Published online 12 January 2010 | Nature 463, 142-143 (2010) |
doi:10.1038/463142a
原文如下：
Publish or perish in China
The pressure to rack up publications in high-impact journals could
encourage misconduct, some say.
Jane Qiu
The latest in a string of high-profile academic fraud cases in China
underscores the problems of an academic-evaluation system that places
disproportionate emphasis on publications, critics say. Editors at the
UK-based journal Acta Crystallographica Section E last month retracted
70 published crystal structures that they allege are fabrications by
researchers at Jinggangshan University in Jiangxi province. Further
retractions, the editors say, are likely.
Chinese universities often award cash prizes, housing benefits or
other perks on the basis of high-profile publications, and the
pressure to publish seems to be growing. A new study from Wuhan
University, for instance, estimates that the market for dubious
science-publishing activities, such as ghostwriting papers on
nonexistent research, was of the order of 1 billion renminbi (US$150
million) in 2009 — five times the amount in 2007. In other studies,
one in three researchers surveyed at major universities and research
institutions admitted to committing plagiarism, falsification or
fabrication of data.
"The extent of the misconduct is disturbing," says Nicholas Steneck,
director of the Research Ethics and Integrity Program at the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "It highlights the challenges
China faces as it struggles to rapidly improve the research capacity
of a very large system — with significant variations in quality — to
be a world-class player in science."
Two weeks ago, reacting to the retractions of the crystallography
papers, Jinggangshang University fired the correspondent authors,
Zhong Hua and Liu Tao. It is unclear whether their co-authors, who
include researchers from other institutions in China, will also be
investigated.
The journal's editors say that the discrepancies came to light during
tests of software designed to flag possible errors and unusual
chemical features, such as abnormal distances between atoms. The
software identified a large number of crystal structures that didn't
make sense chemically; further checking, the editors say, suggests
that the authors simply changed one or more atoms of an existing
compound of known structure, then presented that structure as new.
Zhong and Liu could not be reached for comment.
Editors at the journal are now checking the authenticity of other
published crystal structures, including all submissions from
Jinggangshan University.
Half of the 200,000-odd crystal structures published by the journal
during the past five years have come from China. William Harrison, a
chemist at the University of Aberdeen, UK, who is one of three section
editors for the journal, would not discuss the ongoing investigation
but says that the generation of large numbers of structures by one
group would not necessarily raise questions, because diffractometers
can easily collect a couple of data sets a day. "In terms of papers
submitted to Acta E, the vast majority coming from China are correctly
determined structures, and they make a valuable contribution to
science," he says.
Nevertheless, the Wuhan University study suggests that misconduct
could be widespread in many fields. The team, led by computer
scientist Shen Yang, used website analyses and onsite investigations
to identify a wide range of dubious publishing activities. These
include ghostwriting theses and academic papers on fictional research,
bypassing peer-review for payment, and forging copies of legitimate
Chinese or international journals.
The researchers analysed the most popular 800 websites involved in
such activities — which together rack up 210,000 hits a day — and
found that the cost of each transaction is typically 600–12,000
renminbi. Three-quarters of the demand comes from universities and
institutions, says Shen. "There is a massive production chain for the
entire publishing process," he says.
Concerned by such trends, China's science ministry commissioned a
survey of researchers, the results of which remain under wraps. However,
several sources revealed to Nature that roughly one-third of more than
6,000 surveyed across six top institutions admitted to plagiarism,
falsification or fabrication. Many blamed the culture of jigong jinli
— seeking quick success and short-term gain — as the top reason for
such practices, says Zeng Guopin, director of the Institute of Science
Technology and Society at Tsinghua University in Beijing who was
involved in running the survey.
The second most-cited cause is bureaucratic interference in academic
activities in China. Most academic evaluation — from staff employment
and job promotion to funding allocation — is carried out by
bureaucrats who are not experts in the field in question, says Fang
Shimin, a US-trained biochemist who runs a website called 'New
Threads' that exposes research misconduct in China. "When that happens,
counting the number of publications, rather than assessing the quality
of research, becomes the norm of evaluation," he says.
Cao Nanyan, a colleague of Zeng's at Tsinghua, conducted a similar
survey commissioned by the Beijing municipality, which surveyed 2,000
researchers from 10 universities and research institutions. It, too,
found that roughly one-third of respondents admitted to illegitimate
practices.
To critics such as Rao Yi, dean of the life-science school at Peking
University in Beijing, the lack of severe sanctions for fraudsters,
even in high-profile cases, also contributes to rampant academic fraud.
Many researchers criticize the fact that Chen Jin, a former researcher
at Shanghai Jiao Tong University who is accused of falsely claiming to
have developed a series of digital signal-processing chips, was fired
with no other repercussions. Meanwhile, others involved in the scandal
have gone unpunished.
"You send out a very wrong signal when such high-profile cases are not
dealt with properly," says Rao.作者: sunmanji 時間: 2010-1-15 12:26
中國學(xué)者應(yīng)引以為戒！作者: sjhy620926 時間: 2010-1-15 13:29
學(xué)術(shù)不端非常厲害，我的某篇優(yōu)秀論文就被人抄去申報職稱了。作者: jiakang 時間: 2010-1-16 11:27
厲害,學(xué)術(shù)是要潛下心來,踏實(shí)創(chuàng)新的.........作者: tom147145111 時間: 2010-1-16 11:30
呵呵
啥話也不想講
現(xiàn)在社會就這樣作者: search666 時間: 2010-1-17 13:22
昨天看到中央電視臺經(jīng)濟(jì)頻道《中國腳步》節(jié)目，一頂中國制造的帽子在國外賣到十幾美元，而中國企業(yè)出口價格僅一美元，我們付出了大部分的勞動卻得到極其微薄的回報，別人吃肉我們只有喝點(diǎn)湯的份！一部汽車的發(fā)動機(jī)、轉(zhuǎn)向、制動和電路等核心系統(tǒng)技術(shù)我們國產(chǎn)品牌與國外品牌的差距不可想象，我們只不過是一個中國制造的世界加工廠，根本沒有核心技術(shù)，所以也就沒有競爭力。
有差距并不怕，關(guān)鍵是要迎頭趕上，政府早已意識到這一問題，早在鄧小平時期就提出了‘科技是第一生產(chǎn)力’的偉大方針，近年政府也一直在強(qiáng)調(diào)提高自主創(chuàng)新能力，提高核心競爭力，并投入大量的資金、人力物力，國家重視并投入關(guān)鍵是這些資源有沒有用到該用的地方？我們的大學(xué)、科研機(jī)構(gòu)是不是在真正的踏踏實(shí)實(shí)的搞這些工作？有多少人真正在搞？
提高核心競爭力不是一朝一夕就能夠達(dá)到的目標(biāo)，需要一代人甚至是幾代人的默默付出，連續(xù)空缺兩年的自然科學(xué)獎一等獎今年終于有了得主，獲獎項(xiàng)目為由中科院植物研究所錢崇澍、崔鴻賓等人完成的“《中國植物志》的編研”，過去十年中，該獎項(xiàng)累積空缺七次?！吨袊参镏尽返木幾霘v時45年，由幾代人完成的巨作，包含有5000多萬字，收入31000多種植物，是目前世界上最大、最完整的一份植物志。遺憾的是，獲獎時，錢崇澍、崔鴻賓早已過世。
真正的成果只有具備這樣的淡泊名利，專心科研的精神才能做出來的，現(xiàn)在像這樣的科研工作者太少了，少的都可以申請國家級保護(hù)了！作者: 天牛行空 時間: 2010-1-17 16:50
學(xué)術(shù)造假就如假冒商品一樣，要嚴(yán)厲打擊！??！作者: tanhao121811 時間: 2010-1-18 10:43
畢竟，科研不是那么容易就出來的~作者: 養(yǎng)殖小干事 時間: 2010-1-18 16:18
現(xiàn)在就這個氛圍，難 啊作者: panjianwen1982 時間: 2010-1-18 18:14
引以為戒呀