21 new windfall recipients here. As I noted five years ago, the awards "used to be known [in the 1980s] as the 'genius' awards until it became obvious that wasn't the selection criterion! What is the selection criterion? No one is really sure." Nomination occurs through a secret process, as does selection. It's clear that being an academically or otherwise accomplished minority is an advantage (this year is fairly typical, with two-thirds of those recognized being racial or ethnic minorities), but beyond that, I still could not tell you what the criteria are. Has anyone studied what these awards have accomplished? Has all this money (by now, hundreds of millions of dollars) done anything useful for the world, other than provide a windfall for its recipients? I don't know, but I hope the MacArthur Foundation does.
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