Thomson Scientific still trying to predict the Nobel Prizes

Over the last couple of years (here, here, here), I've been razzing Thomson Scientific about their lame attempts to predict the science & economics Nobel Prizes. Last year, they predicted every single prize incorrectly.

Well, they're at it again. I won't go into detail again how misguided I think their attempts are to use their citation counts to predict the outcome of the prizes. However, I will list their predictions for this year so I can once again point to them as the prizes are awarded to show how useless something like citation counts can be for this kind of purpose.

Here goes.

Chemistry

• Charles M. Lieber
  
• Krzysztof (Kris) Matyjaszewski
  
• Roger Y. Tsien
  

Economics

• Lars P. Hansen and Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims
  
• Martin S. Feldstein
  
• Armen A. Alchian and Harold Demsetz
  

Physics

• Andre K. Geim and Kostya Novoselov
  
• Vera C. Rubin
  
• Sir Roger Penrose and Dan Shechtman
  

Physiology or Medicine

• Shizuo Akira and Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann
  
• Victor R. Ambros and Gary Ruvkun
  
• Rory Collins and Sir Richard Peto
  

So, let's see how they do this year. I predict about the same as previous years, in other words, pretty random. Some of the people they pick based on citation counts will be picked in the year Thomson guesses, some won't. Some will get picked in a later year. It's interesting, as a way a hedging their bets Thomson lists some of the previous years' "citation laureates" at the bottom of the page.

Once again, I would also like to emphasize that I have nothing against the scholars whom Thomson has "nominated" and wish them well. I certainly don't mean to cast a negative light on their contributions at all. My beef is not with them, but with Thomson's misuse of their citation data.