Citations:Nobel disease

Noun: "(humorous or derogatory) the tendency of some Nobel laureates to advance pseudoscientific or fringe ideas..."

 * 2012, Robert Carroll, Unnatural Acts: Critical Thinking, Skepticism, and Science Exposed!, page 196:
 * Medical doctor, cancer specialist, and blogger (ScienceBased Medicine and Respectful Insolence) David Gorski wrote of “the Nobel disease,” which he defined as “a tendency among Nobel Prize recipients in science to become enamored of strange ideas or even outright pseudoscience in their later years."
 * 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, 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.
 * 2020, Candice Basterfield, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Shauna M. Bowes, & Thomas H. Costello, "The Nobel Disease: When Intelligence Fails to Protect against Irrationality", Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 44, Number 3, May/June 2020:
 * To do so, we draw on case studies of several Nobel-winning scientists who appear to have succumbed to the Nobel Disease.
 * 2020, Jonathan M. Berman, Anti-Vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement, page 236:
 * The phenomenon of Nobel Prize winners endorsing various crank ideas is so common that it has received a name: "Nobel Disease." Over the years, Nobel Prize winners have supported or endorsed psychic mediums, Nazi racial theories, beliefs in ESP and paranormal phenomena,
 * 2020, Paul Goodwin, Something Doesn’t Add Up: Surviving Statistics in a Number-Mad World, unnumbered page:
 * It's claimed that there is a phenomenon called 'Nobel disease ' that afflicts former winners of the world's most prestigious science awards. There are numerous examples of people who, after reaching the pinnacle of scientific discovery, spent the later part of their careers believing in bizarre things, despite the weight of contrary evidence.

Noun: "(humorous or derogatory) the inability of a Nobel laureate to replicate their past success"

 * 2003, Henry F. Schaefer, Science and Christianity: Conflict Or Coherence?, page 116:
 * The “Nobel Disease” is a crude allusion to the inability of a few prize winners to press on with original scientific research after making the trip to Stockholm to receive science's highest accolade.
 * 2009, Graham Farmelo, The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius, page 256:
 * The impasse in quantum electrodynamics appears to have sapped his morale: he may have feared that he had fallen victim to the alleged 'Nobel disease ', said to prevent prize-winners from repeating the quality of their best work after their return from Stockholm.

Noun: "(humorous or derogatory) an overriding or obsessive desire to win a Nobel Prize"

 * 1993, John Horgan, "Perpendicular to the Mainstream", Scientific American, August 1993, page 16:
 * He insists he has no regrets about not receiving the Nobel Prize, which Schwinger and Feynman shared in 1965 with the Japanese physicist Sin-ltiro Tomonaga (who had derived the theory independently). "I suppose I’m lucky I never succumbed to this Nobel disease that many of my friends seem to have suffered from,” he says. “It certainly never played a role in motivating me.”