By David Pendlebury, Research Services, Thomson Scientific
See the full list of successful predictions here >
In 1989, David Pendlebury, in the pages of The Scientist, (Vol. 3[19]: 14, 2 October 1989) drew up a list of 20 highly cited researchers who might win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. That same year, two of the 20 suggested names were chosen for the Nobel: Harold E. Varmus and J. Michael Bishop. Subsequently, four more of the 20 received the Prize: Edwin G. Krebs in 1992, Alfred G. Gilman in 1994, Eric R. Kandel in 2000, and Sydney Brenner in 2002. Of course, while six were correct choices, 14 were wrong--or at least wrong to date.
In 1990, Angela Martello, also writing in The Scientist, (Vol. 4[17]: 16, 3 September 1990, and Vol. 4[18]: 16, 17 September 1990) suggested possible Nobel Laureates using the same methodology. She named 12 researchers for the Physics Prize and 10 for the Chemistry Prize. The Physics selections have produced two Nobel Laureates in Physics (David J. Gross and Frank A. Wilczek in 2002), and another of the names selected — Alan J. Heeger — won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. So, right person, wrong prize.
Her selections for the chemistry prize matched four subsequent Nobel winners. In the same year, 1990, Elias J. Corey won the Prize. In 1994, another pick of Martello, George A. Olah, was honored. Then in 1998, John A. Pople won the Nobel. Finally, in 1999, Ahmed H. Zewail, who had been mentioned as a younger Nobelists-to-Be, won the Chemistry Prize.
Again, chemistry: In 1997 Pendlebury circulated by email a list of "ISI's 50 Most Cited Chemists, 1981-June 1997, Ranked by Total Citations." (see http://pcb4122.univ-lemans.fr/citation.html) This was subsequently posted, along with more extensive rankings, by Professor Armel Le Bail of France. Of these 50, seven had already won the Nobel Prize. Since its release in 1997, five more became Nobel Laureates: Pople in 1998, Zewail in 1999, Ryoji Noyori and K. Barry Sharpless in 2001, and Richard R. Schrock in 2005.
Finally, high citation counts have proven a strong predictor of who may win the Nobel Prize in Economics. In 1990, in an essay for Current Contents (no. 11, 12 March 1990, pp. 3-7) entitled "Who Will Win the Nobel Prize in Economics? Here's a Forecast Based on Citation Indicators," Garfield published a list of the 50 most-cited economists, 1966-1986, which was based on first-author citation data only. (see: http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v13p083y1990.pdf) This list contained the names of 15 economists who had already been awarded the Nobel Prize. Subsequently, seven more went on to win: Ronald H. Coase in 1991, Gary S. Becker in 1992, Robert E. Lucas in 1995, Amartya Sen in 1998, Joseph E. Stiglitz in 2001, Clive W.J. Granger in 2003, and Edmund S. Phelps in 2006. (Note: The 51st name — not published — was Robert C. Merton, who won the Nobel Prize in 1997). Thus, 22 names (44%) on the Garfield list have now won the Nobel Prize.
In 2002, Pendlebury listed three choices for each of the four Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine, Chemistry, Physics, and Economics in the in-cites website of Thomson Scientific’s Essential Science Indicators database. One of the choices for Economics was correct that year: Daniel Kahneman.
In 2003, when Pendlebury again offered his predictions in Thomson Scientific’s corporate website, one of the three choices for the Nobel Prize in Economics was again correct. He suggested that Clive W.J. Granger of University of California, San Diego and Robert F. Engle of New York University School of Business might win, as our imaginary citation read, "for their development of cointegration analysis, an essential technique of econometrics for times-series studies and forecasting." The citation for Granger's half of the prize reads: "for methods of analyzing economic time series with common trends (cointegration)" and for Engle, the citation reads: "for methods of analyzing economic time series with time-varying volatility (ARCH)." We'll take this one as a win.
In addition, the 2003 predictions came quite close to a winner in Chemistry. One of the three awards suggested then was to Adriaan Bax of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, for, as our citation read, "revolutionary advances in the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to reveal the structure of large proteins in solution." The Prize went instead to John B. Fenn of Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond, Virginia, and Koichi Tanaka of the Shimadzu Corporation in Kyoto, Japan (one-quarter each); the other half went to Kurt Wuthrich of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and of The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. In claiming to have come close, we note the citation for Wuthrich's portion of the Prize: "for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution." So, the citation data led us to the right field but not the right person, at least as the Nobel Committee saw it. In the description of Wuthrich's research mention is made of Bax, who in the 1990s contributed to the advance of Wuthrich's approach. We'll take this as a near miss.
In 2004, Gross and Wilczek (along with H. David Politzer) won the Physics Prize. As noted above, both were featured in Martello’s article of 1990. None of our new picks, however, turned up in the Nobel committee’s selections that year.
Two years ago (2005), one of our three new selections for the Chemistry Prize proved correct: Robert H. Grubbs.
In 2006, Edmund S. Phelps won the Economics Prize. He was one of the 50 most-cited economists listed by Garfield in 1990.
In summary, based on three articles in The Scientist (in 1989 and 1990), and two lists of the 50 most cited researchers in economics (1990) and chemistry (1997), as well as our very limited choices for each field posted on our website each year since 2002, our successes have been significant: Each year since 1989, with the exception of 1993 and 1996, citation analysis combined with other considerations has led us, time and again, to researchers who later go on to receive a Nobel Prize.
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