16. DECAPITATED!

What happend to the secon generation?

The day after the award to Nash was announced, according to Nasar, the Science Academy appointed an ad hoc committee to “to study the nature of the economics prize,”

The committee was to discuss at least two proposals. The first proposed that term limits be established to govern members on economic Selection Committees. Chemistry and physics prizes already had them. Why not economics as well?

A second proposal was added to the agenda at some point.

The Ninth Class is the section to which technical economists are assigned. In its crude form the ideas was that two non-economists should be found for membership in the Ninth Class for every economist elected.

The economic prize has had enemies since it began. Physicists were the first, not all of them, but a vocal minority. Social scientists, mostly sociologists and political scientists, chimed in. The most persistent critics were political, most from the Left. Periodic calls to terminate the prize went nowhere.

This initiative was different. It was designed to permit the Academy of Sciences to take control of Class Nine and channel the nature of the prize. We wouldn’t know any of this but for Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind, her biography of John Nash. Tucked away in the back of her book what she learned about Science Academy politics. The next section is based on her reporting.