>Wait, are you implying that popular culture is bad? Should we simply not have popular culture?

No, but probably not the best way to run science, academics, medicine, long-term civil projects, etc.

Well, Nobel Prizes aren't exactly "how we run science, medicine, etc." But perhaps you could argue that chasing Nobel Prizes is a counterproductively strong incentive in those fields (I have no idea if that is the case).