Cheating and fraud are endemic to Chinese culture, getting one over on a sucker is just an expected part of daily life there.
I would not downplay this.
China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math
21–30 of 309 posts
Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math
#22Incredible fear from America: https://i.imgur.com/bOqjzCs.jpg
Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math
#23Should be 'again'.
Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math
#24Cheating and fraud are endemic to Chinese culture, getting one over on a sucker is just an expected part of daily life there. I would not downplay this.
Not all Chinese people that I've worked are like this.
But the most cheating, backstabbing, manipulative coworkers I've had were all Chinese.
From what I understand, in Chinese culture 'any means necessary' tactics are considered smart and fair game as long as they work.
Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math
#25> They document a rapid expansion between 2000 and 2016, as the Chinese share of global publications in physical sciences, engineering and math quadrupled. I really hate to risk being the guy who says "they will never best us," until they do, but in my field and many others Chinese papers are known to be of a lower quality standard and a lot more mill-like. This may come as a surprise to many, but the simple fact is…
There are a number of factors at play here. It's not that fraud, cheating and corruption does not happen here but it doesn't taint the entire system but when it happens elsewhere it tends to 'stick' to them.
In this case you may have perceived fraud or lower quality in a specific area and you are generalizing it to entire Chinese academia when like everywhere in the world they have high quality and low quality institutions and equal incentives for fraud.
There has been multiple frauds in western academia [1], the Stanford experiments was the most recent discussed here, but no one uses these instances to paint the entire system as fraudulent, in social sciences there is a giant reproducibility crisis.[2]
And given they are developing its inevitable the quality will rise with more investments and resources and developing a culture and infrastructure of research that others already have for decades, more investments in science and advancements is better for humanity. It's not a competition.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_misconduct_...
Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Publishing papers in the West provides a pretty direct benefit - there's a reason behind the saying 'publish or perish'.
Exactly it's often just slightly less explicit, emphasis on slightly. Academia is toxic because again it is being measured . If a university cannot determine the quality of faculty other than counting publications and impact factors, the university itself is seriously lacking quality, alas there is a plague of it. I wonder if it is directly related to the bloom/infestation of university administration sizes and top s…
Universities themselves are chasing university rankings, which count publications and impact factors. Does a 17 year old kid or their parents know how to judge a universities quality? No, they use prestige (rankings).
Nobody has time to read everyone's papers, or evaluate someone's knowledge thoroughly, so we fall back on things like degrees, impact factors or university prestige.
Once you realise academia is all about signalling - being able to quickly judge people - everything makes sense.
Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math
#27> They document a rapid expansion between 2000 and 2016, as the Chinese share of global publications in physical sciences, engineering and math quadrupled. I really hate to risk being the guy who says "they will never best us," until they do, but in my field and many others Chinese papers are known to be of a lower quality standard and a lot more mill-like. This may come as a surprise to many, but the simple fact is…
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Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math
#28Good, competition and more spending is always welcome.
Hopefully competition from China will spark a re-investment in education elsewhere in the world.
Once the US stops prioritizing stuffing the coffers of rich donors and actually puts American interests first, things will dramatically improve.
Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math
#29Thanks, Obama.
Re: China now the most prolific contributor to physical sciences, engineering, math
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Publishing papers in the West provides a pretty direct benefit - there's a reason behind the saying 'publish or perish'.
Exactly it's often just slightly less explicit, emphasis on slightly. Academia is toxic because again it is being measured . If a university cannot determine the quality of faculty other than counting publications and impact factors, the university itself is seriously lacking quality, alas there is a plague of it. I wonder if it is directly related to the bloom/infestation of university administration sizes and top s…
It's always been this way to some degree. Every now and again a messiah comes along that illuminates and exposes a new way of thinking, and academia goes through a revolution. Then the weaker minds establish boundaries based on the teachings of their fearless leader, the leader dies, and academia settles back into it's natural state of dogmatic adherence to ideas it understands but can't expand upon.
There will be another Einstein. There will be another Darwin. And they will change everything. It is only a matter of time.
But I doubt they will come from China. While many a genius may be born in China, they may as well have been born on Mars because it is not a country that rewards exceptionalism and original thinking.
Also... I'm still trying to imagine what Dijon Ketchup would taste like.