The recipients of numerous other awards, the Ehrlichs are members of a growing fraternity: scientists who receive awards endowed by individuals or families. These awards are increasing in number, and some of them exceed the Nobel Prize in monetary value, if not prestige. For example, John Marks Templeton, a global investor, annually sets the value of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion to be just above that of the Nobel Prize. Several scientists have won the Templeton Prize, including physicist Paul Davies of the University of Adelaide and geneticist and zoologist L. Charles Birch of the University of Sydney.
A PLUS: Sociologist Harriet Zuckerman says that although prizes call attention to good scientific work, the overall benefit is "not very great, but it's a net positive." According to sociologist Harriet Zuckerman, vice president of the New York-based Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a professor, emerita, of sociology at Columbia ...
