuclear medicine though, there was an early hype phase where
it was applied too often[0], too much and without enough precision. The
underpinnings remain in active use but at a very different level of activity,
and with much more precise targeting.

[0] the US performed 20000 lobotomies during the 40s, mostly on women.

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svara
Odd to see Moniz' 1949 lobotomy prize omitted here.

See
[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1949/moniz/articl...](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1949/moniz/article/)

~~~
BeetleB
Because it is disputed whether it was "wrong" (in terms of effectiveness, not
in terms of morality). It did achieve what it claimed. It just happened to be
a rather blunt method of doing it.

~~~
svara
The point of any medical intervention is to make the patient better. By that
standard, a lobotomy is ineffective. Lobotomies "worked" by making patients
deeply disabled, in a way that made them more manageable.

~~~
lovehashbrowns
They performed one on JFK's sister:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Kennedy)

It's a very sad story, although that's pretty common for lobotomy cases.

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ncmncm
It is kind of looking like the prize for Dark Energy was awarded for a
nonexistent phenomenon. The dust hasn't settled, but it will or should be very
embarrassing if it turns out so.

~~~
hpcjoe
Not a practicing physicist anymore, so I may be hopelessly out of date.

This noted, I've been under the impression for a while that dark energy/dark
matter is more likely a detailed accounting error. That is, it's likely that
it is not a "new" thing, but old physics that we have an incomplete
understanding of.

Science is funny that way. Early results considered groundbreaking are refined
and extended over time. And sometimes, as we gain more information and
comprehension, the effect we think we observed is subsumed into "boring"
physics (this is how it was described to me by a friend).

~~~
baddox
I don’t know if there’s a huge difference between “a brand new thing” and “an
old thing that is not interacting at all the way we understand it to.”

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scarmig
Nobel Prizes in the sciences do seem to withstand the test of time better than
economics, literature, and (laughs) peace.

~~~
paggle
With actual war criminals winning peace prizes I do wonder what is the point
of it. The value of an award is in the company it puts you in, now it looks
like the peace Nobel is just worth its dollar value and its value on the TED
circuit.

~~~
_Microft
Do you talk about war criminals being awarded the Nobel peace prize or about
Nobel peace prize laureates turning into war criminals? This is an important
difference in my opinion. Since you seem to follow this more closely than I
do, would you mind giving an example?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Do you talk about war criminals being awarded the Nobel peace prize or about
> Nobel peace prize laureates turning into war criminals?

For the former, Henry Kissinger.

There are examples of the latter, as well.

~~~
thundergolfer
Holy hell, Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize?! I'm was familiar enough with
him to know he's disgustingly immoral, and never imagined people back then
would have been stupid enough to give him that award.

With 2 members of the committee resigning in protest, it seems not everyone
with power to award it was so morally corrupt.

