Claim: Arabs “Don’t Win” the Nobel Prize, Fields Prize or Wolf Prize

Verdict: False and misleading

“There's 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don't produce science. They don't win the Nobel Prize, they don't win the Fields Prize, they don't win the Wolf prize. They don't produce literature”

– RFK Jr.

Robert F Kennedy Jr. says Arabs don’t produce science or literature

RFK Jr. took to the stage at a republican campaign event this week and used his time in the spotlight to claim that Arabs – that is, the huge number of people falling into this ethnic and linguistic group – make no substantial contribution to science.

Most of the response to these comments has focused on the inherent prejudice many people see in his comments. But putting that aside for a moment: is it even true?  

The Most Recent Counter-Example

To evaluate his claim, all that’s needed is a brief look at past Nobel Prize winners. While AP’s “Fact Check” [2] covered many examples, a lot of these are Peace Prize winners, which doesn’t really address the meat of Kennedy’s claim. He is talking about science. So how far do we have to go back to find a solid counter-example?

Only to the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Palestinian-Jordanian chemist Omar Yaghi won the prize along with two other researchers for his work on metal-organic frameworks. These are molecular structures, designed so there are multiple cavities inside a crystalline framework, which can be used to store specific substances. Moreover, Yaghi won the Wolf Prize in 2018 for the same work.

Older Examples

And Yaghi isn’t the only one. Ardem Patapoutian, a Lebanese-Armenian raised in Beirut, won the Medicine Prize in 2021 for discovering the receptors for temperature and touch. And Ahmed Zewail, an Egyptian-American (raised in Egypt) won the 1999 Chemistry Prize for his work with femtosecond spectroscopy.

The Grain of Truth – and the Nature of the Falsehood

There is a grain of truth in RFK Jr.’s statement, but a small one: nobody seems to have won the Fields Medal with citizenship in an Arab-majority country.

But searching for counter-examples almost misses the point. Think about this: did RFK Jr. look at the facts before making this statement? Clearly not. And he went even further with his claims. Why suggest Arabs don’t “produce science” or “produce literature”? There are not many reasons someone would make much an absurd statement. I’ll leave it to the reader to choose the most appropriate.