4 ms·

What "Bad Incentives" are unique to China, distinct from those in the West?

by drones 3y ago

epolanski 3y ago
I know everywhere it holds a lot of weight, but I think that in Europe/US an additional huge factor for academic career is the ability to raise funding. Maybe in China there's less need to find private funding for research thus scientific impact based on papers may hold more weight. But I'm 100% that fake research and cheating is rampant in all of natural science everywhere in the world, and I myself had spent 6 months of my life in a lab trying to reproduce fake results from a previous researcher in my lab. We only caught up it was fake data way later, when we spotted one single outlier number, an impossibly high voltage generated by his system (a 5/10% open current voltage that compounded all the other results).
- chrisjj 3y ago
  > we spotted one single outlier number, an impossibly high voltage generated by his system Surely the outlier could have been an innocent digital capture error.
  - epolanski 3y ago
    You're supposed to publish results that can be reproduced as you describe. And it wasn't an outlier. The simplest comparison I can make to illustrate the point without boring you is measuring the power of a car engine. Imagine that you get a very high torque number, but horsepower doesn't match. Issue is: torque and horsepower are linearly dependent torque = HP * RMP / 5252 Measurements that linerarly correlated with the voltage published were all consistent with a number 10/15% lower.
    - chrisjj 3y ago
      > You're supposed to publish results that can be reproduced as you describe. You are supposed to try. Whether you succeed is necessarily subject to any measurement issues. > And it wasn't an outlier. You said it was.
- jancsika 3y ago
  > But I'm 100% that fake research and cheating is rampant in all of natural science everywhere in the world, and I myself had spent 6 months of my life in a lab trying to reproduce fake results from a previous researcher in my lab. A single anecdote doesn't support having 100% certainty for such a broad claim.
  - epolanski 3y ago
    The reproducibility problem in natural science is a well known phenomenon of which I have provided confirmations.
mike_hearn 3y ago
There's a specific issue with doctors in China that doesn't exist elsewhere, namely that even for practicing doctors they are required to publish research to get promoted. But that's hard, because they're busy healing people. Cue lots of bought papers that describe medical cases or research that never happened. I wrote about this in 2021: https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-i-7e9764571422 https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-i-7e9764571422 One Chinese doctor who was rumbled pleaded with the (anonymous) guy who spotted the bad papers: “Hello teacher, yesterday you disclosed that there were some doctors having fraudulent pictures in their papers. This has raised attention. As one of these doctors, I kindly ask you to please leave us alone as soon as possible. Being as low as grains of dust of the world, countless junior doctors, including those younger me, look down upon the act of faking papers. But the system in China is just like that, you can’t really fight against it. Without papers, you don’t get promotion; without a promotion, you can hardly feed your family. I also want to have some time to do scientific research, but it’s impossible. During the day, I have outpatient surgeries; after work, I have to take care of my kids. I have only a little bit time to myself after 10 pm, but this is far from being enough because scientific research demands big trunks of time. The current environment in China is like that. You expose us but there are thousands of other people doing the same. As long as the system remains the same and the rules of the game remain the same, similar acts of faking data are for sure to go on. This time you exposed us, probably costing us our job. For the sake of Chinese doctors as a whole, especially for us young doctors, please be considerate. We really have no choice, please!”
- consumer451 3y ago
  Interesting, what is the logic for requiring practicing doctors to all publish like that?
  - tsss 3y ago
    Too many people competing for everything.
    - heavenlyblue 3y ago
bhickey 3y ago
I can't speak to incentives in China, but India had national publication requirements for post grads. These requirements drove an industry of predatory pay-for-publish journals, 'cause you aren't getting your degree without it. In the US marginal students can take a degree and leave academia without churning out fake garbage.
- kelipso 3y ago
  There are plenty of conferences and journals publishing low quality articles in the US too lol. I'd say majority of phd and thesis based master's programs have publication requirements in the US.
  - bhickey 3y ago
    Yes... but there's no national requirement. And in most master's programs there's no expectation of publication.

What "Bad Incentives" are unique to China, distinct from those in the West?

by drones 3y ago

What "Bad Incentives" are unique to China, distinct from those in the West?

I know everywhere it holds a lot of weight, but I think that in Europe/US an additional huge factor for academic career is the ability to raise funding. Maybe in China there's less need to find private funding for research thus scientific impact based on papers may hold more weight. But I'm 100% that fake research and cheating is rampant in all of natural science everywhere in the world, and I myself had spent 6 months of my life in a lab trying to reproduce fake results from a previous researcher in my lab. We only caught up it was fake data way later, when we spotted one single outlier number, an impossibly high voltage generated by his system (a 5/10% open current voltage that compounded all the other results).

chrisjj 3y ago
> we spotted one single outlier number, an impossibly high voltage generated by his system Surely the outlier could have been an innocent digital capture error.
- epolanski 3y ago
  You're supposed to publish results that can be reproduced as you describe. And it wasn't an outlier. The simplest comparison I can make to illustrate the point without boring you is measuring the power of a car engine. Imagine that you get a very high torque number, but horsepower doesn't match. Issue is: torque and horsepower are linearly dependent torque = HP * RMP / 5252 Measurements that linerarly correlated with the voltage published were all consistent with a number 10/15% lower.
  - chrisjj 3y ago
    > You're supposed to publish results that can be reproduced as you describe. You are supposed to try. Whether you succeed is necessarily subject to any measurement issues. > And it wasn't an outlier. You said it was.
jancsika 3y ago
> But I'm 100% that fake research and cheating is rampant in all of natural science everywhere in the world, and I myself had spent 6 months of my life in a lab trying to reproduce fake results from a previous researcher in my lab. A single anecdote doesn't support having 100% certainty for such a broad claim.
- epolanski 3y ago
  The reproducibility problem in natural science is a well known phenomenon of which I have provided confirmations.

mike_hearn 3y ago

There's a specific issue with doctors in China that doesn't exist elsewhere, namely that even for practicing doctors they are required to publish research to get promoted. But that's hard, because they're busy healing people. Cue lots of bought papers that describe medical cases or research that never happened. I wrote about this in 2021: https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-i-7e9764571422 https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-i-7e9764571422 One Chinese doctor who was rumbled pleaded with the (anonymous) guy who spotted the bad papers: “Hello teacher, yesterday you disclosed that there were some doctors having fraudulent pictures in their papers. This has raised attention. As one of these doctors, I kindly ask you to please leave us alone as soon as possible. Being as low as grains of dust of the world, countless junior doctors, including those younger me, look down upon the act of faking papers. But the system in China is just like that, you can’t really fight against it. Without papers, you don’t get promotion; without a promotion, you can hardly feed your family. I also want to have some time to do scientific research, but it’s impossible. During the day, I have outpatient surgeries; after work, I have to take care of my kids. I have only a little bit time to myself after 10 pm, but this is far from being enough because scientific research demands big trunks of time. The current environment in China is like that. You expose us but there are thousands of other people doing the same. As long as the system remains the same and the rules of the game remain the same, similar acts of faking data are for sure to go on. This time you exposed us, probably costing us our job. For the sake of Chinese doctors as a whole, especially for us young doctors, please be considerate. We really have no choice, please!”

consumer451 3y ago
Interesting, what is the logic for requiring practicing doctors to all publish like that?
- tsss 3y ago
  Too many people competing for everything.
  - heavenlyblue 3y ago

bhickey 3y ago

I can't speak to incentives in China, but India had national publication requirements for post grads. These requirements drove an industry of predatory pay-for-publish journals, 'cause you aren't getting your degree without it. In the US marginal students can take a degree and leave academia without churning out fake garbage.

kelipso 3y ago
There are plenty of conferences and journals publishing low quality articles in the US too lol. I'd say majority of phd and thesis based master's programs have publication requirements in the US.
- bhickey 3y ago
  Yes... but there's no national requirement. And in most master's programs there's no expectation of publication.