How many scientific Nobel prizes has Canada scored lately? I can't
remember seeing a Canadian electronic or scientific instrument that
looks worth buying. There certainly must be some, but there's no
obvious glaring intellectual advantage that Canada's advanced social
policies have created. You may dislike Americans, but to claim the US
is short on intelligence and knowledge is, well, stupid.
I didn't. I claimed that the US has failed every one of it's 'wars' such as
those on poverty, drugs, terrorism, children left behind and many more, but
the unannounced war on intelligence and knowledge is proceeding well as
shown by the influence of the ID crackpots and by it's
know-nothing-and-proud-of-it president.
At least 2% of Americans are very intelligent. However the other 98% are as
dumb as rocks as you well know.
The list of Canadian Nobel laureates since the prize was first awarded
includes:
1999 Economics
Robert Mundell, a native of Kingston, Ont., earned the prize for his
analysis of exchange rates and how they affect monetary policies. The
theories of Mundell, a professor at Columbia University in New York, helped
create a common currency for the European Union. Mundell did his most
important work in the 1960s.
1997 Economics
Myron Scholes, born in Timmins, Ont., was co-winner of the prize for
devising a formula for pricing derivatives such as stock options. A U.S.
citizen and professor emeritus at Stanford University in California, Scholes
shared the prize with Harvard professor Robert Merton. Scholes received his
undergraduate degree in economics from McMaster University in 1962 and an
honorary Doctor of Laws in 1990. He earned a PhD in economics at the
University of Chicago in 1969.
1996 Economics
William S. Vickrey was born in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1914. His
elementary and secondary education were in Europe and the United States,
with graduation from Phillips Andover Academy in 1931. He received a B.S. in
mathematics from Yale in 1935, followed by graduate work in economics at
Columbia University from 1935 to 1937, when he received the M.A. degree. He
then worked for the National Resources Planning Board in Washington and the
Division of Tax Research in the U.S. Treasury Department.
1994 Physics
Bertram Brockhouse, of McMaster University in Hamilton shared the prize
with Clifford Shull, 79, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
Cambridge, Mass., for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron
scattering techniques for studies of matter. The scientists made their
contributions at the first nuclear reactors in Canada and the United States
in the 1940s and '50s. Nobel Prize winning Canadian physicist Dr. Bertram
Brockhouse has died at 85, on october 2003.
1993 Chemistry
Michael Smith, a British-born Canadian citizen, and Kary Mullis of the
United States. Smith, director of the Biotechnology Laboratory at the
University of British Columbia in Vancouver, won for his work on a method
for altering DNA to determine its function.
1992 Chemistry
Montreal-born Rudolph Marcus, a U.S. citizen, for his contributions to the
theory of how sub-atomic particles known as electrons are transferred
between molecules. Educated at McGill University, a professor at California
Institute of Technology when he received prize.
1990 Physics
Richard Taylor, a native of Medicine Hat, Alta., living in Palo Alto,
Calif., with Jerome Friedman and Henry Kendall of the United States, for
finding the first evidence of quarks, now believed to be basic building
blocks of matter.
1989 Chemistry
Yale University professor Sidney Altman, a U.S. citizen from Montreal, for
the discovery of catalytic properties of the genetic material RNA. Shared
the prize with Thomas Cech, University of Colorado.
1986 Chemistry
German-born John Polanyi of the University of Toronto, for showing how
basic chemical reactions take place. Shared prize with Americans Dudley
Herschbach and Yuan Lee.
1983 Chemistry
Saskatoon-born Henry Taub, for studies in the transfer of electrons in
metals. Graduated from University of Saskatchewan, on staff of Stanford
University in California when received prize.
1981 Physics
University of Toronto PhD Arthur Schawlow for development of
spectroscopes, basic tools for studying atomic structure. Shared with fellow
U.S. citizen Nicolass Boembergen and Kai Siegbahn of Sweden.
1981 Medicine
Dr. David Hubel, a native of Niagara Falls, Ont., for information
processing in the visual system. Graduated from McGill University in
Montreal before continuing his career in the United States.
1976 Literature
Saul Bellow was born in Lachine, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal, in 1915,
and was raised in Chicago. He attended the University of Chicago, received
his Bachelor's degree from Northwestern University in 1937, with honors in
sociology and anthropology, did graduate work at the University of
Wisconsin, and served in the Merchant Marine during World War II.
1971 Chemistry
German-born Gerhard Herzberg for work with ''free radicals'' - molecular
fragments which take part in chemical reactions. Taught at University of
Saskatchewan 1935-45, went to United States, returned 1948 to National
Research Council in Ottawa.
1966 Medicine
Charles Brenton Huggins, a Halifax native, graduate of Acadia University,
Wolfville, N.S., head of Ben May Cancer Research Laboratory of the
University of Chicago, for research into role of hormones in the control of
human cancer. Shared award with Peyton Rous of the Rockefeller University.
1957 Peace
Lester B. Pearson, before becoming prime minister, for proposing a United
Nations peacekeeping force as a means for easing the British and French out
of Egypt.
1949 Chemistry
William Giauque, a native of Niagara Falls, Ont., for investigating the
properties of matter under extremely low temperatures.
1923 Medicine
Sir Frederick Banting and J. R. Macleod, for the development of insulin,
used in the treatment of diabetes, at the University of Toronto.
Source: Toronto Star, October 13, 1999.
