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  3. The US$3-million Fundamental Physics Prize is indeed an interesting experiment, as Alexander Polyakov said when he accepted this

The US$3-million Fundamental Physics Prize is indeed an interesting experiment, as Alexander Polyakov said when he accepted this

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问题    The US$3-million Fundamental Physics Prize is indeed an interesting experiment, as Alexander Polyakov said when he accepted this year’s award in March. And it is far from the only one of its type. As a News Feature article in Nature discusses, a string of lucrative awards for researchers have joined the Nobel Prizes in recent years. Many, like the Fundamental Physics Prize, are funded from the telephone-number-sized bank accounts of Internet entrepreneurs. These benefactors have succeeded in their chosen fields, they say, and they want to use their wealth to draw attention to those who have succeeded in science.
   What’s not to like? Quite a lot, according to a handful of scientists quoted in the News Feature. You cannot buy class, as the old saying goes, and these upstart entrepreneurs cannot buy their prizes the prestige of the Nobels. The new awards are an exercise in self-promotion for those behind them, say scientists. They could distort the achievement-based system of peer-review-led research. They could cement the status quo of peer-reviewed research. They do not fund peer-reviewed research. They perpetuate the myth of the lone genius.
   The goals of the prize-givers seem as scattered as the criticism. Some want to shock, others to draw people into science, or to better reward those who have made their careers in research. As Nature has pointed out before, there are some legitimate concerns about how science prizes — both new and old — are distributed. The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, launched this year, takes an unrepresentative view of what the life sciences include. But the Nobel Foundation’s limit of three recipients per prize, each of whom must still be living, has long been outgrown by the collaborative nature of modern research — as will be demonstrated by the inevitable row over who is ignored when it comes to acknowledging the discovery of the Higgs boson. The Nobels were, of Course, themselves set up by a very rich individual who had decided what he wanted to do with his own money. Time, rather than intention, has given them legitimacy.
   As much as some scientists may complain about the new awards, two things seem clear. First, most researchers would accept such a prize if they were offered one. Second, it is surely a good thing that the money and attention come to science rather than go elsewhere. It is fair to criticize and question the mechanism — that is the culture of research, after all — but it is the prize-givers’ money to do with as they please. It is wise to take such gifts with gratitude and grace.
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答案 奖金高达300万美元的“基础物理学奖”确实是一个有趣的实验，今年三月，亚历山大-波利亚科夫在接受该奖项时如是说。这样的奖项并不唯一，类似的还有不少。正如《自然》杂志“新闻特写”专栏所述，近年来涌现了一批奖金丰厚的新奖项，这些奖项和诺贝尔奖一样都是为研究人员设立的。很多奖项的资金，跟基础物理学奖一样，都来自互联网企业家那些拥有巨额存款的银行账户。这些奖项捐助人说，他们在各自的领域取得了成功，因此他们想用自己的财富来吸引人们注意那些在科学上同样取得成就的人。 有什么理由不喜欢这些新奖项呢?用“新闻特写”专栏引用的几个科学家的话来回答——很多。正如老话所说，有钱难买贵族身。这些新贵企业家同样不能为自己设立的奖项买来像诺贝尔奖一样的声望。科学家们认为这些新奖项只是幕后的奖项设立者用来自我宣传的工具。他们会扭曲同行评价主导型研究的基于成就的体系。他们会僵化同行评价型研究的现状。他们不为同行评价型研究提供资金。他们使“孤独的天才”这个神话得以长存。 奖项设立者的目的看起来似乎和批评声一样多样化。一些设立者想要震惊世人，其他人则希望吸引人们进入科学的殿堂或更好地奖赏那些在科研中已创下了一番事业的人。 正如《自然》杂志曾经指出的那样，一些关于新老科学奖项如何颁发的担忧是合理的。今年设立的“生命科学突破奖”在生命科学的范畴上就采取了非常规的观点。然而，诺贝尔基金会限制每个奖项的受领者为3人以内，且每个人都必须在世，这早已不适用于具有合作性质的现代研究。这一点会在以下事例中得到证明：当要奖励发现希格斯玻色子(Higgs boson)的一群科学家时，就不可避免地会争论“谁被忽略了”这个问题。当然，诺贝尔诸奖本身也是由已然想好如何处置自己金钱的非常富有的人设立的。这些奖项的合理性由时间而非奖项设立者的意图所赋予。 尽管一些科学家可能会抱怨这些新奖项，但有两点是显然的。第一，如果获奖，大部分研究人员都会接受。第二，财力和关注都投入到科学界而非其他地方，这确实是一件好事。批评和质疑这一机制是合理的——毕竟这就是科研文化——但这是奖项设立者的钱，用于何种用途完全取决于他们的意愿。明智的做法是心怀感激，有风度地接受这些奖金。
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