Losing Google Would Hit Chinese Science Hard

An anonymous reader writes to share recent statements by Chinese scientists that indicate troubled waters ahead if Google were to pull out of China. "More than three-quarters of scientists in China use the search engine Google as a primary research tool and say their work would be significantly hampered if they were to lose it, a survey showed on Wednesday. In the survey, 84 percent said losing Google would 'somewhat or significantly' hamper their research and 78 percent said international collaborations would be affected. 'Research without Google would be like life without electricity,' one Chinese scientist said in the survey, which asked more than 700 scientists for their views."

Comments

So, what they're saying is...

[bsDaemon]

So, how long, then, until we see the govt "encouraging" Google to get out of China for national security reasons?

Re:"I hope you have the time of your life"- Green

[Tolkien]

They have their own search engines (Baidu), but Google is significant because it would impact *international collaboration*. This would be bad for all involved.

Re:What about Baidu?

[ElectricTurtle]

...nations and fields of research are not yet dependent on them...

So you're willfully ignoring the testimony of Chinese scientists? That's like watching something fall and then saying you don't believe in gravity.

Baidu is a sino-centric search engine, which for the average Chinese is a positive thing as they don't frequently need international results, but for scientists who constantly need international and multi-lingual results, Baidu doesn't hold a candle to Google. That's why Baidu has the majority of marketshare in China nationally, but is a minority among Chinese scientists.

Reverse Engineering

[AP31R0N]

Losing Google Would Hit Chinese Reverse Engineering Hard

FTfY

Funny thing: our schools are packed with Chinese students and profs.

Re:Google Scholar

[xkcdFan1011011101111]

PubMed doesn't spit out bibtex entries for papers, show how many citations a paper has, show who has CITED a specific paper, or have near the search power. Google Scholar may not have your field pegged yet, and PubMed might be an important place for your paper to show up, but Google Scholar has vital features that no other search engine has.

Re:"I hope you have the time of your life"- Green

[haruchai]

Not to mention, if Google pulls out, China would have a more difficult time to steal their IP to build
a comparable search engine.

I'm only half-kidding

"Research"?

[CAIMLAS]

Chinese "research", eh?

I wonder how much of that research is "find places to steal information from and use it". Seems we've had a fair number of news articles lately about Chinese espionage, and it doesn't take much imagination to see that a lot of the "new" things from China are actually reverse engineered Western items.

Without effective search, I suspect all the shops in China making Apple product knockoffs would be hard pressed to bring products to market. Likewise for many other industries.