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China's Science Revolution

bbc.co.uk

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Re: China's Science Revolution

#21

Post by petra »

joe_the_user wrote: post #13
officialjunk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you think that "good" science is dependent on having democracy? is there a reference study to support this notion?

I don't think one needs a specific study for such a broad question. Science has historically based on a system of open debate. From Galileo onward, the ability of a scientist to engage in experiments which put commonly believed ideas into question has been one of the foundations of scientific progress. Both the NAZIs and the regime of Joseph Stalin had a history of supporting well-connected frauds to the detriment of…

>> Both the NAZIs and the regime of Joseph Stalin had a history of supporting well-connected frauds to the detriment of science.

Can you expand some details about that in the nazi regime ? but leave aside that nasty stuff with eugenics(which wasn't really a science) and focus on the hard sciences ?

Re: China's Science Revolution

#23

Post by simonh »

zepto wrote: post #6
biofox wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the issues come from conflating positive and negative eugenics. Promoting and enabling people to have healthier progeny is in no way comparable to forcibly removing people from the gene pool through sterilisation or murder. People are going to have children regardless. If there's an option to reduce suffering, I think we have an imperative to follow it.

How do you know that enabling people who happen to have resources in one of the current political regimes to edit their embryos will reduce suffering? It could just as easily increase it.

It's not a matter of enabling this at the regime level. Regimes get to make their own laws. We in the west may not be able to stop clearly unethical embry editing, so whether we can do that or not is completely orthogonal to whether we should consider some uses of the technique to be ethical and allowable.

Re: China's Science Revolution

#24

Post by aab0 »

samdoidge wrote: post #19
arcanus wrote: post #8

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/03/138937778/plagiarism-plague-hi... I don't believe I can put it better than the article above, "These days, China is lavishing money on Mr. Science. But without the checks and balances provided by Mr. Democracy, the corruption plaguing the rest of the system is infecting the reputation of Chinese science. "

Counter point: Dictatorship Germany in WW2 produced many scientific advancements.

But also produced a lot of junk pseudoscience and rubbish when conmen were able to get the credulous endorsement of leaders like Hitler. Plus, you have to remember that Germany was one of, if not the leading scientific and technological powers of the age. In the 1800s and early 1900s, places like America and Japan were still making would-be doctors and mathematicians learn either French or German and study abroad there. Even after English started gaining steam post-WWI and Jews began fleeing Germany, there was still a ton of native talent and expertise.

Re: China's Science Revolution

#25

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

biofox wrote: post #5
digi_owl wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well one reason for us dragging our feet is our collective memory of eugenics.

I think a lot of the issues come from conflating positive and negative eugenics. Promoting and enabling people to have healthier progeny is in no way comparable to forcibly removing people from the gene pool through sterilisation or murder. People are going to have children regardless. If there's an option to reduce suffering, I think we have an imperative to follow it.

If we prevent certain kinds of people from even being born in the first place, how is that not as bad as murder or sterilisation?

Re: China's Science Revolution

#26

Post by dnautics »

cossatot wrote: post #20

I've spent a good amount of my research career working on (and sometimes in) China, with and without Chinese collaborators, depending on the project, and I have reviewed a lot of research by Chinese scientists. It is excellent and remarkable how fast they are improving. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Western scientists (mostly American and French scientists) were brought in quite a bit to help modernize the syste…

Having worked with chinese researchers in chemistry/biophysics, I agree with the observations about authority and confirmation bias. There's a discernable trend between, say, a postdoc who did undergrad & grad in china, a postdoc who did grad in the US, and a postdoc who did undergrad & grad in the US. This is not a problem confined to china, and to be sure there are many american scientists who can't seem to work up a healthy antiauthoritarianism (and things are getting worse here as certain public "scientists" are becoming authority figures)

Re: China's Science Revolution

#27

Post by internaut »

biofox wrote: post #5
digi_owl wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well one reason for us dragging our feet is our collective memory of eugenics.

I think a lot of the issues come from conflating positive and negative eugenics. Promoting and enabling people to have healthier progeny is in no way comparable to forcibly removing people from the gene pool through sterilisation or murder. People are going to have children regardless. If there's an option to reduce suffering, I think we have an imperative to follow it.

Thank God for the Chinese. They must think we're insane.

Bioethicists I've watched debate are seemingly unconcerned with the present day. I've never seen it emphasized (as it used to be once) that the potential for mental and physical handicaps goes up very dramatically as a woman ages. There exists a fairly narrow window to produce children optimally. I am confident no school children are aware of this through sex education. It is sort of brushed under the carpet in favour of 'right to choose'.

You would not believe the rate of deformed children that exist. In my small town there are six or seven special centers for children with mental and physical handicaps. I am convinced this is because the parents got to the idea of having children late. This is a failing of society.

"http://www.ivfne.com/content/editor/Fertility Age Graph.jpg"

http://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/1331118/di...

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/downsyndrome/images/p...

Re: China's Science Revolution

#28

Post by dnautics »

nedsma wrote: post #3

While the world is traditionally looking at the West to lead new scientific advancements, they might be wrong. India and especially China are heavily investing into their science projects which are costing less than comparable projects in the US or the EU. India today launched a model of the reusable space shuttle prototype that took 5 years to develop and cost less than $15 million. How is that awesome? On the other…

investment alone does not good science make. (obviously this is a slightly self-serving argument for me, but:) much of the best science has been done on a budget.

Re: China's Science Revolution

#29

Post by dnautics »

joe_the_user wrote: post #13
officialjunk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you think that "good" science is dependent on having democracy? is there a reference study to support this notion?

I don't think one needs a specific study for such a broad question. Science has historically based on a system of open debate. From Galileo onward, the ability of a scientist to engage in experiments which put commonly believed ideas into question has been one of the foundations of scientific progress. Both the NAZIs and the regime of Joseph Stalin had a history of supporting well-connected frauds to the detriment of…

> Science has historically based on a system of open debate.

That's not the definition of democracy, democracy is majority rule.

Re: China's Science Revolution

#30

Post by oldmanjay »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #25
biofox wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the issues come from conflating positive and negative eugenics. Promoting and enabling people to have healthier progeny is in no way comparable to forcibly removing people from the gene pool through sterilisation or murder. People are going to have children regardless. If there's an option to reduce suffering, I think we have an imperative to follow it.

If we prevent certain kinds of people from even being born in the first place, how is that not as bad as murder or sterilisation?

can you answer the converse? It's not at all clear to me how excising genetic dead ends is anything even remotely related to murder or sterilization, so I feel like the burden is on you to actually put something forth.
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