When Can a Filipino Win a Nobel Prize?

Statistically Speaking v.2.0

By Romulo A. Virola [E1]

Since the Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901, no Filipino has won the Nobel Prize for individual achievement.

Carlos P. Romulo was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952, “for his contribution in international cooperation, in particular on questions on undeveloped areas, and as president for the UN’s 4th General Assembly” but did not win. [E2]

Former President Cory Aquino was likewise nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for her role in the “people-power revolution” that drove Ferdinand Marcos into exile in February 1986. Norwegian member of Parliament Liv Aasen nominated President Cory because she has “chosen political dialogue instead of military confrontation” as a means of solving political conflict.[E3] Cory received about 20 nominations, more than anyone else that year, and most observers believed she would win but did not [E4]. The Nobel Prize has not been without controversy, of course, and non Nobel Peace Prize winners included, would you believe, Mahatma Gandhi, John Paul II, and John F. Kennedy?

But in 2007, Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin won the Nobel Peace prize as part of a team of climate scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”. The IPCC won it jointly with former US Vice President Al Gore. Fr. Villarin is a Filipino Jesuit priest and scientist who served as the 30th president of the Ateneo de Manila University [E5].

The Nobel Prize [E6] was created through the last will of Alfred Nobel, an accomplished Swedish inventor. The Nobel Prize recognizes significant contributions to the advancement in the fields of, originally, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Medicine and Peace, until Economics was introduced after the Central Bank of Sweden made a donation to the Nobel Foundation.

Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has recognized more than 1100 individuals and groups. The first multiple recipient of the Nobel Prize was Marie Curie, a Polish-born and naturalized-French physicist and chemist famous for her work on radiation. Madame Curie was a heroine to science students of our generation, and received prizes in two different categories: Physics in 1903, and Chemistry in 1911. Madame Curie’s husband Pierre, and daughter Irene were also Nobel Prize winners. [E7] But, the highest number of recognitions has been given to the Red Cross which has received the Peace prize three times.

In this post, I would like to highlight the countries which has produced the most number of Nobel Laureates. I believe it is a testimony to the importance that their societies attach to the pursuit of knowledge and the promotion of world peace for the advancement of mankind. It could also be that their citizens have nobler aspirations in life, loftier most probably, than being powerful but corrupt politicians!

So which countries have produced the most number of Nobel Laureates?

In absolute terms, the U.S.A. is tops with 383, the majority of which are in Physics. In fact, the only Nobel Prize category in which the USA does not lead is Literature, for which France has won more than any other country. Some of us may not like some US presidents, but do we need to wonder why America is the mightiest?

Table 1 shows the top ten countries and the number of times they won:

The five most populous countries namely, China, India, USA, Pakistan, and Brazil, with a share of 45.9% of the world’s total population [E8] and 46.4% of the world’s total GDP have a share of 35.3% of the Nobel Laureates. Excluding USA, the 4 most populous countries with a share of 41.6% of the world’s population have a share of only 1.8% of the Nobel Laureates. Such inequitable distribution, even in the Nobel Prize!

In terms of number of Nobel Laureates per million population, the top countries are shown in Table 2.

Among the top 14 countries in Table 2, four have a population of less that 1 million, namely, Faroe Islands, Saint Lucia, Luxembourg, and Iceland. Four countries are also in the top ten countries in terms of absolute number of Nobel Laureates: United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria. Worth noting is the inclusion of Timor Leste. But outstandingly amazing is the inclusion of 4 out of 5 Nordic countries ( Finland is the exception, although it still has the 21st highest no. of Nobel Laureates per million population) as well as the Faroe Islands within the Kingdom of Denmark. Maybe our politicians, if they must travel and unconscionably spend taxpayers’ money, instead of going to Las Vegas to possibly watch some boxing matches, should observe how governance is practiced in these Nordic countries, and learn from their national development models?

The Faroe or Faeroe Islands are located 320 kilometers north-northwest of Scotland and about halfway between Norway and Iceland. It is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Saint Lucia is in the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. [E9]

Among the ASEAN Member States (AMS), only Vietnam [E10] and Myanmar [E11], with a share of 22.8% of the 2019 ASEAN population [E8] and 10.4 % of ASEAN GDP in 2019 [E12], have won a Nobel Prize. Quite ironic that the citizens of the more economically developed AMS have not won the Nobel. Maybe it is worth asking why?

Congratulations, indeed, to the countries which have produced the most number of Nobel Laureates.

With the onset of Advent, we dare muster the audacity to hope that our younger generation of Pinoys will be inspired enough in their individual lines of work to finally give our beloved country a Nobel Prize in the near future! Challenge?

Reactions may be emailed to ravirola@yahoo.com or sent via Facebook.

Endnotes:

[E1]: Romulo A. Virola is formerly with the Actuarial Research and Development Group of the GSIS, and a former Professorial Lecturer in the Graduate Programs of the Statistical Center/School of Statistics and the Department of Mathematics (now the Institute of Mathematics) of the University of the Philippines . He retired in 2012 as Secretary General of the then National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) of the Philippines or NSCB (now part of the Philippine Statistics Authority). He finished his BS (Mathematics) from UP, and MS (Actuarial Mathematics), MA (Statistics), and PhD (Statistics) from the University of Michigan, where he was a Fellow in its Sampling Program for Foreign Statisticians under the late Prof. Leslie Kish, author of the pioneering “Survey Sampling”, considered by many as the bible in the field. He used to write/co-write the Statistically Speaking articles posted on the NSCB website from 2004 until his retirement. The author thanks his former colleagues in the National Statistical System (NSS) of the Philippines particularly from the NSCB, Jay Mendoza of IOM, UN Migration Agency and some FB adviser-friends for the assistance and support in sustaining the preparation of posts for the Statistically Speaking v.2.0.

[E2]: https://www.rappler.com/ [Analysis] Leila de Lima and the Nobel Peace Prize, by Tony La Viña, Oct 11, 2018

[E3]: https://www.latimes.com/ January 16, 1987

[E4]: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/#nt=mastheadnavbar , Oct 11, 1987

[E5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Ramon_Villarin

[E6]: https://www.worldatlas.com/

[E7]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/

[E8]: http://databank.worldbank.org/data/home.aspx

[E9]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

[E10]: Lê Đức Thọ from North Vietnam and Henry Kissinger were jointly awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize. But Mr. Tho declined the prize, refusing to share it with US Secretary of State Kissinger who he called “a horse trader”.

[E11]: Timor Leste (East Timor) has two Nobel Laureates, Former President José Ramos-Horta and Roman Catholic bishop Ximenes Belo who were jointly awarded the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, but it is not yet a member of ASEAN.

[E12]: https://data.aseanstats.org/ ; GDP in current prices in US$