Talk:Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

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Contents

[edit] Mechanicsm

What does "mechanicsm" mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.131.88.120 (talk • contribs) 23:10, 6 June 2005

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make whatever changes you feel are needed. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in! (Although there are some reasons why you might like to…) The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. JFW | T@lk 02:26, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Issue resolved by JFW at 02:27, 7 June 2005 (UTC). –panda 16:12, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article improvements

I just finished an informal reveiw of all the Nobel Prize laurates in Physiology or Medicine. Many of the articles are very short stubs. I've made of list of my off-the-cuff assessments of each article on my subpage User:Sayeth/nobelprize. Please help improve these articles to make Wikipedia more complete. Sayeth 17:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] change sort?

I'm tempted to resort this with the most recent on top, and the oldest on the bottom. I think most users will want to know the most recent prizes awarded, since these are usually current afairs, and keep the history and oldest ones on the bottom. Anybody agree or disagree?--Sonjaaa 21:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I kind of like it as it is, truth to say. Scrolling through it makes you wonder at the speed of progress in this field in the last century or so... It puts things in perspective, and helps realise that many familiar aspects of healthcare that we rely upon today, like antibiotics, are actuallya pretty recent invetion.  :) --Nehwyn 21:47, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Issue resolved. See #Major changes to the table –panda 16:12, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Topics do not match Nobel site

I've noticed that the topics listed on this page do not always match those given at the official nobel prize website. For example, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1936/ Shanata 01:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Issue resolved. See #Major changes to the table –panda 16:12, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch Prince's flag

I just changed the Dutch "prinsenvlag" to the standard Dutch flag for the Willem Einthoven (1924) and Christiaan Eijkman (1929). While both flags were in use before 1937, the Red-White-Blue was generally given precedence (according to the Wikipedia article on the flag). Using this flag is also more consistent with the other pages on Nobel Prizes: they all use the "modern" flag for Dutch winners, even before 1937. 83.247.46.41 14:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Major changes to the table

I made some changes to the table:

  • The table is now sortable - If you prefer to see a list with the most current year on top, you can now switch the order. This meant that years that had multiple reasons had to be put in separate rows (that is, I removed all rowspans) and there would be two entries for a particular year. So I put an asterisk (*) behind those years with an explanation at the bottom of the table.
  • The country of citizenship is now associated with a person - I moved the country of citizenship from a separate column to beside the person's name to make it easier to understand who had what citizenship.
  • The flags may reflect the state of a country in the past - Many countries have changed their flags and/or borders throughout the years. Before changing a flag, please read the text before the table explaining which flag is used for each country. The rationale for using an older flag is that it can sometimes quickly explain why someone emigrated and the state of the world at the time they emigrated, won the Nobel prize, or died.
  • The quotes are the actual quotes from The Nobel Foundation website - A lot of the previous text was not a quote but was within quotation marks anyway. The change meant that some of the previous wiki-links have changed. All of the quotes are also now referenced.
  • Included all years, even when no prize was awarded - Otherwise it's easy to miss that the Nobel prize was not awarded ever year from 1901.

Things to do - please help!:

  • Verify citizenships - For example, the Nobel website claims that John James Richard Macleod was Canadian but I haven't found any evidence of that yet except on that page.[1] So rather than remove it, I put a question mark beside it.
  • Add the year someone acquired an additional citizenship - The year can sometimes be interesting as it can be related to other world events and may help explain why someone would change citizenships.

–panda 16:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RFC: Country – ambiguous or not

There is currently a request for comments at Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry#RFC: Country – ambiguous or not to discuss whether the country column in the table of Nobel laureates is ambiguous or not. Your comments in this matter would be appreciated. panda 14:09, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weird issues regarding flags and country names

I realize that the text at the top of the article is intended to provide rules as to which flags are used for laureates who have changed their citizenship. However, when the rules present weird results, as they apparently do now, that may mean that those rules need to be changed.

In particular, there is a laureate from 1970 who is identified with a flag of Nazi Germany (along with the British flag for his later citizenship). This makes it look as though the article is giving Nazi Germany "credit" for a Nobel Prize in 1970, twenty-five years after the regime dissolved. Furthermore, the laureate in question, Bernard Katz, was Jewish and spent less than two years living in Nazi Germany before emigrating. If one were to associate a German flag with Katz, it might make more sense to use the flag of the German Empire as of when he was born, rather than the flag that he spent only a short period of his life living under. A similar argument applies to 1945 laureate Ernst Boris Chain.

Finally, identifying the country as "Nazi Germany" in this table seems to violate NPOV (obviously there are contexts where it is a useful description, but not here). The country was officially known as "Deutsches Reich" at the time when the three Physiology or Medicine laureates last lived there, and the word "Nazi" was never part of the country's name. While "Deutsches Reich" can be translated as "German Reich" or "German Empire", it would seem more useful just to identify the country as "Germany" which is the standard short name in English. For comparison, the term "Communist China" is in common use, but I doubt that a laureate from the People's Republic of China would be identified as being from "Communist China". --Metropolitan90 06:15, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I have nothing against replacing Nazi Germany with its official name Deutsches Reich. The point was to use official country names and the flags used at that time. That would not be a violation of NPOV. The reason why I chose the scheme that I did was because for laureates such as Bernard Katz and Ernst Boris Chain, the Nazi flag shows quickly why they emigrated. If you can come up with a consistent flag scheme, then by all means use it. (Country of birth is not a good choice since some people can be born in a country and never be a citizen of that country.) panda 07:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
For clarity, I am not recommending that we use the name "Deutsches Reich" in the table. To use an analogy, if someone from France were to win the prize this year, we wouldn't identify their country in the table as "République française" or "French Republic". We'd use the common name "France". Similarly, the common name of "Deutsches Reich" should be given as "Germany". --Metropolitan90 15:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
According to the editors of the Germany articles, the common English name would be Nazi Germany for that time period. (See Talk:Nazi Germany and the many comments about this.) The more official English name would be German Reich, but other editors of the Nobel articles have split up the German Reich into its three periods: German Empire, Weimar Republic, and Nazi Germany. I didn't pick those names, I only reorganized the table according to the comments other editors have made on this talk page and the other Nobel lists. If you have a better suggestion that takes into consideration what others have requested, then that would be great. Right now, it sounds like your only objection is seeing Nazi Germany in the table for Jewish Germans that emigrated due to the rise of Nazi Germany. That's not a violation of WP:NPOV but rather a historical fact. panda 21:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
All that the discussion at Talk:Nazi Germany shows is that there is a consensus that "Nazi Germany" is the correct title of the article about Germany in the Nazi era. I agree that that would be the correct title for that article, but that doesn't necessarily support having that designation on this page Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. By comparison, look at the article Athletics at the 1936 Summer Olympics. There are various German athletes listed as medalists on that page, with the flag of Nazi Germany next to their names, but the country listing for each of them is Germany (GER), not "Nazi Germany". Also, it is a historical fact that the Jewish German laureates emigrated due to the rise of Nazi Germany, but it was the decision of one or more Wikipedia editors that the flag that would be placed next to their names for their country of origin would be the Nazi-era flag. If Wikipedia editors chose instead, for laureates who changed their citizenship, to use the flag of their native country as of when they were born, then Katz and Chain would have different flags next to their names. In summary, these rules that have been applied on this page were not handed down by God or even Jimbo Wales, but are the product of editing decisions. If those rules produce unsatisfactory results, we can change them by consensus. --Metropolitan90 00:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Of course the rules can be changed but could you reiterate exactly what your suggestion is? You've written that Nazi Germany should be changed to Germany but then you also written that PRC should be used instead of Communist China, which is contradictory in my mind. Just out of curiosity, what is inappropriate about mentioning Nazi Germany or showing the Nazi flag in this article? panda 06:16, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps other editors can help us formulate a rule that will work broadly. I don't see the contradiction in my Germany vs. China position; a laureate from Nazi Germany should be identified as from "Germany" while a laureate from Communist China should be identified as being from "China", which seems consistent to me. If you look at Nobel laureates by country you will see significant interest in which countries have produced the most Nobel prize winners, implying that a country gets "credit" for its natives or citizens who win. Appearing to give Nazi Germany in particular credit for Katz and Chain, rather than Germany or the German Empire (as it was when they were born), makes it look like the regime gets credit for the Nobel Prizes won by its ex-citizens that it drove out of the country. --Metropolitan90 07:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Nobel laureates by country seems to have their own problems with how to handle counties that no longer exist today and laureates with multiple nationalities. I don't have any strong opinions about this topic so let's make it an RFC across all of the Nobel Prize articles and try to reach a consensus that can be applied to all of the articles. (Your current example of Germany and China make more sense than the previous one which sounded like you were advocating for using Germany and PRC.) I can start it in the Nobel Prize for Chemistry talk page since that one already has an RFC that I plan to close due to consensus. panda 10:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] RFC: Country data in Nobel lists

There is currently a Request for Comments about the country data in the Nobel lists at Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry#RFC: Country data in Nobel lists. Your comments would be appreciated. The results of the RFC may affect all of the Nobel Prize articles. panda 16:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Some RFC updates:

  • You can find the definition of the country data included in the Nobel lists in the RFC under the point Country data defined.
  • There is currently a consensus moving towards removing all of the flags in the Nobel lists unless someone can devise an acceptable scheme for them. This portion of the RFC (point 2) will be closed in 2 weeks, i.e., 31 October 2007 24 October 2007, assuming it is not challenged. That is, the consensus will be to remove all flags from the lists.

–panda 15:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

this is incorrect mis-information: on please do not continue to represent your opinion as fact. --emerson7 16:47, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

As stated in the RFC: This is a fact. It is the definition according to the Nobel Foundation. If you dispute the fact, then I invite you to go to the library and check the book. Please stop being disruptive. –panda 16:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

This RFC has been closed. The following was reach by consensus:

  • The country data on the Nobel Foundation list is the laureate's nationality (according to the book "Nobel: The Man and His Prizes"); knowing this, there are at least a couple errors for the laureate's nationality in the Nobel Foundation's list.
  • The countries/nationalities should be included in the list.
  • Use common names for the countries/nationalities. All variants of Germany should simply be called Germany except for West Germany, even though there never were any laureate's from East Germany. Only one editor commented on which variant of Germany should be linked to (the current one), so it's difficult to say if there is any consensus about that aspect.

For a list of inconclusive items, please see the closing comments. –panda 20:57, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Therefore there was no reason to remove the note about West Germany, and furthermore the subsequent era's should NOT be called the German Empire, which fell around 1918 At the end of WWI. There is a reason I made the Changes. It is politically incorrect. It is like saying that any articles referring to Russia should immediately be changed to USSR! It is not correct. --Jab843 (talk) 00:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're commenting about. I'm just reporting the results of the RFC. –panda (talk) 03:54, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

The edit-warring on this page is disruptive, so I have protected the page. I suggest you all read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (flags) and agree on what to do with this page. The two choices that are consistent with consensus Wikipedia guidelines are:

  1. Use the historically correct flags at the time
  2. Don't use any flags at all

— Andrwsc (talk) 00:15, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

For those who have an interest in the flags that are displayed in the lists, there is a thread about this here: Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry#Nazi-flag edit. –panda (talk) 03:56, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that the RfC was inconclusive with respect to the use of flags. WP:FLAG, in light of the edit wars, suggests that it is preferable not to use flags at all in this case.--Boffob 19:31, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree. It's not like these people were competing for their "national Nobel Prize teams"! Their nationality is purely incidental, and the flags are not helpful. I have just removed them. Andrwsc 19:54, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Can I suggest that the lists be consistent? That is, if the flags are removed here, then they should be removed from all of the Nobel lists. –panda 20:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I absolutely agree.--Boffob 20:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out that Nobel Prize in Literature still has flags in the nationality list, which need to be removed. (I'm feeling lazy and don't want to do it myself...) –panda (talk) 15:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed the flags from Nobel Prize in Literature today. –panda (talk) 17:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC)