More Nobels? ~ Systems Sciences & Applications

In an Open Letter to the Nobel Prize Committee, co-authors Larry Brilliant, Rodney Brooks, Peter Diamandis, Tim Hunt, David King, Lynn Margulis, Steven Pinker, Peter Raven, Frans de Waal, and E. O. Wilson propose...

1. "The creation of Nobel prizes for the Global Environment and Public Health. The new prizes would focus on applications of science rather than basic research. As with the existing peace prize, organisations would be eligible. The environment prize would recognise successes in promoting sustainability, mitigating climate change or reducing biodiversity losses. The public health prize would recognise improvements in global health, such as the reduction or eradication of disease. (We present these lists as examples; they are not intended to be complete)."
2. "The expansion of, or an addition to, the prize for physiology or medicine to recognise contributions from across the life sciences. Fields that are currently excluded, such as ecology, would become eligible. More emphasis would be placed on the rapidly expanding field of neuroscience. This could be achieved by expanding the existing prize for medicine or physiology or by the addition of new prizes for fundamental biology (including ecology, genetics and cellular, molecular and evolutionary biology) and behavioral science (including psychology and neuroscience)."

Interesting, but do these really go far enough?