9 ms·

China: The Rapid Rise of a Research Nation

18 points by hownottowrite 11y ago

anonymousDan 11y ago
Good news for humanity as having more of China's resources devoted to research can only increase the pace of innovation worldwide.
- pzone 11y ago
  Yeah, this "us-vs-them" tribal nonsense is seriously pointless in the realm of scientific research. I want to have stuff made of futuristic new materials due to innovation in chemistry and live to 120 due to innovation in biology and medicine. I couldn't give two shits whether the papers leading to these advancements were published by Chinese or US scientists.
  - tw04 11y ago
    Then we probably need to find a better method than trademarks and copyrights to allow companies to make money so the entire world can actually enjoy the new discoveries.
frozenport 11y ago
We had visiting scholars from some of China's best institutions, they didn't know what a Fourier transform was. They couldn't write MATLAB because they always had somebody else do it for them. I would like to see these claims motivated by statistics from the Nature Publishing Group's journals.
- golergka 11y ago
  What field? Signal processing or psychology?
- nl 11y ago
  OTOH, we have a regular internship program and we get a lot of Chinese students. There is a big variety of course, but the best are very, very good. I find it difficult to believe that a graduate of Tsinghua or Peking wouldn't know what a Fourier transform was assuming they did a course where they learnt that?
  - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
    Tsinghua and PKU undergraduates > grad students (in general, not necessarily). The problem is that most of the undergraduates go abroad for grad studies, so they get grad students mostly from 2nd tier schools. Now, China is large, and there are still a lot of good students for grad studies, but the best are already gone. China is also EXTREMELY hierarchical. So, it is quite possible that a scholar (researcher, professor) with a very strong CV isn't doing much of the real work at all, instead it is pawned off to undergrad and grad students.
    - coolswan 11y ago
      basically how US academia works. professors don't do the programming themselves. that's what graduate students are for.
      - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
        No. Professors in the US generally spend lots of time managing their grad students and guiding their research, but not saying "here is my idea, go make it work;" they might help with writing papers and that is about it (also, I know many professors that still write their own code for their own ideas, and limit their advising student counts to do that). In China, you'll often have one professor for around 50 students with three tiers (undergrads, masters/entry PhD/high-level PhDs). So not only is the professor not programming, but neither is the upper-level PhD student! Everything is just eventually being done by undergrads who will ship off to the states/west anyways. On top of this many professors are often basically running sweatshops for their side businesses (since their university provided salary can be around 10K RMB/month).
  - 11y ago
- Captain_Usher 11y ago
  This makes no sense. I have an American degree and I've heard the phrase "Fourier transform" before, but I couldn't have possibly told you anything about it until I googled it just now. I wouldn't have expected any random Chinese academic to know either, no matter how good their institution was. I write software in a variety of languages every day at my full-time job, and while I've seen MATLAB code and could certainly teach myself to write it, I wouldn't bother if I could just have somebody else do it. Why would you expect some arbitrary group of Chinese scholars to share very specific skills and knowledge? If you gathered up a gaggle of researchers from anywhere else, you'd have to get pretty lucky to land a group where everybody was familiar with both one specific area of mathematics and one specific programming language.
  - 67726e 11y ago
    Maybe take the charitable view that these visiting academics were in a field where this is surprising and expected knowledge. I don't get the feeling these were English majors.
  - greggarious 11y ago
    The fact he mentions this and MATLAB makes me think he's in the field of electrical engineering, where FTs are something you definitely need to understand.
- whazor 11y ago
  My experience is that Chinese are very hard working. Their mathematics background is normally quite good, but they only know the Chinese names... Try going to the English wiki page of for example a Fourier transform, then click on the Chinese version.
- kaybe 11y ago
  Which field are you in?
- tokenadult 11y ago
  We had visiting scholars from some of China's best institutions Which Chinese institutions, studying what subject? And, for that matter, who is "we" here? Is your institution a top destination for overseas visits by Chinese scholars? I would like to see these claims motivated by statistics from the Nature Publishing Group's journals. Mentioning Nature (the place of publication of the thread-opening commentary) is worthwhile. It appears that Nature has had some submissions from China recently that have had to be withdrawn because the peer review process was compromised.[1] [1] "'Compromised' peer review hits three papers from Nature Publishing Group" (18 December 2015) http://retractionwatch.com/2015/12/18/compromised-peer-review-hits-three-papers-from-nature-publishing-group/ http://retractionwatch.com/2015/12/18/compromised-peer-revie...
Htsthbjig 11y ago
I believe the Chinese culture is the antithesis of innovation, they are masters at following procedures, not at breaking the mold. I had to train Chinese people myself in China, and I don't know if you can innovate in the sciences without first innovating in the political arena. You have to change the mind of most Chinese and this takes generations. I mean, if someone is intelligent enough to solve very hard problems, it is intelligent enough to know they first have to remove the chumps in power who makes bad decisions. There are lots of chumps in power in China. Chinese educated in Canada, Europe or USA could improve the research done in China, but this people is equally dangerous to people in power. When I was there, it was the beginning of the Chinese bubble, everybody was happy because everything, while bad, was improving. When times get tough, we will see.
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  There are always some free thinkers that make it through any repressive system, if just by accident. China has a lot of talent, so we just need a bit of chance that someone creative can get through. You will find pockets of creativity everywhere in China. Chinese culture does emphasize group innovation more than individual innovation/invention. This leads to very different results, taking the edge/risk off many ideas (as any consensus driving process would). But it isn't really limited by that, you can always get away with more as long as no one is watching closely.
  - vorg 11y ago
    > you can always get away with more as long as no one is watching closely In China everyone's being watched and listened to. Foreigners like me are being watched closely, and locals are watching each other far more than occurs in Western countries (like Australia). Even just the general awareness that people are likely to be watching tends to modify behavior. And of course it's easy for people to watch and listen nowadays. Modern phone/internet technology is being actively used. Bugs don't even need to be inside someone's apartment nowadays for others to listen in. Cameras can be so small it's virtually impossible to find them. But some people in the West are just as involved in surveillance as occurs in China, particular people in business who protect their cash flows and power structures.
hhhrrr 11y ago
The Chinese paper mills take a shotgun approach. Publish as many papers as possible, with little care for quality. I saw one Chinese professor who published more papers in a year than the number of days. When you spend that much time submitting papers, nothing is getting a second look.

18 points by hownottowrite 11y ago

Good news for humanity as having more of China's resources devoted to research can only increase the pace of innovation worldwide.

pzone 11y ago
Yeah, this "us-vs-them" tribal nonsense is seriously pointless in the realm of scientific research. I want to have stuff made of futuristic new materials due to innovation in chemistry and live to 120 due to innovation in biology and medicine. I couldn't give two shits whether the papers leading to these advancements were published by Chinese or US scientists.
- tw04 11y ago
  Then we probably need to find a better method than trademarks and copyrights to allow companies to make money so the entire world can actually enjoy the new discoveries.

frozenport 11y ago

We had visiting scholars from some of China's best institutions, they didn't know what a Fourier transform was. They couldn't write MATLAB because they always had somebody else do it for them. I would like to see these claims motivated by statistics from the Nature Publishing Group's journals.

golergka 11y ago
What field? Signal processing or psychology?
nl 11y ago
OTOH, we have a regular internship program and we get a lot of Chinese students. There is a big variety of course, but the best are very, very good. I find it difficult to believe that a graduate of Tsinghua or Peking wouldn't know what a Fourier transform was assuming they did a course where they learnt that?
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  Tsinghua and PKU undergraduates > grad students (in general, not necessarily). The problem is that most of the undergraduates go abroad for grad studies, so they get grad students mostly from 2nd tier schools. Now, China is large, and there are still a lot of good students for grad studies, but the best are already gone. China is also EXTREMELY hierarchical. So, it is quite possible that a scholar (researcher, professor) with a very strong CV isn't doing much of the real work at all, instead it is pawned off to undergrad and grad students.
  - coolswan 11y ago
    basically how US academia works. professors don't do the programming themselves. that's what graduate students are for.
    - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
      No. Professors in the US generally spend lots of time managing their grad students and guiding their research, but not saying "here is my idea, go make it work;" they might help with writing papers and that is about it (also, I know many professors that still write their own code for their own ideas, and limit their advising student counts to do that). In China, you'll often have one professor for around 50 students with three tiers (undergrads, masters/entry PhD/high-level PhDs). So not only is the professor not programming, but neither is the upper-level PhD student! Everything is just eventually being done by undergrads who will ship off to the states/west anyways. On top of this many professors are often basically running sweatshops for their side businesses (since their university provided salary can be around 10K RMB/month).
- 11y ago
Captain_Usher 11y ago
This makes no sense. I have an American degree and I've heard the phrase "Fourier transform" before, but I couldn't have possibly told you anything about it until I googled it just now. I wouldn't have expected any random Chinese academic to know either, no matter how good their institution was. I write software in a variety of languages every day at my full-time job, and while I've seen MATLAB code and could certainly teach myself to write it, I wouldn't bother if I could just have somebody else do it. Why would you expect some arbitrary group of Chinese scholars to share very specific skills and knowledge? If you gathered up a gaggle of researchers from anywhere else, you'd have to get pretty lucky to land a group where everybody was familiar with both one specific area of mathematics and one specific programming language.
- 67726e 11y ago
  Maybe take the charitable view that these visiting academics were in a field where this is surprising and expected knowledge. I don't get the feeling these were English majors.
- greggarious 11y ago
  The fact he mentions this and MATLAB makes me think he's in the field of electrical engineering, where FTs are something you definitely need to understand.
whazor 11y ago
My experience is that Chinese are very hard working. Their mathematics background is normally quite good, but they only know the Chinese names... Try going to the English wiki page of for example a Fourier transform, then click on the Chinese version.
kaybe 11y ago
Which field are you in?
tokenadult 11y ago
We had visiting scholars from some of China's best institutions Which Chinese institutions, studying what subject? And, for that matter, who is "we" here? Is your institution a top destination for overseas visits by Chinese scholars? I would like to see these claims motivated by statistics from the Nature Publishing Group's journals. Mentioning Nature (the place of publication of the thread-opening commentary) is worthwhile. It appears that Nature has had some submissions from China recently that have had to be withdrawn because the peer review process was compromised.[1] [1] "'Compromised' peer review hits three papers from Nature Publishing Group" (18 December 2015) http://retractionwatch.com/2015/12/18/compromised-peer-review-hits-three-papers-from-nature-publishing-group/ http://retractionwatch.com/2015/12/18/compromised-peer-revie...

Htsthbjig 11y ago

I believe the Chinese culture is the antithesis of innovation, they are masters at following procedures, not at breaking the mold. I had to train Chinese people myself in China, and I don't know if you can innovate in the sciences without first innovating in the political arena. You have to change the mind of most Chinese and this takes generations. I mean, if someone is intelligent enough to solve very hard problems, it is intelligent enough to know they first have to remove the chumps in power who makes bad decisions. There are lots of chumps in power in China. Chinese educated in Canada, Europe or USA could improve the research done in China, but this people is equally dangerous to people in power. When I was there, it was the beginning of the Chinese bubble, everybody was happy because everything, while bad, was improving. When times get tough, we will see.

seanmcdirmid 11y ago
There are always some free thinkers that make it through any repressive system, if just by accident. China has a lot of talent, so we just need a bit of chance that someone creative can get through. You will find pockets of creativity everywhere in China. Chinese culture does emphasize group innovation more than individual innovation/invention. This leads to very different results, taking the edge/risk off many ideas (as any consensus driving process would). But it isn't really limited by that, you can always get away with more as long as no one is watching closely.
- vorg 11y ago
  > you can always get away with more as long as no one is watching closely In China everyone's being watched and listened to. Foreigners like me are being watched closely, and locals are watching each other far more than occurs in Western countries (like Australia). Even just the general awareness that people are likely to be watching tends to modify behavior. And of course it's easy for people to watch and listen nowadays. Modern phone/internet technology is being actively used. Bugs don't even need to be inside someone's apartment nowadays for others to listen in. Cameras can be so small it's virtually impossible to find them. But some people in the West are just as involved in surveillance as occurs in China, particular people in business who protect their cash flows and power structures.

hhhrrr 11y ago

The Chinese paper mills take a shotgun approach. Publish as many papers as possible, with little care for quality. I saw one Chinese professor who published more papers in a year than the number of days. When you spend that much time submitting papers, nothing is getting a second look.