What Decline?

Editor`s Note: This rerun of the July 15, 2011 editorial in Cedar Key News is reinforced by the October 2011 announcements of this year`s Nobel Prize winners. Three Americans share the Physics Prize and an American shared the Physiology and Medicine Prize with men from Luxembourg and Canada.

In recent months there has been a crescendo of moaning about the decline of America. Politics aside, predictions of the end of the world may be a symptom of senility in those doing the moaning. Let us look at a longstanding measure of progress, namely the Nobel Prize and the nationalities of the prize winners.

Founded in 1901, the prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace were seldom given to Americans in the first twenty-nine years that awards were given. Recognition of Americans blossomed in the 1930`s. Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O`Neil and Pearl Buck received awards in Literature. Four other Americans received Nobel Prizes.

Over the one hundred ten years that the Nobel Prizes have been awarded Americans have won three hundred twenty-six prizes, two hundred forty-nine in the past fifty years. That is nearly three times the closest competitor, the United Kingdom. Germany, France and Japan trail far behind.

As for the decline of America, in the 1980`s Americans took home forty-eight prizes. In the 1990`s Americans won fifty-one prizes, but in the past decade sixty-six Americans were honored. Prizes in Literature, Economics and Literature abound. Americans continue to lead in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine.

At this beginning of the twenty-first century, the world faces terrorism, epidemics and nuclear disasters. But we cannot accept fear-monger`s claims of decline by the leaders of the scientific, literary and diplomatic communities. We Americans are leaders, and must continue to lead.