China Will Lead World Scientific Research By 2020 387
Hugh Pickens writes "An analysis of papers published in 10,500 academic journals across the world shows that, in terms of academic papers published, China is now second only to the US, and will take first place by 2020. Chinese scientists are increasing their output at a far faster rate than counterparts in rival 'emerging' nations such as India, Russia, and Brazil. The number of peer-reviewed papers published by Chinese researchers rose 64-fold over the past 30 years. 'China is out on its own, far ahead of the pack,' says James Wilsdon, of the Royal Society in London. 'If anything, China's recent research performance has exceeded even the high expectations of four or five years ago.' According to Wilsdon, three main factors are driving Chinese research. First is the government's enormous investment, with funding increases far above the rate of inflation, at all levels of the system from schools to postgraduate research. Second is the organized flow of knowledge from basic science to commercial applications. And third is the efficient and flexible way in which China is tapping the expertise of its extensive scientific diaspora in North America and Europe, tempting back mid-career scientists with deals that allow them to spend part of the year working in the West and part in China." Here's the Financial Times's original article.
Beehives and ant colonies are efficient too (Score:5, Insightful)
But I wouldn't want to live in either.
To summarize... (Score:4, Insightful)
"... China is tapping the expertise of its extensive scientific diaspora in North America and Europe, tempting back mid-career scientists with deals that allow them to spend part of the year working in the West and part in China."
Translation: Chinese academics and scientists working in the West are, for all intents and purposes, spys.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Quantity != Quality (Score:5, Insightful)
Priorities out of whack (Score:3, Insightful)
This improves the rate of progress for all of us (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget for a moment the nationalistic and economic competition between USA and China. What this means to me is that with China, Russia, Brazil and India increasing their research output, the rate of scientific progress will probably double from what we had 10 years ago.
That and the fact that I prefer (for moral reasons) a non starving Chinese population, means this is good to me. The current boom in biotechnology together with an aging population, means that scientific knowledge improves quality of life for all of us.
By the way, China is investing heavily and making fast progress in stem cell development, a research area where the religious lobby in the USA has delayed progress. The USA has it's own political problems.
Maybe the US should pay scientists decent wages (Score:4, Insightful)
Things are seriously backwards here when some of the most educated people in the world are paid so poorly.
Most post-docs doing basic research get paid between 30-40K. Perhaps if we paid scientists what they are worth there would be less brain drain.
Let me take you back 25 years (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time I point out how China will replace the US as the dominant force in the world, I get modded troll. Well, America, I understand. My mother is British, and consequently I have a British passport. I understand the denial that's happening - the way you feel is just like the British felt from the mid 1800's up until the middle of last century. The decline of the British Empire took 100 years. But nowadays things happen a lot faster.
Let's look at China:
They have all the industry they need - so much, that they are rapidly becoming the worlds biggest exporter of everything.
They have a huge population.
They have a strong leadership.
They have a real military. Uh this isn't Iraq, right? Their submarines are good enough to sneak up on US carriers, and they have demonstrated that they can shoot down satellites. Now I ask myself where the US will be with carriers on the bottom of the oceans and no satellites to coordinate communications for combined arms or provide overhead intelligence. They've chosen a very smart, asymmetric warfare route. They don't need to have ultra high tech main battle tanks capable of taking direct hits from M1's. They don't need hundred million dollar stealth aircraft. They just need lots and lots of reasonably good anti aircraft and anti tank missiles.
They are becoming scientific leaders, which will even take away the US technology edge.
They have a space program. They also have nuclear weapons. Combine the two and that means they can put a nuclear bomb anywhere on the planet with an ICBM. What's not known is their accuracy, but who needs accuracy if you have a multi-megaton device?
Everything they can't innovate (yet), they can copy. Adherence to patents and intellectual property laws is only given by consent.
They are the single largest holder of US debt, outside the US government.
Ohhhh, it's going to be ugly. I certainly wouldn't want to live in Taiwan in the next 20 years, for a start. Forget the argument that the US is China's biggest customer, that's irrelevant. Wars often start between the best trading partners. The US and the UK circa 1800. The US and Japan WW2. France and Prussia/Germany, quite often in the 19th century. The only hope I have is that China has not shown any expansionist tendencies in recent history. They've been content with defending their borders. But if suddenly they decide to play the imperialism game - watch out!
Defense Spending Is Out of Whack (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe things wouldn't be this way if people in the U.S. started fighting the stigma of becoming a "nerd," gave college research priority over athletics programs, and provided students incentive to be hard-working and inquisitive.
The the real priority that is clearly disparate between Western countries and China is purely what percent of our GDP we dump into science versus defense on a federal level. Do a budget comparison between the United States and China [wikipedia.org] for defense spending. I think you'll find that that leaves China with much more resources to dump into education, their growing economy, building infrastructure and science.
In the United States, military spending does foster more science and education but still not as much as dumping that new joint strike fighter contract into college educations for everyone. It ain't going to change but it's a very real difference that can be felt.
Quantity != Quality (Score:2, Insightful)
China is all about volume simply bc they are HUGE.
And also... I'm still waiting to see a major civil war there sometime..
Re:Priorities out of whack (Score:1, Insightful)
Why are we and others stuck on this dichotomy of "nerds" and "jocks"? Whatever happen to being a scholar and an athlete?
The nerd doesn't have to be a swimming champ or football star and the jock doesn't have to be science genius - but why this false duality?
My uncle was a research chemist who did groundbreaking work in ceramic lasers and he was a big time tennis player up until he died a few years ago. My Uncle Chuck was also a member of a frat in college.
Re:To summarize... (Score:3, Insightful)
China and the US are not in a war, so to label them as spies seems rather odd.
Yes, they are, although the battlefield is purely economic. The US is losing.
I wonder if China can do the same technological leap as Japan did after WW2.
science relies on the free exchange of ideas (Score:5, Insightful)
so i don't believe any chinese researchers will be making amazing breakthroughs as long as they live in a country which is fundamentally opposed to the idea of the free exchange of ideas. the free exchange of ideas is not some cute tweak on the product of scientific research, it is a preceding requirement for quality research to even be done in the first place
a society which does not allow a free exchange if ideas does not result in minds flexible enough to grasp important patterns quickly out of a morass of data. which is the essence of science. a society which carefully controls information results in minds weakened by an artificially placid media environment, where all information is carefully chosen for its adherence to an official point of view. but the truth is often ugly, and when "harmony" is artificially imposed, you breed flimsy minds which can only be spoonfed ideas which aren't too challenging to them
a truly keen scientific mind is bred in an environment where it is constantly challenged by ideas contrary to established belief. the mind is a muscle: challenge it, and it grows strong. put it in artificially serene environment free of opposing ideas, and it grows weak. the information environment that china supports therefore is contrary to the production of good scientific minds, and therefore contrary to the production of good science
in science, you question everything. and therefore, you get the best scientific theories. but in china, you never question, you only behave and adhere to the official party line. and so china is not building the social environment in which high quality minds can exist and high quality science can be done. china is breeding a generation of minds that are made of cotton candy and fluff with their desire for "harmony" over ugly truths. it takes an adherence to freedom of expression to get minds that are free in thought, and therefore make good science
Quality vs. quantity (Score:5, Insightful)
My own experience as a researcher is that Asian countries in general (with the possible exception of Japan) have a long way to go before they match the impact of Western researchers. There are exceptions, such as the MD5 collision [wikipedia.org] found by Wang et al., but in general most of the major breakthroughs occur in the West.
It's also not clear whether research produced by overseas Chinese is included in the total. Some of the very [wikipedia.org] best [wikipedia.org] mathematicians [wikipedia.org] in the world are Chinese, but almost all of them are based at Western institutions. In any case, as good as they are, the number of overseas Chinese is so small that they don't represent anything close to a majority.
Re:And yet (Score:1, Insightful)
The fact that you have a British mother does not mean you can comment with any authority on how the British felt in the mid 1800s.
British power had a significant input from the wealth of its colonies - quite different to America.
Re:science relies on the free exchange of ideas (Score:2, Insightful)
Soviet scientists made pretty big breakthroughs, though they were not living in a free country...
Except... (Score:2, Insightful)
They have a one child policy. And lots of parents have sex selection abortion to avoid having their only child be a girl.
So you are going to have a population that will decline in number that has a bunch of young men with no hope of being married. Say what you will, the drive to take care of your family is important to society.
That's not a recipe for long-term success.
Re:science relies on the free exchange of ideas (Score:1, Insightful)
China allows plenty of free exchange of ideas, just not certain ideas about certain kinds of politics. Germany under the Kaisers was very authoritarian with all kinds of suppression of ideas, but that didn't stop German from rapidly becoming a world in leader in physics and chemistry. Your ideas China breeding minds of cotton candy are just a racist myth. It's not like U.S. society is producing lots of non-apathetic, critical thinkers in the schools.
Re:And yet (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no evidence for that. The metric used in the article (number of papers published) is quite simply the worst possible metric and gives us no information at all about the state of Chinese Research in comparison to other countries.
No, wars start between the largest economies who are rivals for resources and/or markets. They rarely start between trading partners. In the examples that you list Britain and the US had fought the war of independence over trading rights in the New World, and when Japan attacked the US in WWII it was in response to a trade embargo.
Re:And yet (Score:1, Insightful)
"The only hope I have is that China has not shown any expansionist tendencies in recent history "
Is Tibet recent enough for you?
Re:To summarize... (Score:1, Insightful)
So, you don't deny that the very reason they got the bomb(at that time) was spying, do you? You still believe that the Rosenbergs were innocent?
Re:To summarize... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To summarize... (Score:5, Insightful)
'Translation: Chinese academics and scientists working in the West are, for all intents and purposes, spys.'
It's much worse than that! My extensive research has revealed the existence of a vast network of 'scientists' of all nationalities, operating (like the Illuminati and the Bilderberg Group) with little regard for conventional geo-political boundaries. Despite often working in laboratories funded by national governments (or even so-called 'charities'), these sinister 'researchers' have for decades (even centuries!) made the results of their arcane 'experiments' available in communistic fashion to other members of the cabal. To protect their work from the 'unenlightened', these results are usually presented (much like the treatises of the medieval alchemists) in highly cryptic language that is largely unintelligible to anyone who has not been suitably indoctrinated. This 'training' process usually takes the form of an extended apprenticeship to an individual further up the hierarchy who, as in most cults, holds out the promise of greater enlightenment and an elevation in status in return for performing often menial tasks at unsociable hours while being exposed to mind-bending concepts. The final initiation process, the esoterically titled 'viva voce' ('living voice') ritual is particularly dreaded.
Re:To summarize... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, you don't deny that the very reason they got the bomb(at that time) was spying, do you?
Why do you care what, of all people, I, deny or don't deny?
You still believe that the Rosenbergs were innocent?
As far as I know, they did not provide anything of importance. Even if you assume that they somehow sent Russians a diagram of "Fat Man", it was pretty much obvious by then, and couldn't have any effect on further development.
Everything I know about USSR nuclear program suggests that spying had little, if any, effect on it, however there is no reliable way to determine if it played any major role or not. What I do know, is that both USSR and US concentrated their spying efforts on determining what weapons, and how many, each of them had, so they wouldn't accidentally end up with a massive disparity.
The important points are:
1. You can't develop the whole branch of science (or even a nuclear bomb project) from scratch in 4 years on spying -- leave alone on few notes.
2. Nuclear weapons development (and related research programs, and high energy physics, etc.) in USSR went into its own direction, and was advancing at a pace that could not be sustained by "spying".
3. The idiot claimed that the whole nuclear program was actually continuous "stealing" from US, and that it somehow was stopped or damaged when US made their program "more secure".
Re:Priorities out of whack (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes as the UTexas students recently discovered. Mack Brown gets a nice 5M/year now even though his contract wasn't up. They "gave" him a bump since he was so good. Of course he lost the BCS game. And don't even get me started on how valuable I think a coach even is. He's not the one with his butt out there getting creamed. But anyway,UT is short 30Mil now, so the students get a 4% tuition hike. Athletics has become what schools do, while academics are a sideshow. Its really pathetic. I stopped giving to my alma mater a few years ago when I found out the EE school was planning to use the money for F*chking wifi for the football stadium. WTF. I'd like to find a school to give to with a 0 dollar athletic program and give to them. I'm all for intramural for exercise, but this pre-NFL training camp crap should go. If the NFL wants a training camp, let them pay for it. /* end rant & I'll bet my karma takes a hit for this one */
Re:Quantity != Quality (Score:1, Insightful)
I guess this is the famous communistic quota requirement. It's ridiculous when it gets out of hand. Everyone with expectation on then has to produce and present results. It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as there is output. ... as long as production can be shown to the leaders.
Same thing is happening it the Chinese society right now. Romania did the same thing a long time ago. It doesn't matter that it's crap
I wonder if anyone is actually going through all that material and decides if it's worth the effort or not. This is where commercial responsibility come into the picture. Can it generate a profit or not?
Re:More than just those three reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's get this straight. You argue that when politics (nee religion) strangles a line of research, and that line of research subsequently produces few results, that is justification for continuing to strangle that line of research?
If only the religious nuts would apply that principle to themselves.
Re:To summarize... (Score:2, Insightful)
Motherland. "Fatherland" is Germany, and Germany didn't do no stinking commies.
Only Marx and Engels.
Re:Maybe the US should pay scientists decent wages (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Priorities out of whack (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe the US should pay scientists decent wages (Score:3, Insightful)
Risk-taking for productive enterprise is good. Risk-taking for no reason other than to make your balls look bigger or keep up with the Joneses is what got us here.
Re:Quantity != Quality (Score:3, Insightful)
This is really terrifying. Not a single person has seen fit to contradict you. I think the scientific community should be really concerned about this. There is already a lot of low quality work filling up the world of published research with meaningless garbage (I would have said that 1 in 10 papers was worthwhile while I was in college). From the sounds of things it is getting worse, not better.
Re:Quantity != Quality (Score:3, Insightful)
I have read about this before (sorry no links) but the main reason of this huge production of publications is because Chinese measure their student's and scientist's performance that way. A Chinese PhD will during his thesis easily publish a few dozen papers while a western PhD student may do one or two. Some Chinese PhD's publish more papers during their PhD study than many Western scientists during their whole career. China is doing quite some quality research these days for sure though they have a lot to catch up and frankly a lot of their output (not only the toys) is crap.
In the West, scientists are judged by their quality of work (this is hard to do, requires a lot of work by the assessor), while in China they are judged by the number of papers published (a nice easy number). This is what makes them so productive. Indeed the quality is often low, the advancements if any are little, but a paper is a paper and it adds to the tally.
So while China may lead in 2020 in numbers of papers published, I doubt they will lead in quality. I think US is still nr 1 in that, Europe as a whole a good second. That's where the money is to really do fundamental research that has no direct commercial use (if any at all - LHC is a nice example) but that costs a lot of money in man-hours and equipment.
That said, a lot of research done nowadays in the US especially is done by Asian PhD students, who may or may not stay in the US or go back to their home country.
Re:Maybe the US should pay scientists decent wages (Score:2, Insightful)
True, but most basic scientific research happens in academia.
Re:To summarize... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's called industrial espionage and there have been many reports of China engaged in this for years in every Western country.
Of course, they now have a huge number of scientists with advanced degrees but so did the old Soviet Union and they
lagged WAY behind in manufacturing.
Thanks to the Western outsourcing of just about every item from shoes to ships, China's manufacturing is very good.