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TECHNOLORE: The Nobel Prize: What is it saying to Canadians?
Throughout the controversy surrounding the award of the Peace Prize, Willard Boyle, a Canadian citizen, was chosen to share this year's Nobel award in physics. According to the Globe and Mail Boyle is the 18th Canadian to win the prestigious prize. Dr. Boyle represents a trend in Canadian Nobel Laureates that we see all too often and that the media tends to ignore. Boyle, educated at McGill, moved to the United States shortly after completing his PhD, did his award winning work in the US, obtained dual citizenship with the US, and stayed outside of Canada professionally until he retired. To Boyle's credit, once he retired and moved back to Canada he got involved with the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research and the Science Council of the Province of Nova Scotia. Canada's only Nobel award in literature was given to Saul Bellow, who after leaving Canada at the age of 9, was fully educated in the United Sates, wrote his award winning work in the States, and lived there until his death. Yet, we tend to claim him as a Canadian Nobel Laureate and, in the past hundred years, the only Canadian who has been awarded the prize in literature. Dr. Mundell, Dr. Scholes and Dr. Vickrey are often considered to be the Canadian Economics Laureates. Robert Mundell after graduating from UBC, did his graduate work at MIT and did the bulk of his academic work at Stanford, Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago. Myron Scholes completed his bachelor's degree at McMaster and then left Canada to pursue graduate work at the University of Chicago and spending the bulk of his career at Stanford. William Vickrey, born in Victoria, BC, attended high school in Massachusetts, obtained his BS from Yale and his PhD at Columbia where he stayed for most of his career. Another Economics Nobel Laureate, Michael Spence, winner of the 2001 award, attended high school in Toronto, but then went on to Oxford, Princeton and Harvard spending the rest of his career to date in the United States. The Nobel Peace prize of 1995, awarded to the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, is one of two peace prizes often attributed to Canada. However, although Pugwash is named after a village in Nova Scotia ,that is about the only thing about it that is Canadian. The meeting, hosted by Cyrus Eaton who made most of his money and spent most of his time in the United States, consisted of 22 scientists - 2 of whom were Canadian. The meeting was initiated by a manifesto written by Bertrand Russell (Welsh) and Albert Einstein (American). Currently the Pugwash Conferences main offices are in the US, England, Switzerland and Italy, but not Canada. Rudolph Marcus was awarded the 1992 Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1992. He received his B.Sc. and PhD from McGill, but became a naturalized US citizen in 1958 and has spent the majority of his career at Caltech. Richard Taylor, obtained his BSc. and MSc at the University of Alberta, moved to Stanford for his PhD where he stayed for the bulk of his career. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1990. Sidney Altman , awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1989, was born in Canada, but did his undergraduate degree at MIT, PhD at the University of Colorado and spent most of his career at Yale. Sadly, the list goes on and on like this. Similar stories can be found by investigating the careers of other laureates with Canadian pasts including David Hubel, Charles Huggins, William Giauque, Walter Kohn and Andrew V. Schally. Less than a third of Nobel Laureates with ties to Canada spend the bulk of their careers in Canada. Over the past 100 years only Drs. J MacLeod, F. Banting, G Herzberg, J. Polanyi, M. Smith and B. Brockhouse fit that description. Why is it that Canada can`t keep their brightest in Canada, where they could contribute to economic growth and the education of our students? More importantly, why aren't more people asking this question? We create innovative minds and then they leave our country during their most productive and highest tax earning years, and often return to us when they are done. We need to admit this is a problem and start trying to solve it. In this year`s Canadian coverage of the Nobel awards the Globe and Mail, in two separate articles (From Lester Pearson to today, October 6, 2009; Canadian shares Nobel in physics, October 6th, 2009), referred to Dr. Boyle as Mr. Boyle. Dr. Boyle earned his doctorate and the most preeminent award he could achieve in his field. Perhaps we should show him proper respect and refer to him with his proper title, Dr. Boyle. Goblal TV, in an article entitled `Canadian Nobel Laureates,` (October 6th, 2009) referred to Banting and McDonald, rather than Banting and Macleod. As of October 18th the online version of the article still contains this type error. I am proud to be a Canadian, but not so proud as to ignore a problem when I see one. We need to work to create an environment that will draw the best and brightest from American schools to spend their productive time here in Canada, not to mention maintaining our own talent. We need to pay respect to those Canadians who do make the types of sacrifices it requires to achieve at the level of the Nobel Award. Perhaps we need to spend less time worrying about whether or not the American laureates deserve their award, and concern ourselves with what our country is doing to create an environment that will foster more Nobel Laureate worthy individuals in Canada. -- -- -- -- Dave Machacek is a London resident and writer with a PhD in neuroscience and is presently studying Science Education. Contact Dave by e-mail (see link) or visit online (see link). Opinions are those of the author. E-MAIL: Dave Machacek WEB: Scientificfoundation.com |
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