Nobel disease
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English
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Alternative forms
[edit]Noun
[edit]- (humorous or derogatory) The tendency of some Nobel laureates to advance pseudoscientific or fringe ideas, or to claim knowledge beyond their field of expertise.
- 2015, Jeff Wilser, The Good News About What's Bad For You..., page 53:
- According to many doctors, there was only one problem with [Linus] Pauling’s theories: they were all wrong. Pauling was afflicted with “Nobel disease,” a condition where a master in one field thinks he’s an authority in others, according to Dr. Steven Salzberg, professor of medicine and biostatistics at Johns Hopkins, and a frequent debunker of pseudoscience. “He wasn’t an expert in nutrition. He was just completely wrong about this. All the evidence says he’s wrong.”
- 2018, Edzard Ernst, Kevin Smith, More Harm Than Good?: The Moral Maze of Complementary and Alternative Medicine[1], page 163:
- Thereafter, he [Luc Montaginer] appears to have contracted the 'Nobel disease', in which success apparently goes to the head of the erstwhile respected scientist, resulting in an embarrassing public embrace of crankery.
- 2019, David Robson, The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Make Dumb Mistakes, unnumbered page:
- Earned dogmatism might also further explain the bizarre claims of the scientists with "Nobel Disease" such as Kary Mullis.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Nobel disease.