China To Overtake US In Science In Two Years 362
An anonymous reader writes "China is set to overtake America in scientific output as soon as 2013 — far earlier than expected. Chinese research spending has grown by 20% per year since 1999, now reaching over $100bn, and as many as 1.5 million science and engineering students graduated from Chinese universities in 2006. 'I think this is positive, of great benefit, though some might see it as a threat and it does serve as a wake-up call for us not to become complacent,' said Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith. However, the report points out that a growing volume of research publications does not necessarily mean an increase in quality."
What, people measure scientific output? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there some way to objectively measure it? Number of patents, number of papers, what?
Re:Chinese universities also have more cheating (Score:4, Interesting)
You have any numbers supporting that assertion? Specifically, is it true when weighted by research impact?
Not surprising (Score:2, Interesting)
When I hear things like Texas wants to slash 10 billion dollars from the public education budget. Or did that not get through?
The last line is the important one (Score:5, Interesting)
China may do a lot of research, but it does not seem to do a lot of good research. If you've been to China, it is understandable why: There is very much a mentality of "Whatever you want to do is ok, so long as it gets you ahead." Lying, cheating, all perfectly ok. Well maybe you can argue this works in normal life and business (though some serious downsides can be pointed out) it doesn't work in science.
Feynman put it really well (he was talking about the Challenger disaster): "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
Well China's culture doesn't magically stop when you start talking universities and labs. The faking of results goes along strong, because it helps you get ahead. Publish more papers, be more prominent and all that. Works for the individual researcher, I suppose, but that means overall the research is useless. I can write as many papers as I like, fake as many results as I like, that claim that X causes Y. However if X does indeed not cause Y it doesn't do any good, I can't change reality.
Before China can become truly top at science, as in producing the most useful actual output, they'll have to have a cultural change, at least in the scientific community and probably the larger culture.
However I also fail to see why this is a big deal. I wouldn't consider myself all that worldly, but I've traveled to a fair number of countries not the US. All of them are by definition #2 or lower in science output, as well as many other things the US is #1 at. Guess what? that doesn't matter. They are nice places to live, with happy productive people, stable governments, and so on (I don't tend to visit countries that don't meet those requirements). I could move to Canada or the UK or Norway and be quite happy there. They may not be #1 in anything, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. You don't have to be the best at everything, I think maybe Americans need to learn that.
Re:Chinese universities also have more cheating (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a lot of anecdotal evidence of cheating.
And it's also helped by the fact that in China researchers are judged by number of papers they put out - so there is a very strong incentive for copying work from others and add maybe a bit of your own just to push out yet another paper. It's normal for a PhD at a Chinese university to have a dozen or two papers on his name when graduating; against just a few for PhDs at European or American universities.
Cheating is considered a large problem within universities in China - not only universities but also other parts of the whole education system. I've read about doctors working in hospitals with bought certificates. Recently it was pilots flying commercial Chinese airliners without having actually passed the exams. It's a real problem - and arguably part of the problem is the lack of checks and balances. These pilot licenses should have been verified with the school that purportedly issued them, for example, yet airliners were too busy expanding that they didn't do this. I wouldn't be surprised if more bribes were involved in not having those licenses checked.
Quality of Chinese research in general is still low. They will surely pick up to the game sooner or later, and there are definitely very good Chinese researchers around. Just have a look at the top universities in the US: many of their top researchers nowadays are Chinese nationals. Oh and that they are working in the US and not in their home country is not just because.
Re:What, people measure scientific output? (Score:5, Interesting)
China also is notorious for science fraud. From my observation, which can be summed up as a 'scientist browsing and delving into various pubs regularly', when there's fraud, it's usually in China.
Re:Chinese universities also have more cheating (Score:3, Interesting)
If it's anything like my experience in Taiwan then I'm not surprised at all. I went to driving school in Taiwan to get my local license. The school consisted of 5 days a week for 6 weeks we went to school and had a "driving instructor" tell us how to take the test on the course that they have at their school. Their school is also certified to have the test taken there. There are little rocks and other curiously placed items, plus extra large side mirrors and triangular mud flaps, to help aid you along. When taught to back into a parking space I was told to line up a light pole with my passenger door and turn the wheel all the way, when I see the line is parallel with the triangular mudflap then I stop, turn the wheel back to the straight position and back up until the triangular mudflap points at the white line behind me.
Parallel parking was much the same. Line the triangular mudflap up with a rock that happens to have been painted into the fog line on the road, turn the wheel until it can't turn anymore and backup until the other wheels triangular mudflap hits the fog line and then stop. Turn the wheel all the way back in the other direction and then back up, perfectly parallel parked each time.
The "driving instructor" only sat with you the first couple days, then he figured you pretty much got it and then could go off and bs with his buddies. If you got bored of driving around the same track for two hours you could go inside where you get to practice taking the exact same test that you will have to take at the DMV for the written portion.
The real kicker is, although your "driving instructor" may be a "certified tester" he can't test his own students, so another one of the "driving instructors" will probably test you. They'll help you cheat the whole time while taking the driving test. There is a part where you have to stop on a hill and are not allowed to roll backwards. The "certified tester" will actually press the break for you on his side of the car so that you can make it through this part without failing. After the test, even if you did it perfectly, they will at least dock you 4 points on some random line JUST so that the government doesn't get suspicious that everyone is passing with 100%. I have driven a car for 10 years and I did everything right, but he docked me a couple points on the clutch not being steady, or not shifting smoothly, which was complete BS.
There is a huge business for so called "Cram Schools" here. They are schools made to help students "get ahead" of their peers. But everybody goes to them. For some reason people can't accept that their teachers at school are sufficient to teach their children so they ship them of to cram school for 3-4 hours after school, which starts at 7am and gets out around 4-5pm. You can imagine daycare isn't really needed for those mothers who choose not to stay at home but go out and work, they can just send them off to learn what they should have learned in school. Most people I've talked to have explained that what they do in the "Cram Schools" is just teach them how to pass the test that their teacher will give.
Granted it's not as bad as it used to be, where teachers would actually purposefully not teach things in their class and then set up a cram school right across from the school where they did the real teaching.
I can only assume that this goes on in china still. That and their cookie cutter format to school. You literally have the same class through half of elementary, all of middle, and through the last two years of high school. In high school, after one year you decide if you want science and math or social studies and art. You spend your final year pretty much just taking tests and getting ready to take tests.
Once in college, which is determined by how well you did on your tests, and a University is separated into multiple "Colleges", when just applying for college you already have to have predetermined which major you want, because when you apply for "College" it is a "College" within the
Re:What, people measure scientific output? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What, people measure scientific output? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's just sour grapes. Just because the Chinese tried to fraudulantly deny Perelman his claim to solving one of the world's toughest maths problems (amongst other academic misdeeds)! Besides, academic fraud is widespread. Any South Korean cloning experts come to mind? Then there's the US medical researchers who won't publish papers that would make their sponsors look bad. The truth is, academia needs to be properly and heavily funded by Governments and those trusts that can demonstrate neutrality, not by private organizations, and there really should be a heavy crackdown on corruption.