They've given the prize for literature to some clunkers over the years too. That doesn't mean it's meaningless, only that, like any other human institution, it's both inherently flawed and a product of the era it's operating in.
And we won't even talk about the Nobel for Dart tossing, er, Economics.
) has been awarded to Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides for their work in modeling job markets and coming up with a theory for how it is there can be both a high rate of unemployment and numerous vacancies. Incidentally, Diamond was nominated by Obama for a Federal Reserve post but as of the beginning of the current recess he was unconfirmed.