DURING the Olympic Games in Sydney last year, Japan went crazy in the
going-for-gold stakes. The country’s sports authority went so far as to set an
unofficial target of eight gold medals for its athletes to meet. Understandable
up to a point: despite the Olympian ideal, these are still games, and the point
is to win.
Unfortunately, the same attitude now seems to be pervading scientific
research. Nobel prizes have become so important to Japanese prestige that the
government plans deliberately to collect them. It has set a target of 30 over
the next 50 years as against the 6…
