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方舟子关于中国学术腐败演讲的英文纲要
2001年11月我在加州大学圣地亚哥分校做了题为《以“科学”和“爱国”
的名义——学术腐败在中国》的演讲，国外一家学术刊物的编辑听说后来函索
要有关的英文资料和演讲纲要。我根据其要求概要地写了一份。后来又有多名
美国大学的教授来索要，这些教授有的是搞中国研究的，有的是搞科学传播的，
有的则是从事生命科学研究，从其中国学生那里知道有这个演讲后感兴趣，但
又不懂或不大懂中文，看不了中文演讲稿。我也都把这份英文纲要转给他们。
直到前天，还有一名社会医学系的教授来要，使我想到还不如把这份英文纲要
公开。由于这份英文纲要实际上是一封回信，写得很随意，没有很好地组织，
里面大概也有些语法错误，不过意思应该还是表达得很清楚，不想改了。
The Corruption of Chinese Scientific Community
by Shi-min Fang aka Fang Zhouzi
Ph.D. in Biochemistry
(smfang@yahoo.com)
All of materials I have are in Chinese, except a _Science_ report
about me (CHINA: Biochemist Wages Online War Against Ethical Lapses,
Issue of 10 Aug 2001, p. 1039.). You might want to check it out to
learn some background about me. It's generally a good report. But
it only focuses one of many cases I have exposed, "Nucleic Acids
nutrition" scheme. It also failed to mention that many Chinese
biochemists (not just a professor) are involved in this scheme. After
I exposed this scheme, they, hired by a manufacturer of "Nucleic Acids
nutrition product", held a "conference" and a "hearing" to defend
the "nutritional value" of Nucleic Acids. It's a shame of Chinese
biochemistry. Because of this incident, Academician C.L. Tsou,
the most respected Chinese biochemist and the outgoing president
of Chinese Society of Biochemistry, recently proposed to ban any
member of the Society to use the name of the Society to promote
commercial products. This proposal was passed in the annual meeting
of the Society. Prof. Tsou is one of my supporters. If you would like
to contact Prof. Tsou, let me know.
The title of my speech at UC-San Diego is _In the Name of "Science"
and "Patriotism": the Corruption of Chinese Scientific Community_.
(During this year I also gave similar speeches at Harvard University,
University of Science and Technology of China, Xiamen University,
the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Science, and the Graduate
School of Chinese Academy of Social Science. The speech at UC-San
Diego was the last one). I use this title because the most striking
feature of scientific misconducts in China is using "patriotism"
as its mask. The industry of false health products is called "Chinese
national industry", and several newspapers commented that my attack
on health fraud is part of international conspiracy to destroy Chinese
national industry, so American companies can occupy Chinese market.
Those cheating scientists, particularly those returned from oversea,
always paint themselves as patriots, and sometimes were hailed as
national heroes and models of Chinese scientists.
Since last year, we have investigated and exposed dozens of scientific
corruptions happened in China. They can be divided into four categories:
1) Commercial schemes promoted as new scientific developments and
involved scientists, for instance, health fraud and "nano-products".
You can find many types of products in Chinese market claiming using
nano-technology, such as "nano-washing machine", "nano-refrigerator",
"nano-clothing", "nano-water", "nano-necktie", etc, supported by
scientists. It is said that China is leading in the development of
nano-technology and products in the world, and is entering the "nano-age".
2) fabricated academic identity and achievement. I can show three
examples:
a) YANG Chiming, a professor of Dept. of Chemistry at Nankai University,
Tianjin, claims he was the director of Institute of Life Science
and Health of UC-San Diego. UC-San Diego never has this institute. The
record of San Diego County government shows that "Life Science
and Health" is a fititious business name registered by YANG Chiming
in 1998.
b) Recently CCTV (Chinese central TV station) and several major Chinese
newspapers reported the achievement of a medical officer, Dr. XUE Yi.
The People's Liberation Army Daily praised he is a patriotic model soldier,
and asked all PLA soilders should learn from him. Dr. Xue claimed that
when he was studing in University of Zurich as a postdoc, he produced 6
papers in less than one year. His advisor, Dr.Bernhard Guggenheim, was
so impressed by his extraordinary achievement that offered him to stay
with a big salary (equal to about US $90k per year). Dr. Xue refused,
said his homeland needs him, so he should return. Dr. Guggenheim was moved
by his integrity and patriotism, and held a big party to send him back.
However, when we checked Dr. Xue's publication record, we found he only
published one paper which he was the 5th co-author. We contacted Dr.
Guggenheim. Here is his reply:
"Thank you for your information. The story told by Dr. Xue has been
created from a sick mind. There is absolutely no truth in it. On the
contrary, Dr. Xue was a very weak collaborator. His name appears on
one publication (Wyss, C., F. E. Dewhirst, et al. 2001. "Treponema
parvum sp. nov., a small, glucuronic or galacturonic acid-dependent
oral spirochaete from lesions of human periodontitis and acute
necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis." International Journal of
Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 51: 955-962) only. As Dr.
Xue was not able to contribute to the laboratory, we did send him
back to China to collect clinical samples. I believe that he did this
job alright. This is the reason why he is a co-author of this one
paper."
c) Dr. CHEN Zhu, the academician and the Vice-President of Chinese
Academy of Science, also made similar extraordinary claims many times
during past several years, in fact, is more extraordinary than Dr. Xue.
He claimed that in 1991, when he was on a short term (3 months) visit
at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, he completed 3 papers.
His advisor, Professor Waxman called Chen's three papers "the pride
of our lab" and asked him to stay with big salary. He declined the
offer because he loves his homeland and wanted to return. However, his
publication record can not support his extraordinary claim. He was
called by Chinese media as a most hopeful candidate for Nobel prize.
3) Plagiarism. Plagiarizing foreign papers is a common practice in
China. We have exposed several cases. The most startling one is involved
YANG Jingan, a professor and the director of Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory at Hefei Industry University. Dr. Ronen Basri of Weizmann
Institute, Israel, informed us that one of his papers was plagiarized by
Prof. Yang. Our investigation found that Prof. Yang at least plagiarized
five foreign papers, word by word, figure by figure. Three of them were
copied and published in English (i.e., completely identical), and two
were translated into Chinese. If you want to contact Dr. Basri, let me
know.
4) Forging data. We have collected many lines of evidence to show that "the
number one scientific achievement of China in 1997", the physical map of
rice genome published by Prof. HONG Guofan group, contains serious errors,
and is a fake and useless map. Prof. Hong was elected as an academician
in 1997 because of this achievement. It has been discredited by international
science community since as early as 1997. Recently we exposed this case,
and Chen Zhu, the Vice-president of Chinese Academy of Science, lied to
the media. He presented a non-existing evidence to cover it up. I think
this is one of biggest scandals in Chinese science.
Why is the corruption so widely spread in Chinese scientific community ?
First of all, credential scientific and educational institutes in China
are not independent organizations, but all are part of bureaucratic system.
All of leaders in these institutes are government officials, even the
academician is the government official: equal to Vice-Minister. Because
the bureaucracy in China has been seriously corrupted, the corruption of
scientific community is unavoidable.
Secondly, capitalism has destroyed the conscience of Chinese science. The
scientific spirit can still be found in those older and retired generation
Chinese scientists (70s year-old or above, such as Prof. Tsou), but has
largely lost in younger and active generation (40-50s or younger). The
majority of active Chinese scientists, like the majority of contemporary
Chinese society, are seeking power and profit without morality.
Third, China does not have free press. Very few scientific misconduct
can be independently investigated and exposed, while the government
tries to cover it up. Even if there is an official investigation, the
result is rarely reported to the public.
Fourth, China does not have an official channel to report, investigate
and punish the scientific misconducts. Therefore the cheaters don't have
to worry they will someday be caught and punished. Very few scientific
misconduct cases were exposed through official channel, and fewer the
cheaters were punished. None of cheaters we exposed have received any
punishment, except the frequent plagiarizaer, Prof. Yang Jingan, was
recently expelled from Chinese Community Party.
Although my personal crusade against the corruption of Chinese science
has caused a lot of controvercies and has made impact in Chinese
scientific community, I don't think the situation can be substantially
changed without a more formal and organized watchdog. I believe China
should set up a national organization to investigate scientific misconducts.
But if this is a government office, it itself will probably also corrupt
and won't function properly. If it is an unofficial organization consisted
of respected older generation scientists, it will probably be considered
as illegal in China, as well as won't have resource to support its activity.
This is a paradox that is hard to solve.
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