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

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

[LostCluster]

With all of the "free trade" efforts leading to "We'll take your jobs, thanks," maybe this is something we should inflict on China.

Survey says....

[LostCluster]

What's going on when somebody in China is allowed to ask 700 people of any kind about any political issue? Isn't that close to that "voting" thing their leaders are afraid of?

Re:Survey says....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not looking at the journal article, most likely they asked Chinese professors. If you're a professor in China, you're a Party member--exceptions are that few. If you are a corporate scientist in China either you're a Party member or you have the patronage and protection of somebody of importance in the Party. So they're getting the opinion of one faction within the Party not a bunch of average citizens.

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

[Targon]

So, who wants to start up a fundraiser to pay Google to shut down operations in China?

What about Baidu?

[jfengel]

I was under the impression that Baidu had significantly more market share already. Is there something that Google does particularly well for research that Baidu doesn't? Is it something Baidu would find difficult to replicate?

TFA doesn't even mention Baidu, though the first comment declares it "pretty lame" (with no support that assertion).

Google is a remarkable company and a remarkable search engine, but it shouldn't be that hard for other engines to provide at least a facsimile of what it does in the search area.

Re:What about Baidu?

[jank1887]

Since these are scientists, I assume that Google Scholar is the thing they'd miss most. Before, you had to subscribe to indexing services (Ovid, Web of Science, etc.) to get access to searchable abstracts, reference spidering, etc. Then, you'd find the article of interest and go to the publisher site to see your options for obtaining the article. Now, I can Google Scholar >95% of the technical literature I'm interested in, I'm shown the multiple versions of a file, some of which might be available for free, I can search a very broad range of topics through a single portal, and it'll take me to the publisher site if that's what's needed.

Can't beat it. Nobody else has anything close for free.

Being IN China necessary?

[icebike]

Why would Google have to be IN China for the "scientists" to use it as a search engine?

Just because Google has no offices or data centers in China would not mean it would be unavailable there.

Censored perhaps, but how difficult would it be for "Scientists" to get around that, or be exempted from it?

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

[LostCluster]

China often threatens and does replace google.cn with Baidu's site. The thing is, Baidu is not as good of a search as Google, so users would rather see Google.

When somebody is giving you a silly punishment for what you're doing that annoys them... coming up with a way to live with that punishment in place and still do what you want is a great way to frustrate your oppressor.

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

[Beardo the Bearded]

I'd rather pay them to change all the results to

"Did you mean Tiananmen Square?"

and force all GIS to "Safesearch: Off"

China then becomes a self-correcting problem.