Peer review

Just a few days ago, if you were to receive an SMS saying that “Barack Obama wins the Nobel prize”, you would definitely think it’s a joke. Now, who is the laughter?

Back in my life in academia, I understood a term called “peer-review”. Essentially, it means that your works will be judged by your peers after you submitting them. It sounds quite strange at first. Most of us tend to believe in “authorities” or “professionals”, but “peer” is just lack of emm… scientific ground as well as power. Later on, I got used to it and comprehend the true meaning behind. In academia, all men are equal (as almost everyone is a Ph.D) and no one could be the real authority or professional. Besides, the true spirit of research is not to believe what you have been told but to approach the axiom in your mortal life. Therefore, although there are still hierarchies in the academic world (such as big names, professors, associate professor, assistant professor, senior researcher, fresh graduate students, etc), the term “peer” sounds much elegant here.

The next question is how to get your work (say, a paper) pass a peer-review. From my understanding, there are three options:
1, your work is really good – which is possible but still how could you define good?
2, you are very famous – because famous is an alias of good.
3, you know the peers who review your work – either you know the person or you know what the person likes (to see from your work).
It sounds not tricky, isn’t it?

Now let’s turn to the beginning and look at the question – what have Obama done to be awarded the Nobel peace prize, (unless you really think he deserves the prize despite that even the US government think otherwise). Not tricky, the key is the “peers”. The award selection committee is composed of five Norwegians appointed by the Norwegian parliament. Their representativeness is like five politician from a mid-sized county in a mid-sized province in China. Without any disrespect, Mr. Obama is a very peaceful say-much-do-nothing person. In this case, I guess it falls into the 2nd "very famous" category for his Norwegian fans.

For more informaiton about the fellowship of the Obama's peers:
The chairperson is a guy named Jagland who had featured in a televised breast-grabbing incident 11 years ago. The other four include a left-inclined ex-prime minister, a current member of the Labor Party, an environmentally-concerned socialist, a former conservative parliamentarian turned serial board member and a member of an anti-immigration party. This isn't an exciting bunch of peers, I'd say. I have to be wondering what kind of peace they have in their mind. Anyway, the result has been announced, and memorized.