David Eide – Opinions Columnist

I’ve always been fascinated by the Nobel Conference. It’s such a major event that is entirely unique to Gustavus.  It encourages us to look at the major scientific topics of our day and consider them from multiple distinct angles while bringing together a number of experts who all have something interesting to say.  On a broader level, I think the chosen topic for each conference says a lot about the time in which the conference was held.  So, as we head towards the 58th annual Nobel Conference, Mental Health (In)Equity and Young People, I think it might be a useful exercise to look back on the history of the Nobel Conference and see what the choice of topics can say about how the past, present, and even the future, perceive the issues of the day.  

As with all things, I think the best place to start is at the beginning.  The first Nobel Conference was held in 1965, although its origins date back to 1963 with the opening of the original Nobel Hall of Science.  Gustavus had established contacts with the Nobel foundation to request permission to utilize the Nobel name for the building, after which they asked to use the name for a scientific conference as well.  Permission was granted and the Nobel Conference was born, becoming the first and so far only event in North America to officially be allowed to use the Nobel name.  Two years later the inaugural Nobel Conference, Genetics and the Future of Man, was held.  Since then, one way or another, the Nobel Conference has been held every year in late September, each one featuring a new and distinct scientific topic.

One thing I noticed right away while examining the Nobel Conferences of different decades is that generally speaking, they seem to align with the concerns prominent in those decades.  For instance, one of the themes in the 60s was human control of the environment, which was a major obsession in the 1960s with ideas like cloud seeding to counter droughts receiving major focus.  In the 70s there were back-to-back conferences discussing “The Destiny of Women” and “The Quest for Peace” which makes a lot of sense when you consider the 70s was the decade in which women’s liberation as a movement burst onto the mainstream and was also a decade consumed by the Vietnam war.  The 80s featured a conference entirely devoted to the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, which seems odd until you remember that the 80s was particularly concerned with economic theory due to Reagan’s implementation of various controversial theories like supply-side economics.  Genetics were a major focus of the conference in the late 90s, which aligns with the first ever successful cloning of an organism with Dolly the Sheep in 1996.  In the past two decades, climate change has become a major focus (for obvious reasons), with at least 3 of the last 20 or so conferences discussing some aspect of our changing climate.  Of course, this also applies to our current Nobel Conference dealing with the mental health of young people.  As I’m sure most people will know, we’ve been living through a major mental health crisis in this country for the past couple of years, one which has particularly affected young people. This has only been exacerbated by the pandemic and its disastrous consequences on the lives of young people.  Bearing this in mind, it’s clear that the pattern I’ve observed holds up even today.

Another common theme stretching throughout the various conferences was questions about the very nature of science and whether we’ve reached some major turning point in this field.  The first of these can be seen in 1975, which asks what the future of science is, a theme picked up in 1989 when the conference explored if we were witnessing the end of science (we weren’t).  These themes continue on into the 21st century with the 2001 conference asking, “What is still to be discovered?” and the 2014 conference asking “Where does science go from here?” I find this theme to be particularly interesting in its consistent appearance throughout the 60 years or so that the conference has been going on.  I think part of it speaks to a general anxiety held by much of the public, almost completely unfounded I might add, that the truly major scientific advancements have already been made and that most science now is just quibbling over details.  On a more charitable note, I think the frequency of this theme demonstrates how the liberal arts can be useful to the sciences by providing them with perspective on how their findings interact with the actual world.  It is ultimately the liberal arts who can ask and answer the question of the actual role of science in society, and to me that is one of the greatest appeals of the Nobel Conference.  It takes the findings of science, which I am very interested in, and applies a liberal arts frame of analysis which I think can produce some stellar results.