"No."

This seems to be the consensus of this thread.

Physics and chemistry. Based on achievements

Those are biased too, though. For example, physics is biased toward high-energy particle theory.

All nobel prizes are biased by the views of the nobel committees involved. Whether this negates their value or not might be a more interesting question.

Seriously...you couldn't have put this derivative conversation in the pre-existing Nobel Prize thread? Bad....bad steephie...

@krellin, would that not be derailing that thread (much as you are doing here?)

Please tell us who should have won it every year according to you all's "unbiased" and obviously highly knowledgeable opinions.

Should have won what, Putin?

These 'biased' nobel prizes. What else?

@krellin, sorry i jusr read the other thread, i withdraw my thread-jacking assumption.

@putin, how can anyone else provide anything but biased results? We're only human...

@ora

When someone uses the word "unbiased" I think it's fair to assume they mean beyond the intrinsic bias from which all humans suffer.

Well, you used the singular, so I wasn't sure which one you meant.

I'm certainly not in a position to do what you suggest, anyway, for a few reasons. First, I'm biased toward particle theory too, so I don't have a big problem with the physics Nobel. But plenty of people consider more applicable or other results just as important, and I don't consider their opinions absurd. Second, because I'm more into particle theory as I just said, I can't evaluate who should have won in other areas -- I've heard people discuss it and they made a case, but I just can't remember.

Easier, though, is in the particle side, the bias of theory over experiment. Again, I don't strongly disagree, but it's clearly there. If somebody predicts a phenomenon, and then somebody else designs a clever experiment to test it, the Nobel will almost always go to the former. An oft-cited egregious example is Chien-Shiung Wu.

@abge: then what can that ever mean? Yes the nobel prizes are only biased by the intrinsic human biases of the committes involved, and thus are completely unbiased.

@ora

I thought the OP meant are the prizes unduly biased by factors such as background, field, country, etc. I may be wrong though.

Theory is more difficult than experiment. I don't see the problem there.

I don't see the point in calling these awards biased. This seems to indicate something is wrong and should be fixed. So what would you like the committees to do that they are not doing?