VIBRANT AMERICA – AT 8:27 A.M. ET:  The decline of the United States is periodically announced, primarily by smug "scholars" in our universities and political analysts with time on their hands.

But an announcement in Stockholm just informed us that two more Americans have won Nobel Prizes, this time in economics.  They are Alvin E. Roth of Harvard and Lloyd S. Shapley of UCLA.  They join Americans Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka, who won in chemistry; and David Wineland, who shared the prize in physics. 

That is five Nobel Prizes in one year for this country, and they are among the "serious" Nobels, the ones in the sciences and economics. 

The Nobel Peace Prize, which is not serious, and is not given in Sweden, but in Norway, was awarded to the European Union, whose contribution to peace I fail to comprehend.  But the Nobel for peace was given to Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and to Barack Obama, two days after he took office.  Only the recipients take it seriously.

We have every right to be proud of the remarkable American record among the serious Nobels.  While there have been troubling developments in the social sciences and humanities within the American educational system, the sciences remain strong.  That is something we should safeguard, for humanity's future may depend on it.

October 15,  2012