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This article is nationalistic propaganda. It basically admits that every country has the same problem [0], and the recent scandals can be explained in terms of
by AlexCoventry 9y ago
This article is nationalistic propaganda. It basically admits that every country has the same problem [0], and the recent scandals can be explained in terms of China's sheer scale, and growing pains.
In the US, they just don't call it a scandal, they call it the "reproducibility crisis." But that crisis reflects a just barely more sophisticated response to the same skewed incentives.
[0] http://making-of-a-fly.me/files/pdf/lt_2011_02_24_31.pdf http://making-of-a-fly.me/files/pdf/lt_2011_02_24_31.pdf
- chaostheory 9y agoYes, you're partially right but the thing is the sheer scale and size of China's problem dwarfs everyone else's. China's problems with cheating & corruption has been around for centuries if not longer, and it's really ingrained into its core culture; Confucius and his movement came into existence as a way to fix it. It's a low trust society that relies on family clans ie no one else matters but your family. Confucius was right. The rule of law would fix a lot of this over time. The problem is that you're not going to get the rule of law without transparency and openness, especially when it comes to freedom of speech. XJ is singlehandedly doing all he can to reverse all the gains from DX. Encouraging innovation in China is a much easier problem than this, yet both have the same pragmatic solution.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoJust because nothing is black or white, but some shade of grey, doesn't mean all the shades of grey are equivalent. Also, isn't this just a what aboutism anyways?
- AlexCoventry 9y agoWhat aboutism is an attempt to draw a moral equivalence. The thrust of the article is that China's ambition to become a "science superpower" whatever that means is severely impeded by this fraud, which is not a moral question and does not stand up to comparison of the misaligned incentives and bad science in extant "science superpowers."
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoChina attempts to be a scientific super power for its own benefit, not to win some moral pissing contest. If china is hurting itself in this endeavor via fraud, then that has nothing to do with the USA. This is just classic what aboutism.
- AlexCoventry 9y agoMy point is that the fraud is affecting the world-wide scientific community. It's not a China-specific problem, as characterized by this article. Retraction Watch gives a fairly good overview of the issue: http://retractionwatch.com/ http://retractionwatch.com/
- ctchocula 9y agoAgree completely with this post. Based on the number of publications and number of Chinese authors in leading ML conferences, the majority of comments in this thread are nonsense [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14437059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14437059