4 ms·

Elite researchers in China say they had 'no choice' but to commit misconduct

smarm52 2y ago
Makes sense to me. Western academic don't have to worry about being disappeared if they don't publish enough. > This pressure, they conclude, ultimately came from a Chinese programme to create globally recognized universities. > “the measures currently taken by the Chinese government to punish research misconduct are already very stringent”.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway4good 2y ago
  No. They just loose their funding and job.
- cm2187 2y ago
  Western academics get the pressure too. That largely explains some of Fauci’s lies, as I understand he was concerned that being transparent about the source of the virus would antagonise chinese authorities, who would cut scientific cooperation on covid in retaliation.
- solardev 2y ago
  Yeah, but "publish or perish" is a thing in the West too. A lot of our academics also end up trying to fudge the numbers or cherry-pick the data to bring more significance to their work. Maybe they won't be outright disappeared into a labor camp if they don't, but their careers still depend on it. A thorough and sober analysis quietly refuting some flawed methodology is unlikely to get anywhere near the same amount of public attention compared to a sensationalist study with sometimes-true data optimally massaged for hype. Wikipedia has a looooooong list of scientific misconduct incidents, many of them in the West: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_misconduct_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_misconduct_... I think a few years ago I read a metastudy on the prevalence of scientific misconduct in China vs the West, but I can't remember or find it right now :( But it's certainly not a problem unique to China. Science in the West is heavily industry-driven, and the incentives are so muddy and often expressly designed to act against the public interest such that some local optimum could be pursued in the lead-up to some new product or service being capitalized. This sort of profit-first science is great for pursuing some things (fossil fuel developments, new cars, pharma, etc.) but not so good at dealing with difficult-to-monetize social ills (poverty and drug abuse, climate science, traffic and transit, nutrition, exercise, etc.). The monied interests are impossible to remove from the ocean of papers and severely lower the signal to noise ratio. I don't know that China has any better answer to that, but their market system is somewhat different. Their scientists on the ground still have to feed themselves the same as ours do, but their overall societal incentives (and the forms of corruption it tends to breed) are still different. It'll be interesting to see how all this plays out in the new few decades... (AI cold war?)
PreInternet01 2y ago
Well, reading https://academia.stackexchange.com/ https://academia.stackexchange.com/ every now and then makes me pretty convinced this kind of behavior is not confined to China. The "publish or perish" mindset does not seem to produce particularly healthy results.
- flobosg 2y ago
  Goodhart’s law at work.

Makes sense to me. Western academic don't have to worry about being disappeared if they don't publish enough. > This pressure, they conclude, ultimately came from a Chinese programme to create globally recognized universities. > “the measures currently taken by the Chinese government to punish research misconduct are already very stringent”.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throwaway4good 2y ago
No. They just loose their funding and job.
cm2187 2y ago
Western academics get the pressure too. That largely explains some of Fauci’s lies, as I understand he was concerned that being transparent about the source of the virus would antagonise chinese authorities, who would cut scientific cooperation on covid in retaliation.
solardev 2y ago
Yeah, but "publish or perish" is a thing in the West too. A lot of our academics also end up trying to fudge the numbers or cherry-pick the data to bring more significance to their work. Maybe they won't be outright disappeared into a labor camp if they don't, but their careers still depend on it. A thorough and sober analysis quietly refuting some flawed methodology is unlikely to get anywhere near the same amount of public attention compared to a sensationalist study with sometimes-true data optimally massaged for hype. Wikipedia has a looooooong list of scientific misconduct incidents, many of them in the West: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_misconduct_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_misconduct_... I think a few years ago I read a metastudy on the prevalence of scientific misconduct in China vs the West, but I can't remember or find it right now :( But it's certainly not a problem unique to China. Science in the West is heavily industry-driven, and the incentives are so muddy and often expressly designed to act against the public interest such that some local optimum could be pursued in the lead-up to some new product or service being capitalized. This sort of profit-first science is great for pursuing some things (fossil fuel developments, new cars, pharma, etc.) but not so good at dealing with difficult-to-monetize social ills (poverty and drug abuse, climate science, traffic and transit, nutrition, exercise, etc.). The monied interests are impossible to remove from the ocean of papers and severely lower the signal to noise ratio. I don't know that China has any better answer to that, but their market system is somewhat different. Their scientists on the ground still have to feed themselves the same as ours do, but their overall societal incentives (and the forms of corruption it tends to breed) are still different. It'll be interesting to see how all this plays out in the new few decades... (AI cold war?)

PreInternet01 2y ago

Well, reading https://academia.stackexchange.com/ https://academia.stackexchange.com/ every now and then makes me pretty convinced this kind of behavior is not confined to China. The "publish or perish" mindset does not seem to produce particularly healthy results.

flobosg 2y ago
Goodhart’s law at work.