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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Think of the Nobel prizes and you think of groundbreaking research bettering mankind, but the awards have also honoured some quite unhumanitarian inventions [phys.org] such as chemical weapons, DDT and lobotomies.

Numerous Nobel prize controversies have erupted over the years: authors who were overlooked, scientists who claimed their discovery came first, or peace prizes that divided public opinion.

But some of the science prizes appear in hindsight to be embarrassing choices by the committees.

When the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize went to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, it was perhaps a way of making up for the Nobel "war prize" it awarded to German chemist Fritz Haber in 1918.

Haber was honoured with the chemistry prize for his work on the synthesis of ammonia, which was crucial for developing fertilizers for food production.

But Haber, known as the "father of chemical warfare", also developed poisonous gases used in trench warfare in World War I at the Battle of Ypres which he supervised himself.

Alfred Nobel himself invented dynamite, so perhaps such things are woven into the DNA of the prize.

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