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Which Scientists Might Be Honored With The Nobel Prize? - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

Which Scientists Might Be Honored With The Nobel Prize? - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life... Forecasting who will walk away with the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology is hardly a precise science. Yet there are at least two indicators that have consistently pointed to prize-winning potential. One is a scientist's citation ranking; there is an unusually high correlation between citation frequency and Nobel recognition. The second indicator is the winning of one of the so-called predictor prizes that traditionally anticipate Nobel committee selections. As Columbia University sociologist Harriet Zuckerman writes in her book, Scientific Elite (New York: Free Press, 1977, page 188), a study of American science laureates, "Citation analysis of the work of prospective laureates on the eve of their awards confirms what any scientist knows. Nobel prizes do not go to unknowns." Last year's winners are an example. J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus, both of the University of California, San Francisco, are citation superstars. (Indeed, both were included in The Scientist's list of 1989 Nobel contenders [The Scientist, Oct. 2, 1989, page 14].) Chosen for their discovery of proto-oncogenes, the pair rank within the 100 most cited scientists of the period 1973 to 1984, according to the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information's Science Citation Index (SCI) database. Bishop http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Scientist The Scientist

Which Scientists Might Be Honored With The Nobel Prize? - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

The Scientist , Volume 4 (19): 17 – Oct 1, 1990

Which Scientists Might Be Honored With The Nobel Prize? - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

The Scientist , Volume 4 (19): 17 – Oct 1, 1990

Abstract

Forecasting who will walk away with the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology is hardly a precise science. Yet there are at least two indicators that have consistently pointed to prize-winning potential. One is a scientist's citation ranking; there is an unusually high correlation between citation frequency and Nobel recognition. The second indicator is the winning of one of the so-called predictor prizes that traditionally anticipate Nobel committee selections. As Columbia University sociologist Harriet Zuckerman writes in her book, Scientific Elite (New York: Free Press, 1977, page 188), a study of American science laureates, "Citation analysis of the work of prospective laureates on the eve of their awards confirms what any scientist knows. Nobel prizes do not go to unknowns." Last year's winners are an example. J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus, both of the University of California, San Francisco, are citation superstars. (Indeed, both were included in The Scientist's list of 1989 Nobel contenders [The Scientist, Oct. 2, 1989, page 14].) Chosen for their discovery of proto-oncogenes, the pair rank within the 100 most cited scientists of the period 1973 to 1984, according to the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information's Science Citation Index (SCI) database. Bishop

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Publisher
The Scientist
Copyright
© 1986-2010 The Scientist
ISSN
1759-796X
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Forecasting who will walk away with the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology is hardly a precise science. Yet there are at least two indicators that have consistently pointed to prize-winning potential. One is a scientist's citation ranking; there is an unusually high correlation between citation frequency and Nobel recognition. The second indicator is the winning of one of the so-called predictor prizes that traditionally anticipate Nobel committee selections. As Columbia University sociologist Harriet Zuckerman writes in her book, Scientific Elite (New York: Free Press, 1977, page 188), a study of American science laureates, "Citation analysis of the work of prospective laureates on the eve of their awards confirms what any scientist knows. Nobel prizes do not go to unknowns." Last year's winners are an example. J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus, both of the University of California, San Francisco, are citation superstars. (Indeed, both were included in The Scientist's list of 1989 Nobel contenders [The Scientist, Oct. 2, 1989, page 14].) Chosen for their discovery of proto-oncogenes, the pair rank within the 100 most cited scientists of the period 1973 to 1984, according to the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information's Science Citation Index (SCI) database. Bishop

Journal

The ScientistThe Scientist

Published: Oct 1, 1990

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