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<p>That’s an interesting assertion, at least regarding Harvard, as I believe Harvard actually has more Science Nobel Laureates than MIT does. Harvard’s science departments are generally ranked equivalently to MIT’s. To be sure, MIT outclasses Harvard in certain science specialties, but vice versa also holds. I see no evidence of any clear edge that MIT holds over Harvard in the sciences.</p>
<p>“I believe Harvard actually has more Science Nobel Laureates than MIT does.”</p>
<p>Historically yes, but not recently. When removing those deceased and retired Nobel laureates, Harvard has only two at the moment (Sen for economics and Szostak for medicine), while MIT has nine (Horvtiz, Sharp, Tonegawa, Ting, Wilczek, Ketterle, Shrock, Merton, Diamond) and all for hard sicence except Diamond (economics). But I agree, in general, MIT, Harvard, UCB and Stanford, are equal in most fields of science. It is quite a hair splitting to say which one is better because each school has some top guys in certain subfields. However, it is fair to say that MIT has a better engineering school than Harvard, and Harvard has a better humanity school that MIT (except linguistics and economics).</p>
<p>In terms of hard core science, I think that Caltech might be the best in terms of productivity and achievement per faculty. Five nobels and and 71 NAS members out of 200 faculty members. Only Rockefeller university is better than that. Size of Rockefeller university is less than a department in Harvard or MIT.</p>
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<p>Merton also won his Nobel in economics, specifically for finance theory. Whatever else you may want to say about the field of finance, I think nobody would seriously assert it to being a hard science.</p>
<p>Roy Glauber is still an active faculty member at Harvard. Elias Corey, Dudley Herschbach, Walter Gilbert and David Hubel have reverted to emeritus, but are still active members of the community.</p>