Scientists behaving badly

Recent events show China needs to clean up its scientific act

DISPUTES about science in Western countries can sometimes be heated. Seldom, though, do they descend into fisticuffs. But this is what seems to have happened in China on August 29th. That day Fang Shimin, a well-known scientific blogger and self-proclaimed “science cop”, was attacked in the street by a gang. Nor was this the first such incident. In June Fang Xuanchang (no relation), a science journalist on Caijing magazine, was on the receiving end of similar treatment.

So far, it might be thought by smug Westerners, so depressing. But then there was a twist in the tale. One of the objects of the two Fangs’ criticisms, Xiao Chuanguo, a urologist at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, was arrested and charged with organising the assaults. Even more extraordinary (or perhaps not, considering that he had been detained for seven days without access to a lawyer), he confessed his guilt on television, on September 28th.

Virtue, then, has prevailed. And Chinese science has taken a step towards the standards of civilised discourse that Westerners like to think prevail in their own countries. Maybe. For the more you dig into this strange tale, the more illuminating it is of the need for Chinese science to clean up its act.

Fang Shimin claims that Xin Yu Si (New Threads), the website he runs, posts about 100 allegations of scientific fraud a year, and he has become a folk hero as a result. China has no proper procedures for dealing with such fraud and Dr Fang believes that, in the absence of such official channels, a platform of the sort his website provides is indispensable to the fight against misconduct in science.

Some of the accusations undoubtedly stand up and shine a light on the often-murky business of Chinese science. Many, however, are anonymous and lack specifics, making it difficult for those accused to mount a rebuttal even when they are innocent. Indeed, New Threads reminds some of those with longer memories of the hysteria of the Cultural Revolution, when anybody could post any accusation on da zi bao (big-character posters), and countless lives were ruined as a consequence. Not surprisingly, Dr Fang has many enemies.

Read more at The Economist