Poor Acemoğlu

The scientific community has also had its share of the populism in the world.

There are constant non-certified (fake) awards, and the sadness and frustration felt by those who cannot receive them.

Recently, an academic friend of mine received an award within the scope of the Köyceğiz Iztuzu Loggerhead Sea Turtle Best Scientist Awards.

He rushed to the rector's office.

He told him to put him on the podium at the academic opening ceremony.

He wanted everyone to hear about it.

No matter what the rector did, it didn't work.

Even though he couldn't answer questions like who gives this award, who is the jury, or how much the award money is, he couldn't convince his friend who received the Science Award.

The Loggerhead Sea Turtle Award-winning Great Scientist insisted on the podium.

Now, the world's most influential scientists have been ranked.

The list of the 200 most influential scientists has been announced.

Those who made it are happy, those who didn't are sad.

I am on the sad side, too.

Thinking that if we had made the ranking, we might have received a few million.

I felt like I had been rowing in vain.

The money is gone, too.

We have wasted years for nothing.

Yet, we have been grinding away in academia for years. We did more than what was asked, whether it was projects, theses, or articles.

We received budgets of millions of euros from European Union funds.

We completed dozens of projects in cooperation with many European universities and the largest firms in the industry.

Doctoral theses and master's degrees are aplenty.

The success shown by the students we have trained is an added bonus.

During this process, we also met with dear Daron quite a bit and benefited from his ideas.

In fact, I have been using his book titled "Why Nations Fail" as a mandatory textbook since the day it was first published.

It had been clear for a long time that Daron would receive an award.

Because Daron's work, just like most of ours, was attracting attention in the international arena and receiving citations.

He was being invited as a keynote speaker to serious conferences.

His books were selling quite well.

But the award he was waiting for so much just wouldn't come.

However, he was working with a very serious research team.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology was also supporting Daron as much as it could.

A Turkish academic was receiving this much support for the first time.

Professor Sancar had also received a lot of support, but the support Daron received was more organized.

Both logistical, intellectual, and technical support were at the highest level.

However, the expected award did not come this year either.

He could not make it into the list of the world's 200 most influential scientists.

Unfortunately, he had to settle for the "Nobel Prize in Economics."

Don't be sad, my dear brother Daron.

Do not lose hope.

You are still quite young.

Read my article titled "You Are Still Very Young, Baby" that I wrote recently.

Maybe it will bring some comfort to your heart.

Do not lose hope, maybe you will make it into the top 200 next year.

After all, you received the Nobel, which can be considered the first step.

But know that there are no millions of dollars like you got from the Nobel, not even a single penny, in the top 200 ranking.

It doesn't even have a registry.

And on Google, it will always be you, not them.