Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nobel disease


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 16:03, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Nobel disease

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This is an apparant neologisms - a search on Google shows that the term is not in common use. The majority of the people included are referenced to one or two sources that used many times, or are original research with no mention of the term in the reference being employed. Bilby (talk) 13:24, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Bilby (talk) 13:24, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Bilby (talk) 13:24, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep: Oh... Come on! Bilby. Sure, it's a neologism, but it isn't "one or two sources". It has been in use for well over a decade and it has been well-documented in several reliable sources. I counted at least 6: Gorski, 2008, Berezow, 2016, Carroll, 2015, Basterfield et al, 2020, Winter, 2011 Diamandis, 2013 and these are just the ones that are currently used in the article. As for the OR, I have removed an entire WP:OR section myself (see talk), might have missed another. But the other links with no mention of nobelitis are there for a reason. Even if you remove all of them, there are enough reliable sources discussing it for the article to be kept. VdSV9• ♫ 14:01, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * A search on Google only gives approximately 6000 hits, which is a remarkablly small number for a term in use for well over a decade. Of those six references you provided, we have a skeptic site, another skeptic site, The Skeptics Dictionary, The Skeptical Inquirer, a skeptic blog, and a non-skeptic article that doesn't mention the term, (but does talk about something similar). I'm not finding much outside of the skeptic literature - there are a very small number of mentions here and there, but nothing particularly significant. - Bilby (talk) 14:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * WP:GHITS. Sources are skeptic, so, I guess we should add that the phrase is more commonly used in skeptic circles? Or that would be OR? Or are you claiming that this somehow means that they aren't reliable sources? The Diamandis source uses "nobelitis", but it talks about the same thing. VdSV9• ♫ 15:12, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that there is no evidence of the use of the term in wider society. As you acknowleged, it is a neoglism - that it is used in a small number of specialised sources is interesting, but there is no evidence of wider usage beyond that. It would be better handled in wikitionary than here, especialy given that more than quarter of the names included in the current article don't even have a reference that uses the term in relation to them. Per Wikipedia is not a dictionary, I'm looking for evidence of wider usage. Even the source you raised used terms like "some wags have dubbed this tendency the Nobel disease", or "somewhat tongue-in-cheek". The lack of usage found through Google shows how little the term is used. - Bilby (talk) 15:36, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, 'wider society' defined as everyone you choose to not ignore. The Skeptical Enquirer and ACSH are mainstream organizations, not fringe POV morons. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm going to assume that the "fringe POV morons" was not aimed at me, but my issue is that a small number of blogs and articles within one specific community does not demonstrate widespread usage. This is in no way a suggestion that skeptics are not mainstream - just that they are a specific community using the term, and generally I'd like to see that the term is used more than that. - Bilby (talk) 17:21, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed I'm refering to the Skeptical Enquirer and the ACSH not being fringe POV morons. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:26, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep per Michael Levitt VdSV9 (my bad, misread a signature). &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:07, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but what do you mean? There was a Levitt section which was deleted since it was OR... VdSV9• ♫ 15:12, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:BLP and WP:MEDRS. Winning the Nobel prize is not a disease and it is derogatory to suggest that the winners are cranks.  The issue obviously arises because the prizes are awarded for outstanding and ground-breaking achievements and these are not likely to be made by conventional thinkers.  Other outstanding minds like Newton have had their quirks and Feynman was rejected for the draft on the grounds that he was crazy.  Cherry-picking such anecdotes is pseudo-science. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:09, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * What does MEDRS have to do with anything? This isn't a medical condition. No one is claiming that winning a Nobel prize is a disease, the "condition" is about how some winners go on to make unsound claims. It is not about suggesting that the winners are cranks, it is about the FACT that many winners go on to become cranks. Did you even read the page? VdSV9• ♫ 15:12, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The title plainly says that it's a "disease" and the lead defines it as an "affliction". The OED explains that an affliction is "A disease or other condition causing ill health, pain, etc.; an illness, an ailment."  Q.E.D. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:04, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * You can be a crank even if you have a Nobel prize. Case in point, these people. Kary Mullis's reasoning wrt to Astrology is not suddenly valid because he has a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Derogatory or not is irrelevant, what matters is that multiple reliable source all refer to this as 'Nobel disease', which is obviously not a medical disease/diagnostic, but rather an semi-humourous/informal term. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:13, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Humour is, by its nature, not reliable. This joke is being used as a WP:COATRACK to make derogatory attacks on specific individuals.  Their winning of the Nobel prize is being used as a form of guilt by association.  My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:37, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * How lucky are we that things other than medical claims can exist and be notable then! &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:44, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Headbomb is now censoring this discussion. The essential point is that we don't have reliable sources to decide who is suffering from this alleged disease.  It is easy to make a case for many others so who decides?  This is WP:OR. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:03, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * There's plenty of such sources, see VdSV9's results above. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:16, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * These sources are not reliable. For example, consider Nobelitis: a common disease among Nobel laureates?.  This suggests that many laureates are sufferers of this alleged malady because they receive the prize after they have passed their prime and so are encouraged to overreach per the Peter principle.  This includes Einstein but Headbomb took it personally when I added the famous photo of Einstein sticking his tongue out to this discussion.  So, for example, Paul Nurse is included.  They are still living and now runs the Francis Crick Institute where I have attended several editathons.  Are we really going to open the door to allegations of this sort against the most powerful scientists and scholars in such institutions?  There will be no shortage of jealous rivals to make such insinuations but are they really reliable?  My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:33, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * They are reliable sources for general commentary on various societal issues. SI and the ACSH and the others above aren't disgruntled rivals complaining they were overlooked, but qualified scientists holding other scientists' feet to the fire for embracing innanity, pseudoscience, junk science, and pure and utter nonsense. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:36, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Paul Nurse is not included in the article at present, and I've found no evidence that he should be. On the contrary, he's a Nobel Laureate who has explicitly warned other Nobel Laureates not to fall into the trap of presuming that they know everything . As for the question Are we really going to open the door to allegations of this sort against the most powerful scientists and scholars in such institutions? We're not opening any door that reliable sources haven't already opened. But yes, we do cover the misdeeds of "the most powerful scientists and scholars". That's kind of our job here, when the "allegations" are plain, incontrovertible statements that a scientist has started talking nonsense. We also cover what happens when papers are retracted for being fraudulent, or when a prestigious scientist is booted from the National Academy for sexual harassment. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 20:24, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, sure, Paul Nurse is not included in the list and he should not be included. But he does appear as a member of the list in sources typically used on this page: (published in Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM)). A lot of other people should not be included just as Paul Nurse. My very best wishes (talk) 16:04, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * But that source doesn't indicate any specific weird/unscientific position that Nurse has endorsed. It just quotes him talking about his own fallibility. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:09, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed. It say Nurse’s symptoms of Nobelitis include his statement, “I am rather arrogant, I prefer to do something which wouldn’t happen unless I was doing it”. But is not it a good thing? Which brings the question: what is "Nobelitis"? Just an arrogance (as this source say)? Yes, apparently. Talking on various subjects where they are not expert? Yes, they do it. Some of their words or ideas will be seen as outright wrong 50 years later. But should this be described as disease? Yes, if certain "scientific skeptics" want to make a mockery of Nobel Prize winners, and that is precisely what this page about. Saying some "incredibly stupid things, some of which are quite delusional". Well, this is something a lot of people do. Are they saying it because they are Nobel Prize winners? No, the percentage of such people would be much higher in a general population than among Nobel Prize winners. Overall, this "disease" "concept" looks to me as nonsense and WP:COATRACK. . My very best wishes (talk) 19:35, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep but strip of any examples where the source does not explicitly use the term. I don't see a case for deletion on grounds of WP:NEO - we have articles on neologism terms with a fraction of this usage (man, do we ever...), and routinely pass those at AfD too. As for WP:MEDRS, get real please :/ But that's not an excuse to fill up the examples list with conjecture and OR. If sources use the term "nobel disease", fine; if not, remove. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:10, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep A well-known and well-attested concept, jocularly called a "disease" but not actually a medical condition. The article could probably stand trimming to remove equivocal examples, and a bit of rewriting to avoid the implication that it's actually some kind of brain tumor acquired in Stockholm, but deletion is not cleanup. I concur with 's !vote just above, with the proviso that I'd allow obvious synonyms. For example, "Nobelitis" was defined as "believing you are expert in almost everything, and being prepared to express opinions about most issues with great confidence, sheltering behind the authority that the Nobel Prize can give you", in the words of Paul Nurse, co-winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine . XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:56, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep, also agreeing with . Lusanaherandraton (talk) 18:39, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: Here's a few more examples of usage, or articles specifically about it, to add to the several sources I already cited before. One from The Atlantic that mentions it in passing. In other languages: One from the Mexican version of BI and one from a major Spanish newspaper. Here's one from a major Brazilian magazine. And one from Italian Wired. I think this more than settles it. VdSV9• ♫ 22:19, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep per the sources provided. Clearly not an actual disease, or even the tongue-in-cheek treatment of an actual ailment (like Man flu). But as a colloquialism - an idea - it seems fairly clearly notable. Agree with the suggestion that examples that rely on sources where the term is not use should be removed. There's nothing wrong with an article about a phrase, but using our own interpretation to determine when that phrase should be applied (in the absence of reliable sources that do the same) is a problem.  St ★ lwart 1 1 1 03:34, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep but MAJOR cleanup needed. Enough sources discuss this idea to give it WP:GNG but I think it's pretty bad to discuss this as a 'phenomenon' rather than an observation or a term used. I don't think there is any scientific evidence linking the winning of the Nobel to later holding unscientific ideas. I think there also needs to be a major consideration of WP:BLP within the list of examples and a removal of WP:OR. But WP:AFDNOTCLEANUP. Vladimir.copic (talk) 01:42, 20 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep As others have stated, there is no claim that this is a DSM-based diagnostic category. Rather, it highlights the interesting, and notable, fact that a non-trivial number of Nobel Prize winners have used their nobel-based fame to push fringe non-evidence-based ideas.Regutten (talk) 16:19, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep A term recognized and used by a number of RS. Its applicability is also evident when one examines the track record of some quacks with Nobel Prizes. Sad. -- Valjean (talk) 00:54, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per whoever it was that said "Oh, .. come on Bilby" above. -Roxy the sceptical dog . wooF 07:25, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete as a WP:COATRACK (see my comment here) or clean this list significantly. Of course this list must be sourced, i.e. one must have some RS saying that person X was sick of the "Nobel Disease". Given the nature of the list (i.e. criticizing Nobel Prize winners), I believe such sources must be very strong. For example, I would think that a blog, Skeptical Inquirer or website Science-Based Medicine would be insufficiently strong sources for that purpose (for sourcing something else - yes, maybe). The problem here is due weight. For example, Linus Pauling liked vitamin C too much and erroneously thought it might cure cancer (see Linus_Pauling). Yes, sure, but should that be described in WP as his "disease"? One must realize that a lot less was known about cancer 50 years ago. Not a personal opinion by non-expert in the history of science like David Gorski, please. A published academic book by a good historian of science - yes, that would be great. My very best wishes (talk) 01:18, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * This isn't history-of-science stuff. This is regular-science/popular science stuff, and well-known mainstream/popular science magazines like SI and SBM are more than sufficient to establish that someone has a 'case' of Nobel disease/Nobelitis. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:21, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, is something like that is an essay on on the history of recent science? I would say the biographies of Nobel Prize winners definitely belong to the history of science. Some stories/issues here are complicated, and I think this popular science source is attempting to oversimplify and misinterpret them, first of all by describing them as a general phenomenon authors call a "disease". I simply think that using popular science sources for disparaging Nobel Prize winners is not such a good idea. My very best wishes (talk) 01:20, 25 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep but vet the examples. Some are obvious examples of a Nobel laureate making strange, unfounded claims -- but the references don't use the phrase "Nobel disease" or *appear* to discuss the concept (without using the term). I'm concerned about WP:OR for some of these.  dm yers t urnbull   ⇒ talk 03:45, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep - Ample evidence of notability in sources listed by . ~Kvng (talk) 12:38, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep: I agree that it meets notability, as described above. It is closely related to the Appeal to Authority fallacy, as some people can believe that any statement made by a Nobel laureate--even when speaking well out of their area of expertise--is reliable. Femme du Pays (talk) 15:01, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's a neologism, but a notable one with enough evidence to support GNG.4meter4 (talk) 21:24, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. There was an econometric article a few years ago by George Borjas about the same phenomenon for the Fields Medal in mathematics, that found some negative effect on productivity.  I think he used "curse" rather than "disease" in that context. Sesquivalent (talk) 07:45, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep, covered in a wide variety of sources.Jackattack1597 (talk) 12:42, 25 September 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.