Is anyone who was on the committee in 1973 still on the committee?
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.
Nobels 2010
The Nobel prize in economics (aka dart-tossing ) 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.
When you can do nothing what can you do?