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Why are we claiming this was achieved by "China" rather than the responsible scientists? Science is a global cooperative effort, rather than a national competit

Why are we claiming this was achieved by "China" rather than the responsible scientists? Science is a global cooperative effort, rather than a national competition. Also, link to the actual article: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/12/02/science.abe8770 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/12/02/scie...

thefounder 6y ago
>> Why are we claiming this was achieved by "China" rather than the responsible scientists? Because China(chinese people) funded the science? It may also hint that the governance system is productive.
cambalache 6y ago
The same way we claim "the USSR" launched Sputnik, and "America" put a man on the moon.
machinelabo 6y ago
Just today, US/UK had a small exchange over who is best at vaccine approval process: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/03/world/covid-19-coronavirus/as-the-uk-claims-bragging-rights-for-the-best-vaccine-regulators-yes-really-us-officials-beg-to-differ https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/03/world/covid-19-coron... Any time, any one who brings up their nation as being the best - I've got no room for you in my life. I despise nationalism and national pride in all forms. It only breeds hatred and unproductive relationships, and creates echo chambers. This goes for all countries. We're tiny blobs of muttering meat in the universe. Temporarily here.
- arvinsim 6y ago
  It's natural human instinct to seek tribes.
  - Quekid5 6y ago
    True, but that doesn't mean that it's a good thing or that it shouldn't be resisted.
    - zpeti 6y ago
      To just throw out the evolutionary workings of not only humans, but many of our animal ancestors is extremely naive. You are suggesting you know better than a system that millions of years of evolution have created. You are also assuming that you know all the risks of NOT organising in tribes, that somehow if all humans were some untribal lonely individual entities, the world would work better. Many many billions of people and animals seem to disagree.
      - sgift 6y ago
        We know better than evolution all the time. Else: No medicine, no operations, no science (random list of things, more can be added). Doesn't sound like a very good world to me.
        remarkEon 6y ago
        No we don’t. All of these thing you mention are simply attempts to attenuate evolution, not conquer it. Moreover, all of the things you mention are a new feature set developed from evidence given to us by evolution.
        TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Evolution is already conquered. Done. Defeated. We've left it behind when we invented language and writing. About the only area where biological evolution is relevant now is pathogens, because these evolve on timescales comparable to technological development of humans.
        remarkEon 6y ago
        The arrogance in this response is palpable. Humans managed to create a means to communicate with each other. End of evolution right there. We figured out germ theory and then vaccines. The DEATH of human evolution. We have the Internet now so that must mean human evolution just stops, because integrated circuits or something. We look back on proto-humans, who had many tools, with the same arrogance. There’s no reason our species won’t evolve further to look back on the “internet” and laugh. Timescales, huh.
  - machinelabo 6y ago
    Definitely. Sports in a benign way and through wars in a catastrophic way. The internet has created other strongly bonded echo-chambers. Elon Musk lovers/haters for example.
- dis-sys 6y ago
  > We're tiny blobs of muttering meat in the universe. Temporarily here. can not agree more on this
pmoriarty 6y ago
That's funny. Somehow I've never in my life heard this objection regarding American research.
- adventured 6y ago
  Objection is common when the US is used to represent its accomplishments. The objectors usually counter that it's a win for humanity, as a way to debase something positive for the US. Happens in every major thread on HN that involves the US doing something great. See: every significant accomplishment by SpaceX or NASA for a repeating case. If you really want to see objectors get triggered, check out the past threads that tangent off about SpaceX employees chanting USA USA USA on video, that's always quite amusing.
thraway12 6y ago
Because China achieves a comparative security advantage?
stonogo 6y ago
A Chinese citizen, who happens to be the Vice Chair of a Chinese political party, working for the University of Science and Technology of China, using money entirely from the Chinese government, led a team consisting entirely of other Chinese citizens working for Chinese institutions, and you're wondering why we're claiming this was achieved by "China"? Science might be a global cooperative effort, but this paper comes from China.
- xenihn 6y ago
  It feels like anyone who is getting heated over this link and the subsequent discussion didn't even read Scott's post to begin with.
- throwaway4good 6y ago
  One of the things that is interesting about the Chinese political system is the large number of engineers and scientists who also have high political positions. Maybe it is a sign of a society still focused on building stuff rather than redistributing and administrating what is already there.
  - lucian1900 6y ago
    There’s also a tendency for scientists to be Marxists, since dialectical materialism is the philosophy of all science in general.
ngokevin 6y ago
I guess "China" triggers Americans with negative sentiments with as the media always does with us v. them cold war mentality, which gets more clicks. May I ask what alternative title do you suggest, to name the individuals?
- remarkEon 6y ago
  There’s probably a lot of countries that “trigger” Americans with “negative sentiments”. Some justified, some not. Regardless of the justification, keeping track of the scientific progress of a country that has explicitly set out to usurp the US is useful.
  - porpoise 6y ago
    "a country that has explicitly set out to usurp the US is useful" Can you provide some evidence for saying that China "explicitly" set out to do this? The Chinese government has been consistently "explicit" that it does not aim to replace or supplant the US [1][2][3]. Perhaps you mean "actions speak louder than words" and that this intention is evident from the actions they've undertaken, in which case it would be nice to know what actions you have in mind, as well as how you ruled out boring explanations of those actions that China's leaders would have given themselves. [1] https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3030717/china-doesnt-want-supplant-us-it-will-keep-growing-beijing https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3030717/ch... [2] https://apnews.com/article/1c5193f5eb936b99b740b758da8efad3 https://apnews.com/article/1c5193f5eb936b99b740b758da8efad3 [3] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wionews.com/world/not-trying-to-replace-us-as-worlds-top-technological-power-says-china-314222/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wionews.com/world/not-tryin...
    - remarkEon 6y ago
      >China says >China says >China says Yeah, so, you can actually read the internal leaks from Xi’s speeches and not post planted CCP propaganda. Thanks. Here’s just a sample. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine Question: is Taiwan its own sovereign state? Certainly feels that way every time I’m there for work.
Melting_Harps 6y ago
> Science is a global cooperative effort, rather than a national competition. Haha... that's not at all the case; academics are petty people with fragile egos who are often under the thumb of lab directors with even worse egos and often come into that role with an ax to grind. Racism, be it veiled or otherwise, is also no stranger to the realms of Science. Much less the dregs called the peer-reviewed system. Consider the plight of Dr. He Jiankui who many researchers in the West lauded in private, but scorned in public when the 'evil Chinese Scientist' revealed his results to the Public because grant money and political standing were at risk. Collaborations are limited in so far as their personal utility for more grants or prestige, lets not elevate researchers and their horrible practices to places they do not belong. I think you would find the process entirely sad and depressing, as most of us did in our undergrad, when you see it for what it really is.
- luc4sdreyer 6y ago
  >who many researchers in the West lauded in private I've only heard universal condemnation from scientists, where can I learn more about this private support for him? Or am I going to take your word for it?
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > Or am I going to take your word for it? Not necessary, but I'm just going to assume you aren't a biologist nor do you follow the Bio-hacker culture, right? Start with Josiah Zayner's talks from the time of that event. I think it was in the conference ahead of the trailer release of 'Code of the Wild' that stands out. But he's on record talking about it as well, I think Dr. Church also touched on it as well. The Bio Hack the Planet conference talks might also have more details, as I recall him talking about the events leading up to Dr. Doudna's misplaced/misunderstood role in CRISPR that eventually got her a Nobel Prize and it segued into that discussion, too. Back on PC Edit: This piece [0] is also worth a read, here is an excerpt from Science: > Yet opposition was not unanimous. A few months before He met the couples, a committee convened by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) concluded in a well-publicized report that human trials of germline editing "might be permitted" if strict criteria were met. The group of scientists, lawyers, bioethicists, and patient advocates spelled out a regulatory framework but cautioned that "these criteria are necessarily vague" because various societies, caregivers, and patients would view them differently. The committee notably did not call for an international ban, arguing instead for governmental regulation as each country deemed appropriate and "voluntary self-regulation pursuant to professional guidelines." >> That circle included leading scientists—among them a Nobel laureate—in China and the United States, business executives, an entrepreneur connected to venture capitalists, authors of the NASEM report, a controversial U.S. IVF specialist who discussed opening a gene-editing clinic with He, and at least one Chinese politician. "He had an awful lot of company to be called a ‘rogue,’" says geneticist George Church, a CRISPR pioneer at Harvard University who was not in the circle of trust and is one of the few scientists to defend at least some aspects of He's experiment. The questionable stance, and reluctance comes when academic researchers know that their grants and good standing with a chosen University (and the prestige and clout they garner) comes under threat. Maybe its because I've seen this kind of thing play out in real time when I was in School and then entered the Industry that I'm not all surprised by it... but it's also a sense of remorse mixed with dread and despair as a person who was on track to be a lab Clinical Lab Scientist but what disgusted at what 'really happens' internally that shaped my view(s) and made me leave the Industry entirely. 0: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/untold-story-circle-trust-behind-world-s-first-gene-edited-babies https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/untold-story-circle-...
wly_cdgr 6y ago
Crazy as it may seem, it's because it was done by Chinese scientists working and living in China
telaelit 6y ago
The US always has to propagandize news from China since they are an economic rival. Did they run the headline “America achieves quantum supremacy” when Google supposedly achieved quantum supremacy? Nope.
knolax 6y ago
And yet nobody ever brings up this objection when it's negative press.
rkangel 6y ago
For roughly the same reason that the first example of quantum supremacy we attribute to Google rather than individual scientists. I actually know the names of the Chinese responsible, I couldn't tell you the names of anyone on the Google team. I also wonder how the Google result was reported in China. I wouldn't be surprised if it was reported as "Americans have done X".

thefounder 6y ago

>> Why are we claiming this was achieved by "China" rather than the responsible scientists? Because China(chinese people) funded the science? It may also hint that the governance system is productive.

cambalache 6y ago

The same way we claim "the USSR" launched Sputnik, and "America" put a man on the moon.

machinelabo 6y ago

Just today, US/UK had a small exchange over who is best at vaccine approval process: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/03/world/covid-19-coronavirus/as-the-uk-claims-bragging-rights-for-the-best-vaccine-regulators-yes-really-us-officials-beg-to-differ https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/03/world/covid-19-coron... Any time, any one who brings up their nation as being the best - I've got no room for you in my life. I despise nationalism and national pride in all forms. It only breeds hatred and unproductive relationships, and creates echo chambers. This goes for all countries. We're tiny blobs of muttering meat in the universe. Temporarily here.

arvinsim 6y ago
It's natural human instinct to seek tribes.
- Quekid5 6y ago
  True, but that doesn't mean that it's a good thing or that it shouldn't be resisted.
  - zpeti 6y ago
    To just throw out the evolutionary workings of not only humans, but many of our animal ancestors is extremely naive. You are suggesting you know better than a system that millions of years of evolution have created. You are also assuming that you know all the risks of NOT organising in tribes, that somehow if all humans were some untribal lonely individual entities, the world would work better. Many many billions of people and animals seem to disagree.
    - sgift 6y ago
      We know better than evolution all the time. Else: No medicine, no operations, no science (random list of things, more can be added). Doesn't sound like a very good world to me.
      - remarkEon 6y ago
        No we don’t. All of these thing you mention are simply attempts to attenuate evolution, not conquer it. Moreover, all of the things you mention are a new feature set developed from evidence given to us by evolution.
        TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Evolution is already conquered. Done. Defeated. We've left it behind when we invented language and writing. About the only area where biological evolution is relevant now is pathogens, because these evolve on timescales comparable to technological development of humans.
        remarkEon 6y ago
        The arrogance in this response is palpable. Humans managed to create a means to communicate with each other. End of evolution right there. We figured out germ theory and then vaccines. The DEATH of human evolution. We have the Internet now so that must mean human evolution just stops, because integrated circuits or something. We look back on proto-humans, who had many tools, with the same arrogance. There’s no reason our species won’t evolve further to look back on the “internet” and laugh. Timescales, huh.
- machinelabo 6y ago
  Definitely. Sports in a benign way and through wars in a catastrophic way. The internet has created other strongly bonded echo-chambers. Elon Musk lovers/haters for example.
dis-sys 6y ago
> We're tiny blobs of muttering meat in the universe. Temporarily here. can not agree more on this

pmoriarty 6y ago

That's funny. Somehow I've never in my life heard this objection regarding American research.

adventured 6y ago
Objection is common when the US is used to represent its accomplishments. The objectors usually counter that it's a win for humanity, as a way to debase something positive for the US. Happens in every major thread on HN that involves the US doing something great. See: every significant accomplishment by SpaceX or NASA for a repeating case. If you really want to see objectors get triggered, check out the past threads that tangent off about SpaceX employees chanting USA USA USA on video, that's always quite amusing.

thraway12 6y ago

Because China achieves a comparative security advantage?

stonogo 6y ago

A Chinese citizen, who happens to be the Vice Chair of a Chinese political party, working for the University of Science and Technology of China, using money entirely from the Chinese government, led a team consisting entirely of other Chinese citizens working for Chinese institutions, and you're wondering why we're claiming this was achieved by "China"? Science might be a global cooperative effort, but this paper comes from China.

xenihn 6y ago
It feels like anyone who is getting heated over this link and the subsequent discussion didn't even read Scott's post to begin with.
throwaway4good 6y ago
One of the things that is interesting about the Chinese political system is the large number of engineers and scientists who also have high political positions. Maybe it is a sign of a society still focused on building stuff rather than redistributing and administrating what is already there.
- lucian1900 6y ago
  There’s also a tendency for scientists to be Marxists, since dialectical materialism is the philosophy of all science in general.

ngokevin 6y ago

I guess "China" triggers Americans with negative sentiments with as the media always does with us v. them cold war mentality, which gets more clicks. May I ask what alternative title do you suggest, to name the individuals?

remarkEon 6y ago
There’s probably a lot of countries that “trigger” Americans with “negative sentiments”. Some justified, some not. Regardless of the justification, keeping track of the scientific progress of a country that has explicitly set out to usurp the US is useful.
- porpoise 6y ago
  "a country that has explicitly set out to usurp the US is useful" Can you provide some evidence for saying that China "explicitly" set out to do this? The Chinese government has been consistently "explicit" that it does not aim to replace or supplant the US [1][2][3]. Perhaps you mean "actions speak louder than words" and that this intention is evident from the actions they've undertaken, in which case it would be nice to know what actions you have in mind, as well as how you ruled out boring explanations of those actions that China's leaders would have given themselves. [1] https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3030717/china-doesnt-want-supplant-us-it-will-keep-growing-beijing https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3030717/ch... [2] https://apnews.com/article/1c5193f5eb936b99b740b758da8efad3 https://apnews.com/article/1c5193f5eb936b99b740b758da8efad3 [3] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wionews.com/world/not-trying-to-replace-us-as-worlds-top-technological-power-says-china-314222/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wionews.com/world/not-tryin...
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    >China says >China says >China says Yeah, so, you can actually read the internal leaks from Xi’s speeches and not post planted CCP propaganda. Thanks. Here’s just a sample. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine Question: is Taiwan its own sovereign state? Certainly feels that way every time I’m there for work.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> Science is a global cooperative effort, rather than a national competition. Haha... that's not at all the case; academics are petty people with fragile egos who are often under the thumb of lab directors with even worse egos and often come into that role with an ax to grind. Racism, be it veiled or otherwise, is also no stranger to the realms of Science. Much less the dregs called the peer-reviewed system. Consider the plight of Dr. He Jiankui who many researchers in the West lauded in private, but scorned in public when the 'evil Chinese Scientist' revealed his results to the Public because grant money and political standing were at risk. Collaborations are limited in so far as their personal utility for more grants or prestige, lets not elevate researchers and their horrible practices to places they do not belong. I think you would find the process entirely sad and depressing, as most of us did in our undergrad, when you see it for what it really is.

luc4sdreyer 6y ago
>who many researchers in the West lauded in private I've only heard universal condemnation from scientists, where can I learn more about this private support for him? Or am I going to take your word for it?
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > Or am I going to take your word for it? Not necessary, but I'm just going to assume you aren't a biologist nor do you follow the Bio-hacker culture, right? Start with Josiah Zayner's talks from the time of that event. I think it was in the conference ahead of the trailer release of 'Code of the Wild' that stands out. But he's on record talking about it as well, I think Dr. Church also touched on it as well. The Bio Hack the Planet conference talks might also have more details, as I recall him talking about the events leading up to Dr. Doudna's misplaced/misunderstood role in CRISPR that eventually got her a Nobel Prize and it segued into that discussion, too. Back on PC Edit: This piece [0] is also worth a read, here is an excerpt from Science: > Yet opposition was not unanimous. A few months before He met the couples, a committee convened by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) concluded in a well-publicized report that human trials of germline editing "might be permitted" if strict criteria were met. The group of scientists, lawyers, bioethicists, and patient advocates spelled out a regulatory framework but cautioned that "these criteria are necessarily vague" because various societies, caregivers, and patients would view them differently. The committee notably did not call for an international ban, arguing instead for governmental regulation as each country deemed appropriate and "voluntary self-regulation pursuant to professional guidelines." >> That circle included leading scientists—among them a Nobel laureate—in China and the United States, business executives, an entrepreneur connected to venture capitalists, authors of the NASEM report, a controversial U.S. IVF specialist who discussed opening a gene-editing clinic with He, and at least one Chinese politician. "He had an awful lot of company to be called a ‘rogue,’" says geneticist George Church, a CRISPR pioneer at Harvard University who was not in the circle of trust and is one of the few scientists to defend at least some aspects of He's experiment. The questionable stance, and reluctance comes when academic researchers know that their grants and good standing with a chosen University (and the prestige and clout they garner) comes under threat. Maybe its because I've seen this kind of thing play out in real time when I was in School and then entered the Industry that I'm not all surprised by it... but it's also a sense of remorse mixed with dread and despair as a person who was on track to be a lab Clinical Lab Scientist but what disgusted at what 'really happens' internally that shaped my view(s) and made me leave the Industry entirely. 0: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/untold-story-circle-trust-behind-world-s-first-gene-edited-babies https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/untold-story-circle-...

wly_cdgr 6y ago

Crazy as it may seem, it's because it was done by Chinese scientists working and living in China

telaelit 6y ago

The US always has to propagandize news from China since they are an economic rival. Did they run the headline “America achieves quantum supremacy” when Google supposedly achieved quantum supremacy? Nope.

knolax 6y ago

And yet nobody ever brings up this objection when it's negative press.

rkangel 6y ago

For roughly the same reason that the first example of quantum supremacy we attribute to Google rather than individual scientists. I actually know the names of the Chinese responsible, I couldn't tell you the names of anyone on the Google team. I also wonder how the Google result was reported in China. I wouldn't be surprised if it was reported as "Americans have done X".