When Political Mapping Leaks Into Science Research

An anonymous reader writes "Political and territorial disputes have been leaking to scientific venues like Nature, Science and Climatic Change. Many recent scientific papers submitted to these journals promote the highly disputed Chinese U-shaped line. One of the authors refused to change her map after being requested by the journals, stating that that her published map was requested by the Chinese government. This practice was condemned by Nature in its latest editorial, which asserts that political maps that seek to advance disputed territorial claims have no place in scientific papers."

Comments

Is territory relevant?

[GameboyRMH]

Is territory relevant to this research? Since it's climate-related I'd guess not, I doubt they're trying to calculate the average temperature increase per square mile of China's territory. So China and any other country that has a problem can fuck right off.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[jmorris42]

> Is territory relevant to this research?

The problem is anyone working in China is required to assert Chinese territorial claims because to do otherwise would be an admission that there is a dispute, i.e. that the State might be wrong; and that idea is sedition to a police state.

The only solution is for the scientific journals in the Free World to accept papers as written and then add a editorial note on the order of this:

"Note: This paper was submitted by a prisoner of the Communist Chinese dictatorship and thus must promote Chinese foreign policy goals or be sent to a labor camp or killed. Because the science in this paper is otherwise sound we are publishing it as written, however this should not be taken as an endorsement of Chinese territorial claims by this journal." [Internationally accepted map inset goes here with differences highlighted.]

In other words, throw a passive aggressive turd in their faces and they will be shamed into backing down.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[cusco]

Actually rather than being "shamed into backing down" they're more likely to purchase your journal's publisher and have you canned. Nothing says that communists can't also use traditional "free enterprise" solutions.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[jmorris42]

Probably wouldn't work. Who would take a scientific journal owned by the Chinese government seriously? All it would do is kill that journal off... as the staff quit in protest, crossed the street to some open office space and established a new one.

No, the problem is that the staff at most scientific journals are academic types who when push comes to shove are on the side of the Communists and thus do not want to censure them. So they have to speak out in extreme cases like this one to maintain credibility but will quietly accede to the demands once the hubbub dies out a bit.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[NeutronCowboy]

In other words, throw a passive aggressive turd in their faces and they will be shamed into backing down.

While I agree with the majority of your post, this is unrealistic. The Chinese - and their government specifically - takes geographical claims, very, very seriously. Why do you think they pitch a fit anytime anyone shakes the Dalai Lama's hands, or sells Taiwan anything more than a sling shot?

The only way to make China accept reduced geographical claims is by pointing a gun at its Army and making it crystal clear that China will not win this fight without enormous costs.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

Handling it like that might result in a pointless and time-consuming shitstorm though.
If I were the editor of such a paper, I would simply use Photoshop to make all political borders invisible.
Unless you're dealing with history or the like, political borders have no place in a science article.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[belmolis]

China is no longer a communist country. The ruling party has kept the name, but it renounced communist principles some time ago. China is now a largely capitalist dictatorship, albeit one in which the state, especially the army, owns a significant portion of businesses.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[Genda]

Pointing a U.S. gun at China, does two things:
1. It makes us look like exactly the same kind of thug as China, and that this is some kind of gang war.
2. It destroys any semblance of an attempt at peaceful resolution through international law.

Its hard for the U.S. to get all up in China's face when we own Islands throughout the Pacific that we took from Japan during WWII. We have our own history of land grabbing. That said, we don't lay claim on the ocean between Guam and the U.S., that would be patently absurd. We also have a strong presence on our islands and have maintained them as such since we claimed them. There is no Chinese parallel to the island claimed by China.

The U.N. needs to sit down with China, and make it clear that there will be no South Sea land grab. China's claim are groundless, arbitrary, and steps all over the rights of millions of people who have no intention of being Chinese citizens. This is another Tibet, now with global implications on shipping lanes and free navigation.

The U.N. needs to put its foot down and say that there are substantial sanctions that the entire world can take if China doesn't clean up its act. China can claim the entire pacific ocean if it wants, the rest of the world won't put up with an aggressive, bully, taking whatever it wants. What next, Australia? Indonesia? The days of land grabbing need to come to a halt for all nations (hear that Israel?) Use diplomacy, then international sanctions, only then does a large multinational force arrive and say, "We simply can't let you take what is not yours, step away."

Re:Is territory relevant?

[NeutronCowboy]

Very true. I wasn't arguing the US should do it now, but to be prepared for the fact that all the diplomatic efforts and sanctions won't amount to squat. It's either guns or economic sanctions so severe that they are worse than any benefit they can get from the mineral deposits at the bottom of the sea.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[aldousd666]

That would be a socialist dictatorship. By definition of socialism: "State owns the means of production."

Re:Is territory relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

China has been asserting claims to larger swaths of ocean and land.

Greenhouse gases and global temperatures are on the rise.

Coincidence?

You decide, tonight at 11 . . .

Re:Is territory relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

"prisoner of the Communist Chinese dictatorship and thus must promote Chinese foreign policy goals or be sent to a labor camp or killed"

write hyperbole much? Have you ever even been to China? Since the 1970's?

The map, and the attempted land grab in progress, are wrong and should be opposed, but we'll do a lot better dealing w/ China if folks like you realize what century it is, and what kind of place modern China actually is . . .

Re:Is territory relevant?

[Lakitu]

Much of the dispute is with communist Vietnam, which starkly contrasts to a China which can no longer even be characterized as having a communist government or even attempting to have one. The idea that you think they would push a foreign nation's nationalist interests over other foreign nation's nationalist interests in order to "maintain credibility" indicates that you are a total moron in most aspects, especially ones which involve topics such as science or the South China Sea.

It should also be noted that, while the intent to protect a person living under an authoritarian regime may be genuine, publishing a Chinese "nine-dot map" is much more than that, in genuinely supporting the Chinese claims. When things like this happen, the regime making the claim very often refers to publications like this as proof of the claim's veracity.

Fifty or a hundred years from now, a Chinese government will be able to point out a publication like this and say "see, even the people of a century ago referred to it contemporarily as Chinese territory", and it will have long been forgotten that the person only included the map under duress.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[Lakitu]

China is much more accurately described as a fascist government, not any kind of socialism.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[Lakitu]

There are reasons to disagree with both 1 and 2, specifically in reference to Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Would you consider those US territories like Guam? The United States has been pointing guns at China, along with anybody else that looks at them, since the end of WW2, and I think it's incorrect to call it something akin to land-grabbing, though they all certainly have many ulterior motives.

The promise of defending Japan after WW2 is, of course, self-serving, but it also was a common sense way of providing stability in a region which the Japanese had, in many cases, literally just raped. Even today in that region people would give little credibility to any Japanese attempts to defend itself.

The origins of Korean defense are a lot more murky, as evidenced by China's original fears of its landgrabbiness, causing blatant Chinese and Soviet intervention in the war -- the only reason for its stalemate in the first place. The Korean war had essentially been won, with US (United Nations, actually) forces close to the Chinese border, setting off every alarm bell they could in a recently erected ChiCom government. Today its defense is generally undisputed, with North Korea having fallen off the Mao-era communist bandwagon into a crazy cult black sheep of the East Asia region which nobody wants around.

Taiwan's defense origins are similar to that of Korea, with reciprocal fears of a global takeover by an opposing side of the Communist-Capitalist spectrum sparking much tension. Even today many mainland Chinese and Taiwanese (Taiwan Chinese) share essentially mirrored hardline beliefs about their respective status as legitimate governments of all of China, which, thankfully, are in a minority of crazy people looked down at from the ledge of sanity by most everyone else.

Even many mainland Chinese who would profess legitimacy over Taiwan do it not so much as a budding desire for invasion and more of a dispute of the more extreme views from across the straits that their own government does not exist. Much of the argument today is whether "Taiwan" refers to a separate nation-state with a history independent of "Chinese", which, outside of China, is a view that largely does not exist. Chinese people born in Taiwan, or having emigrated from Taiwan, who write in a "traditional" script, are generally only referred to as Taiwanese in the same way a mainland Chinese person might say they are Cantonese or from Shanghai -- they are, at heart, a Chinese individual. The difference can actually be much more marked within a Chinese context between Chinese individuals, where there can be very strong regional affinities, with Northern Chinese often looking down on people from the South, or vice versa, and both of them looking down on people from farther inland. This is often in a way to draw a distinction such as the darkness of ones skin or the peculiarity of an accent which would be very familiar to people born in the West, such as Europeans of various nationalities do of each other, or Europeans do of people born in a different region of their own country, or Americans who would make fun of the way a Southerner talks and is bigoted and morbidly obese compared to the way a Southerner talks about people from the coasts loving faggots and vegetables and solar panels. When it comes down to it, it is a regional divisiveness which actually helps to characterize the people from being from the same place, as people from outside of the country would be completely unaware of the distinctions for which they make fun of each other.

In this sense, especially, pointing guns at China (and selling guns to Taiwan) is essentially beneficial to everyone, since just about everyone wants the status quo of separate governments to continue, mainland China and Taiwan more than anyone else, including the USA. The stability provided by US defense in the area has allowed this to happen for over 50 years and will continue to be the reason for it by putting well out of reach the ideas of a violent reunification dreamt by whate

Re:Is territory relevant?

[mathfeel]

Probably wouldn't work. Who would take a scientific journal owned by the Chinese government seriously? All it would do is kill that journal off... as the staff quit in protest, crossed the street to some open office space and established a new one.

I agree with this point.

No, the problem is that the staff at most scientific journals are academic types who when push comes to shove are on the side of the Communists and thus do not want to censure them. So they have to speak out in extreme cases like this one to maintain credibility but will quietly accede to the demands once the hubbub dies out a bit.

Citation needed. Many of the academics scientists I work with are more Ron Paul than Ron Paul. I hardly know anyone remotely Marxist. Maybe there'd more in social science, I don't know. Anyway, most are fairly central and apolitical. If I put them in a distribution, I think it's pretty bell-curved. Just like any reasonably large sample. Although on social issue, it'd be skewed left, but that's a different discussion.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[jmorris42]

> write hyperbole much? Have you ever even been to China? Since the 1970's?

Care to guess how many Chinese citizens are rotting in forced labor camps, prisons or shallow graves at this exact moment? Try publicly protesting the regime and they will do exactly the same thing to you today as Mao would have. The ChiComs embraced some aspects of a market economy when reality slapped them in the face but they are still ChiComs. A fascist doesn't change until you bury him. See Putin, Vladimir.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[DigiShaman]

I hear you. But lets be real for a moment. Diplomatic actions are (and have been) backed up and enforced with a strong military presence. China is just cutting right to the chase and backing up their land-grab with major naval spending and deployment. So the best course of action is to have all other nations keep their ships in international waters as a reminder to the fact that it's "international waters".

Re:Is territory relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

> 1. It makes us look like exactly the same kind of thug as China, and that this is some kind of gang war.

Bah. That's the argument that bullies use - it's a false equivalency that benefits whoever made the bolder claim first. "You're not allowed to fight back".

Re:Is territory relevant?

[jandersen]

Your choice of words is somewhat tendentious, IMO. China does not deserve to be called a thug, for one thing - certainly not militarily. Even the Dalai Lama has recognised that the Chinese army behaved with unusual restraint when they went into Tibet (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_Tibet_into_the_People's_Republic_of_China)

The U.N. needs to sit down with China, ...

A bit naive to imagine that the UN can dictate anything - the US habitually ignores the UN, Israel is notorious for doing so, etc etc. The UN is a forum where governments can shout at each other, because it is better than going to war; they are not a world government, and they don't have military power.

This is another Tibet ...

China's claim to Tibet, or Xizang, is a lot less controversial than many other nations' claim to territories. This is not "The Evil Communists (TM)" that have conquered a poor nation, this claim has far older roots than that; and apart from that, Guomindang too felt Tibet to be Chinese territory.

... with global implications on shipping lanes and free navigation.

That may be so, but it is not unique. Take for example Iceland's 200 miles zone, or for that matter, the way UK, Denmark, Germany and Norway have split the North Sea.

At the end of the day, the legitimacy of a nation's claim to a territory rests for the most part on that nation's ability to hold on to it, whether through military might or because nobody else cares. Take Greenland, for example - if suddenly Greenland became very important to Canada, or the US for that matter, would they hesitate more a than a nanosecond before laying in a hefty claim on it? I mean, considering Denmark's overall, military strength? I woudn't bet on it.

Re:Is territory relevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

So when are you returning Diego Garcia to it's rightful owners?

Re:Is territory relevant?

[GameboyRMH]

No, the problem is that the staff at most scientific journals are academic types who when push comes to shove are on the side of the Communists and thus do not want to censure them. So they have to speak out in extreme cases like this one to maintain credibility but will quietly accede to the demands once the hubbub dies out a bit.

What the shit!? 8-(

You're nuts man.

Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Board

[G3ckoG33k]

Why not nominate the Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Board. They are correct in that "political maps that seek to advance disputed territorial claims have no place in scientific papers".

Bravo!

Puts me in mind of something else

[ackthpt]

Fisherman were bringing up amphorae in their nets off the coast of Brazil - remains of a mediterranean trading ship, from hundreds of years before discovery of the New World were found, but before an archaelogical expedition could get underway the Brazilian Navy encircled the site and covered it with dredgings. Allegedly to protect the site before an official study could be made of the site, but another reason appears to be behind the move - Brazil was discovered by Cabral, not somebody earlier and the government won't hear of any of it - so it's dead and buried.

Politics. :-\

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation please.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation please.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/25/science/underwater-exploring-is-banned-in-brazil.html

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[Jeremy Erwin]

Underwater Exploring Is Banned In Brazil, New York Times (25 June 1985)

RIO DE JANEIRO— A DISPUTE between the Brazilian Navy and an American marine archeologist has led Brazil to bar the diver from entering the country and to place a ban on all underwater exploration.

The dispute involves Robert Marx, a Florida author and treasure hunter, who asserts that the Brazilian Navy dumped a thick layer of silt on the remains of a Roman vessel that he discovered inside Rio de Janeiro's bay.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[Anonymous Coward]

My apologies, but here I will refer to an explicit Marxist book, published by the University of California Press, "Archaeology as political action" by Randall H. McGuire.

www.ucpress.edu/content/pages/10636/10636.ch01.pdf

It discusses the political consequences of ignorant, oblivious, or malicious intent of archaeologists.

Politics is very much involved, as noted by the author who gives ample references from history.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[ElectricTurtle]

That is fascinating. Beyond the pillars of Hercules, indeed. However none of the crew is likely to have survived, otherwise it would be extremely unlikely that the lack of wheels and/or ironworking would have persisted in the surrounding pre-Columbian inhabitants, though it is murky how advanced the indigenous people in that area were during that period.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[ColdWetDog]

Fisherman were bringing up amphorae in their nets off the coast of Brazil - remains of a mediterranean trading ship, from hundreds of years before discovery of the New World were found, but before an archaelogical expedition could get underway the Brazilian Navy encircled the site and covered it with dredgings. Allegedly to protect the site before an official study could be made of the site, but another reason appears to be behind the move - Brazil was discovered by Cabral, not somebody earlier and the government won't hear of any of it - so it's dead and buried.

Politics. :-\

Citations? All I can find is a Brazilian diatom. Not terribly surprised but I would be interested.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[cusco]

Actually wheeled toys are known from various sites of Mesoamerica, but for most of South America wheeled transport held no advantage before the introduction of the infernal combustion engine. The Andes are too steep, the rain forest too wet, the foothills too heavily forested, and the Argentinian pampas too desolate. Even the Spanish and Portuguese never bothered with them outside cities. The Inca smelted a small amount of iron, but since they didn't uses a bellows it was very labor intensive (teams of men blowing into tubes) and the ore was pretty low quality to start with. There were no iron deposits known in Brasil until the late 19th century, and they're far from the coast anyway.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[Jeremy Erwin]

The prosaic interpretation is that the amphorae were commissioned for decorative purposes by Américo Santarelli, a local diver, and placed in the bay in order to age them.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[ElectricTurtle]

Wheels were not particularly used outside of cities in the other hemisphere either until over generations infrastructure was built up to connect them. In fact if we split your sentence with mine we can arrive at the truth: "Even the Spanish and Portuguese never bothered with them outside cities" until over generations infrastructure was built up to connect them. And that was done in only a few centuries compared to the millennia of wheels upon roads in the Eastern Hemisphere. The argument that there were no wheels because there was no infrastructure is therefore quite weak (and 'too desolate'? please).

Iron is the sixth most common element in the universe, and Brazil is the third most prodigious extractor of iron ore in the world at present. Further, your statement that Brazil's iron deposits are far from the coast is a lie. Just because the natives weren't smart enough to know where to look for it or what to do with it will not erase these facts.

Quite likely if a lone Greek or Roman vessel's crew survived a transatlantic journey (doubtful in itself), the Tupi or Guarani would probably have eaten them.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[ElectricTurtle]

But if they were really simply modern reproductions any professional and scientific archaeological investigation would have demonstrated that very quickly. That they were covered up and legal action taken to prevent any legitimate investigation seems prima facie evidence that there is a more significant secret to hide than some local merchant's counterfeiting.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[Jeremy Erwin]

This reminds me of the Kennewick Man's fate.

To a proper archeologist, context is everything. To a non archeologist, context is what's standing in the way of much needed dredging operation.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[cusco]

Prior to the construction of the PanAmerican Highway in the 1960s there was almost no wheeled transportation in the Andes except trains. You just plain could not go from Lima to Cajamarca or Cusco or Ayacucho except by foot, horseback or airplane. Even Trujillo and Arequipa were easier to reach by boat than crossing the trackless desert coast. To this day there are large areas where no vehicle larger than a motorbike has ever arrived, you just can't get there. Perhaps you need to actually experience the terrain to understand, but there are reasons why people to this day bring goods to market on horseback and llama, and nostalgia isn't among them. Most fields are tilled by hand or horse, because tractors just plain can't handle the terrain.

The Pampas were flat enough to use wheeled carts, but the population was so low that there was no use for them. As late as the 1950s you could ride for most of a week in Patagonia without seeing another person. With no population there's no trade, with no trade there's no use for wheeled vehicles (especially when you have no draft animals to pull them anyway).

Even today the most reliable form of transport throughout most of the Amazon is boat. Roads there are unreliable for half of the year, and bad most of the rest. Washouts and destroyed bridges can close a road for months. Unless you're transporting tons of goods, a need that has only arisen within the last three decades, depending on wheeled transport is far more of a hinderance than a help.

Wheeled vehicles just weren't that useful to the Mesoamericans.

I was talking about the original mines in the Mato Grosso, guess I didn't make myself clear.

Re:Puts me in mind of something else

[ElectricTurtle]

The thing here is we must consider the perspective of the entire hemisphere. Yes, the Chilean/Peruvian coast was useless to wheeled vehicular travel, as was the Amazon, but you say "Wheeled vehicles just weren't that useful to the Mesoamericans" (which doesn't include South America, BTW) so that segues nicely to all the northern civilizations you haven't talked about. The Aztecs and other civilizations of central and southern Mexico had both reasonable geography and stable/advanced society to enable wheeled vehicles to be useful, and they also did nothing. Considering that their empire was centered in the middle of the country would have magnified the importance and utility of such vehicles.

Screwed up Taiwan too

[GeneralTurgidson]

Everyone knows its another Chinese province.

Re:Screwed up Taiwan too

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Taiwan is the legit China.

Re:Screwed up Taiwan too

[misosoup7]

No, Taiwan is the legit China.

No, the Taiwanese government (aka the Nationalists) lost the civil war against the communists. If anything, they have lost their legitimacy.

I don't think Taiwan can claim legitimacy anymore than PRC, I mean it started out from the Boxer Rebellion. How can one successful rebellion be more legitimate than another?

Now the question on whether or not Taiwan is part of PRC is how different ball game, a debate that I don't wish to get into.

Re:Screwed up Taiwan too

[cyfer2000]

And there is a map to support it.

Re:Screwed up Taiwan too

[happylight]

The funny thing is that map is Taiwan's claims, not PRC's.

Re:Screwed up Taiwan too

[cusco]

It's even more screwed up than that. The indigineous population of Taiwan has been disenfranchised and almost totally displaced by immigrant Chinese. For a long time they were prohibited from speaking their own language or practicing their traditional religion or holding their traditional festivals. Taiwan (aka Formosa) was independant of the mainland for a long time, it's inclusion in 'greater China' is fairly recent.

Re:Screwed up Taiwan too

[ElectricTurtle]

The Boxer Rebellion was quite separate from and significantly predates the Xinhai Revolution which was the source of nationalists. The communists didn't organize until almost a decade after that.

How can one successful rebellion be more legitimate than another?

Because one was installed through elections and therefore has a valid popular mandate?

This is nothing new.

[orphiuchus]

As long as governments are involved in the funding of scientific research this kind of crap will continue.

Powerful politicians stake their political lives on something scientific that they may or may not understand on any level, and suddenly opposing scientific views are damaging to their careers. Even if their side of the argument is correct, they muddy the water with dishonest tactics designed to discredit the opposition. Al Gore and climate change are of course the best examples of this.

Does that mean the government shouldn't be involved in funding research? Of course not. The money has to get into the right hands somehow. I guess it really just means we need better politicians, but since that isn't going to happen, we may have to just deal with things as they are.

Re:This is nothing new.

[0123456]

Does that mean the government shouldn't be involved in funding research? Of course not. The money has to get into the right hands somehow.

If government is handing taxpayers' money to scientists, it will only get 'into the right hands' by chance, since funding decisions will always be driven by political agendas.

The solution is to get government out of the science business.

Re:This is nothing new.

[ByOhTek]

Conversely, we have businesses funding it, which will have the same issue.

At least, since their goals are not completely aligned, there will be a better cross section covered with both government and business funding. A good argument to keep BOTH in the science business.

Re:This is nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Gore isn't a good example, unless you are one of those people that believe in that kind of crap.

Re:This is nothing new.

[orphiuchus]

What, global warming?

Re:This is nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you trying to be funny?

Re:This is nothing new.

[misosoup7]

Agreed. Smoking and Cancer researches are funded by politics, so there will always be politics in science.

Re:This is nothing new.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there's global warming, Global Warming, OMFG GLOBAL WARMING!, and Climate Change. Some of these things are not like the others...

Re:This is nothing new.

[Sir_Sri]

how does it have much to do with government funding you or not? If you live in canada you use maps by the government of canada, and unless it's the specific focus of your research, you don't try and pick sides on political issues (like boundaries, for example the science of continental shelves and the like). If you need a map you pick something and role with it. That means if you're chinese, you use the chinese maps, if you're american you use american maps and so on. There's no 'correct' map, that's the point, if there was a single correct map of israel and palestine or china, or canada and denmark, or the falklands or the like there wouldn't be a dispute, but there are disputes and everyone who looks at a map with political boundaries knows full well that a number of areas are 'under discussion'.

There's no 'the government insisted I use this map because I'm a researcher!' it's 'the government believes these maps to be correct', so that's what you use. I suppose if you're in the PRC it's more heavy handed, but everyone knows that's what happens in authoritarian states.

Really, what's the alternative? Do we all have to use UK government maps, since Nature is a UK journal? I can find a few people in argentina and spain who might disagree with that. That's still biasing your maps to one particular ideology after all. You could try and mark territory as 'disputed' where applicable, but then very large blobs of the world become disputed quickly. Was US independence legal? How about the Louisiana purchase or the the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo that handed over california, nevada, arizona and a few other places? How about he European settlement of the americas? How about European notions of states at all, rather than religious or ethnic maps? Do you really want to mark all of china as 'disputed'? Depending on the government of the day in Taiwan they may or may not prefer that. (Some parties there still believe themselves the only legitimate government of all of china, whatever that means, while others seek an independent island, special administrative status etc.). Most of the world is disputed by somebody, you'd never be able to display anything useful if you tried to appeal to everyone.

Hell even antarctica, which should be the easiest to sort out, is disputed territory. No one visited there until the modern notions of territory and nation states existed, no one is settled there, there are legal agreements around who owns the place and who can (or more accurately cannot) claim any of it, and yet still Norway, the UK and a few others have large slices of the place claimed, in case we suddenly change our minds and allow them to keep past claims or something. (If it made any sense I'm sure it would be sorted out).

Remember, even deciding that an area is 'under dispute' is a political statement about the legitimacy of the claims made on it. There's no way to avoid being political about it, that's not government meddling, that's just the nature of law and politics at all.

Re:This is nothing new.

[ColdWetDog]

If government is handing taxpayers' money to scientists, it will only get 'into the right hands' by chance, since funding decisions will always be driven by political agendas.

The solution is to get government out of the science business.

Where in the hell do you people come up with these insane ideas?

Government and 'private' interests / mechanisms / foibles / weaknesses and strength are much more alike than different. These are human issues - the actual organization of these bizarre creatures is of little significance. You need checks and balances no matter how you put together groups of more than six people.

That was the sole unique and important difference in the US Constitution. Not voting, not 'freedoms', not God. Checks and balances. Abuses ALWAYS happen. You want to minimize them. They won't go away.

Re:This is nothing new.

[geekoid]

Depends. For the most part this kind of crap , in the US, doesn't happen.

Re:This is nothing new.

[Frenzied Apathy]

The solution is to get government out of the science business.

Funny you should mention that...

Re:This is nothing new.

[Frenzied Apathy]

I think a purely business-funded scientific research system would be even more problematic - even counter-productive - than government-funded simply because all that would drive the outcome of the research would be profits - which would obviously skew the "results" of any findings.

Re:This is nothing new.

[DerekLyons]

Powerful politicians stake their political lives on something scientific that they may or may not understand on any level, and suddenly opposing scientific views are damaging to their careers. Even if their side of the argument is correct, they muddy the water with dishonest tactics designed to discredit the opposition. Al Gore and climate change are of course the best examples of this.

While your karma whoring rant is to be expected... It's not insightful, and it's pretty much irrelevant because scientific views play no part in this story.

Re:This is nothing new.

[ElectricTurtle]

There is no 'God' in the US Constitution in the first place.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[BlueStrat]

Why not nominate the Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Board. They are correct in that "political maps that seek to advance disputed territorial claims have no place in scientific papers".

Since the Nobel Peace Prize awards committee has turned the Peace Prize itself into a political and ideological advocacy/popularity contest (e.g. Obama's award for, as it turns out, not much at all), good luck with that. Thanks to the Nobel Peace Prize awards committee, the Prize now ranks right up there with a bowling trophy in prestige and gravitas.

Strat

Politics out of science or science out of politics

[gurps_npc]

It is important to keep politics out of science, but equally important to keep science in politics.

Think of it like a chain of command: Employees don't tell the boss what to do, the boss tells employees what to do.

Science is the boss and should tell politics what to do, not the other way around. We can't have politicians telling scientists what the laws of physics are, it has to be the other way around.

Specifically, that means that no scientist should ever be told which map to use by any country.

That said, a scientist should not use a politically controversial map unless it is essential to the research. Otherwise, you are just asking for trouble.

The quest is - was that line relevant to the study? Being a climate change study, I doubt it was. There should have been no line - not the 9 dash or the 11 dash.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[Attila Dimedici]

Science is the boss and should tell politics what to do, not the other way around.

The danger in that position is that there are people who are anxious to use science as an excuse to take away liberty. Is sociology science? If so, should sociologists be telling politicians what the laws should be? You used the example of the law of gravity, but what about when we get into areas where the science is less clear cut?

So what?

[Hentes]

Just because they draw a line there doesn't make the territory theirs. Why do so many intelligent people care about such a pity thing?

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because at some point someone will get shot because of that line. Many intelligent people like preventing such occurrences.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

If one looks at some of the disputed territories, it may mean the difference in being able to mine some rare earths versus having to trade for it at a high cost.

People don't realize that China is still expansionistic. Every neighboring country has lands that have disputed territory claims with them.

Of course, we can take a look at Taiwan and place bets on how long until it gets overrun and becomes a part of the mainland. Only a matter of time.

Re:So what?

[Korveck]

You see. If scientific journals like Nature publishes the map supporting China's claim to that territory, it lends more legitimacy to their rather ridiculous claim of those islands. The Chinese officials can then argue that their claim is supported by these respected journals. It does not really change much, but China is happy to gain any tiny advantage. This is totally in line with their increasingly aggressive stance in the Pacific.

Re:So what?

[Hentes]

It's not like they can do anything against it. Even if these journals manage to keep a Wikipedia-level neutrality, no country will give a fuck.

Re:So what?

[cyfer2000]

On the Taiwan, I hate to make duplicated posts, but there is really a map to support it.

And PR of China has no territory dispute with Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea andPakistan.

If you argue that RO China, the defeated government at Taiwan is having dispute as shown in the map I post before, I don't have much to say.

Re:So what?

[Chris Mattern]

Just because they draw a line there doesn't make the territory theirs. Why do so many intelligent people care about such a pity thing?

Because drawing the line is the first part of the process of making the territory theirs. And the more people they can get to accept that line, the closer they get to making the territory theirs. After all, what *is* "making the territory theirs"? It's getting everybody to accept the line that they drew.

Re:So what?

[CrimsonAvenger]

And PR of China has no territory dispute with Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea andPakistan.

You put Pakistan in twice.

That aside, they don't have a territorial dispute with any of these entities yet. The operational word is "yet"...

Re:So what?

[Hentes]

The Chinese have demonstrated many times that they do not care about the people's opinion whether they are their own people or the international community. The only people whose acceptance could matter in these debate are the countries whose territorial waters China wishes to take over, and I don't think their opinion will be changed by a map in a Nature article. Borders are drawn by guns, not by the masses. But even if people's acceptance meant anything, these journals have a very limited set of readers, it's not like they are going to brainwash the world population.

Re:So what?

[CityZen]

Why not just draw the map as it's shown in Wikipedia, where each claim line is shown and labeled as just that: a "claim".
The U-shaped line is China's claim, this line is Taiwan's claim, this line is Vietnam's claim, etc. I suppose the legend for all the claims might get a little large.
Maybe the word "claim" is too overloaded. Perhaps "suggestion" (or similar) may work better.

Re:So what?

[Chris Mattern]

The Chinese have demonstrated many times that they do not care about the people's opinion whether they are their own people or the international community.

On the contrary, they've demonstrated many times that they care deeply about the opinions of their own people and the international community, by the violence of their reaction when those bodies express opinions of which they don't approve.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Belial6]

That is not fair. Presumably, you have to do something to get a bowling award.

China trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't feed the troll

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[scamper_22]

"Science is the boss and should tell politics what to do, not the other way around."

I going to nitpick here, as the distinction needs to occur.

Science cannot tell anyone what to do because science is valueless and goalless.

For example. Science can tell you global warming is happening (play along even if you don't believe. Replace global warming with gravity if it helps you)
.
But science cannot tell you what if anything you should do about it.
Science can be used to slaughter a billion people as easily as can be used to provide clean energy.

Science cannot tell you if you should just ignore global warming, have a carbon tax, fund research, build transit... all those require goals and weighing people's values.

Should that billion dollars go towards funding solar research or healthcare for the poor? Should we include a carbon tax and raise the cost of living on the poor? Should we just be happy with increasing temperatures and move to more suitable climates?

It's a careful distinction.
I'd rephrase it as.

"Science is the thermometer and should tell politics what the temperature is, not the other way around. We can't have politicians telling the thermometer what the temperature is outside"

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[NonSequor]

Is there a neutral way to handle this? Won't showing either purported boundary result in advancing one side's cause?

There's no concept of consensus in this issue. My understanding is that neighboring geographical regions are expected to sort out political boundaries among themselves and if they can't the only fact in the matter is that the border is disputed.

They have spoken;

[inquist]

Nice of China to notify the world of its intent. Protesting their intent will be fruitless; as the (Wikipedia) article points out, it's not a legitimate territorial claim, only a rough designation of China's desire. Any bickering must be done over specific points of conflict that arise from these intentions.

Re:Could be like Canadian Gov't

[Anonymous Coward]

They also both hate AIDS, so AIDS for everyone then? Idiot.

Easy Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The only official map is the Windows 95 time zone map.

Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the Chinese government ordered the inclusion of this map, are they going to get upset when the editors re-label them?

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[AdamJS]

It has always been a political affair and general popularity contest award.

I call shenanigans on the whole topic.

[TheCarp]

So basically the argument goes.... she shouldn't use the map that china wants her to use, for their own political reasons, and instead she should use other maps, that other people endorse for their own political reasons.

Well fuck.... this isn't a political map is it? Why are the political lines there except for illustration anyway? Why are they bickering over lines that only exist as an illustration?

The entire topic of where to place imaginary political boundaries on maps IS political. There is no way to remove political concerns from the topic without nixing the whole topic....because its a stupid topic that takes away from the real topic at hand....which is what the research is about.

This is a little like going to a panel discussion on economic issues, raising your hand, and asking the speaker why he bought the brand of shoes that he is wearing.

Re:I call shenanigans on the whole topic.

[Zalbik]

So basically the argument goes.... she shouldn't use the map that china wants her to use, for their own political reasons, and instead she should use other maps, that other people endorse for their own political reasons.

No, the argument is that she shouldn't use maps that include irrelevant political details. The maps used should not include political boundaries at all. It has nothing to do with the research, and just results in stupid controversies such as this.

This kind of like submitting research, but having an political ad saying "Vote for Obama" as one of the illustrations.

It doesn't belong there, and IMHO Nature should have denied the submission if she wasn't willing to change it.

Unfortunately, they appear to have taken the more common tactic of "let's stick our head in the sand and hope this issue goes away" to solve the problem.

Re:I call shenanigans on the whole topic.

[TheCarp]

I don't entirely disagree but, I don't see the "vote for obama" analogy. Boundaries ARE useful for orienting a map. They provide names that people know, and give markers that can be used to orient the map into its larger context, something thats much harder to do without some labels and lines in common. I will agree that there are other ways to do this, long/lat etc...but country names and boundaries are very easily recognizable and referable.

I don't really like it per se, and would like to see it changed overall. I would have to ask, would nature have complained if they used a map that still contained the boundaries, but used lines that others agreed with? If the answer is yes, then good for them but, I do think they need to give some thought about geographical context and how to provide it to people. If the answer is no...well... then they are just taking political sides, and no better than her.

Re:I call shenanigans on the whole topic.

[CycleMan]

In general boundaries are useful. In this case, I doubt that you have RTFA. These are not land mass boundaries; this is claiming the majority of the South China Sea (which is bordered by several countries) as exclusively Chinese territory. Such a boundary line conflicts with international law, and is completely unnecessary either to orienting the user in the region in question or to the science explored.

Re:I call shenanigans on the whole topic.

[TheCarp]

I did RTFA actually... I just really felt that it failed to make its case. I mean yes, I agree with the basic premise but, there are more bits needed to really make the case. For one thing, it never actually got into what the actual papers were about, to actually make the case, simpy stating that they are not relevant.

Secondly, he only linked to articles about the map, which contained a map with the lines, but, didn't show the actual versions used in any articles, which presumably would have had relevant data added to them....or not... I just don't know. Not even a link to the articles themselves, or some sort of snippet as an example.

Thirdly, it doesn't even attempt to address whether non-chineese have used similar maps with similar problems (or not), to show that china is not being singled out, and is being especially egregious and not just catching flak for something common. Do they/have they/would they have the same comments had the lines been ones that other organizations than the Chinese goernment agreed with?

I don't know the answer to these but, had the article attempted to address them, it would have been a far more solid and swaying argument.

Beware this map

[DNS-and-BIND]

Anyone who puts the Spratly Islands under Chinese territory is a commie stooge. Seriously, I'm not being ironic. The only place you should ever see that map is Xinhua news. China is very firm about it, publications get banned all the time for not including it. It's interesting that the scientists see a dark hand at work...shows what they're thinking. The simple truth is that anything that goes for approval from the government, which presumably includes scientific papers to be published internationally, must include that map. It's simple government policy, nothing more, nothing less. If the paper didn't include that map, it wouldn't be approved, and who wants to have their research canceled if you're not out to make a statement?

However, agreeing to publish this is quite another thing. It's despicable of Science, Nature and Climatic Change to let this pass without correction. Shit on them, anyone who cooperates with commie stooges is a commie stooge sympathizer.

Re:Beware this map

[cyfer2000]

I hope you realize those U-shaped line were drawn by the then Kuomintang government of the Republic of China in 1947, two years before the commie took control of main land China.

Re:Beware this map

[Lakitu]

While you are correct about this and the person you are replying to is wrong about that detail, the sentiment is generally correct. The map is purely nationalist agenda for the state of China, and publishing it without any kind of edit or notation about its dispute or origin actually helps that nationalist agenda. If it's published now unaltered, it can be referred to later as veracity of the Chinese claims. China is bullying both its own researcher and now, indirectly, a scientific journal to front for their on-its-face outlandish territorial claims. There is no real legitimate reason to put up with it and allow it, and anyone who does should suffer from public scorn for going along with it.

Re:Beware this map

[cyfer2000]

I do agree that science should be separated from politics and that manuscript should be rejected. I don't agree with Chinese government on a broad spectrum of issues. I sincerely hope there will be a revolution to bring Chinese people a better government system, and I wish there won't be blood. But holding people "apart by walls of hatred and lies" is also against my faith.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[Anonymous Coward]

he quest is - was that line relevant to the study? Being a climate change study, I doubt it was. There should have been no line - not the 9 dash or the 11 dash.

Forget the line, was the map even relevant?
From the article:
"Scientists and citizens of surrounding countries are understandably peeved by the maps, which in most cases are completely unrelated to the subjects of the papers in which they are published"

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[BlueStrat]

That is not fair. Presumably, you have to do something to get a bowling award.

I'm sorry if my comparison to an award for actual achievement inferred or implied in any way that the Nobel Peace Prize required doing or accomplishing anything. :)

Strat

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[Chris Mattern]

Science is the boss and should tell politics what to do, not the other way around.

100% of wrong. Science does not make value judgments and therefore cannot determine our goals. That is, and must be, the domain of politics. Science can then inform politics of the best way to get to those goals, but science is staff, not command.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[jmorris42]

> It has always been a political affair and general popularity contest award.

This. After they gave one to Arafat anyone who would still accept one was tainted as far as I was concerned. Personally I'd tell em to go perform an improbable act of self procreation because while the money would be super sweet I wouldn't want to be associated with most of the other 'winners' of the award. Obama isn't even close to the worst person to own one. Obama is just a SCoaMF, more stupid than evil.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[ColdWetDog]

Science is the boss and should tell politics what to do, not the other way around.

The danger in that position is that there are people who are anxious to use science as an excuse to take away liberty. Is sociology science? If so, should sociologists be telling politicians what the laws should be? You used the example of the law of gravity, but what about when we get into areas where the science is less clear cut?

As you are alluding to, Science can't 'tell politics what to do'. Science is rational. People are not. Science has limits, human issues don't seem to have any bearing on how much we actually know about things. Once you get over trying to run the world using Mr. Spock's guidelines, things get a little easier.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[geekoid]

Science determines how nature works and what is happening around us; what you do with that information is up to you.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[jmorris42]

> Should that billion dollars go towards funding solar research or healthcare for the poor?

Not quite the right formulation. If (big IF) Climate Change (human caused or not) is happening there are some questions science can answer, but is currently forbidden from even asking... since the science is so settled we not only know climate change is happening, humans are the cause by releasing CO2 and a massive wealth redistribution scheme that just happens to be the same communism the same pinheads were pushing for fifty years is the only possible solution.

Question 1: If it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the climate is warming and is likely to continue doing so if nothing changes, the question is WHY? Is it CO2, the Sun, deforestation, something else?

Question 2: Once we know #1 we will likely know if it is man caused. But this question isn't really important. If the planet is on a long term warming trend it doesn't really matter if we are causing it, the result is the same.

Question 3: Finally we need to know what the economic costs of doing nothing are. That goes on the list of options. Then we should carefully list actions we could take that would cause temps to decrease, but not go below where they are now since colder is bad, really bad. Each option should be scored with costs, political (loss of freedom, etc.) and economic along with the best guess of how much it would reduce the economic losses by reduction of warming.

Only after we have a real list of options from science can the political process begin to pick from them. Doing nothing could very well be the best option. Just depends how much it costs vs the costs of the proposed solutions. I know I'd probably pick nothing over the current proposals.

Easy fix

[Black Parrot]

Reject the frikkin article.

Re:Easy fix

[unclos1982]

Reject the frikkin article.

These articles were published before they spot the map.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[AdamJS]

That's what politics is sadly. Voting for the least evil candidate out of all choices because not a single one is, well, good.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[cusco]

Nobel Peace Prize has been meaningless since they gave it to international war criminal Henry Kissinger, a man who has to be careful what countries he travels through to avoid being arrested on genocide charges.

Yes China, we remember Tibet is a soverign nation!

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhat naive, to think that politics and science, are separate.... Ask Galileo?

We remember Tibet is a sovereign nation, occupied by China.

GG

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[cusco]

Arafat was small potatoes compared to Kissinger, who got the prize even earlier. Kissinger's body count is at least two orders of magnitude higher, although admittedly he never did any actual fighting like Arafat. His military experience was limited to being a translator for Operation Paperclip, IIRC.

Re:Could be like Canadian Gov't

[WitnessForTheOffense]

Who said American right wingers hate AIDS? They love AIDS. It's another thing to blame teh gays for and use as evidence that God wants them and all the promiscuous heathens to die.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[jmorris42]

> Is there a neutral way to handle this? Won't showing either purported boundary result in advancing one side's cause?

You seem to thing this is a hard problem, that there is some sort of thinking required here to sort out which map to use. There isn't. There is only one map to use unless there are active hostilities ongoing, what is the reality on the ground. For example: China claims Taiwan so let us use logic to solve this... does their flag fly there? Do their warships, planes, etc. call there as guests or as rulers? Do the Taiwanese have their own functioning government? Is China in a shooting war with Taiwan? Explain where the 'dispute' is? Do you have to make sure you print a special version of any manuals, etc. to be able to sell products in China? Yes but they should ONLY be distributed inside China.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[SleazyRidr]

I think you should have replaced global warming with gravity, as scamper_22 suggested.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[sjames]

Unless the national boundaries are somehow relevant (and I doubt it, physical reality doesn't need a passport), just don't show them at all. The Chinese government is unlikely to agree to that though.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't worked well in the case of economics. Too many Fed-heads with formulae that prove taking money from the poor will make them richer.

It's a mixed bag

[Quila]

My introduction (outside of history books) to "what the fuck were you thinking" started with the terrorist Yassir Arafat. He was followed by other non-deserving people such as Kofi Anan, Al Gore and Barack Obama.

But then there were very deserving people such as Carlos Belo and Muhammad Yunus. Extra credit for having the balls to give it to Liu Xiaobo over the opposition of a very irate Chinese government. That one reminds me of the awards to Aung San Suu Kyi and Lech Walesa, fighting for freedom in the face of an oppressive government.

Re:It's a mixed bag

[Coren22]

Mother Teresa won it in 1979 too. You may not agree with her religion, but what she did in her life was pretty amazing.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Genda]

Really, I've long held that the prize is of little value... I almost lost it when Kissinger got the prize, shortly after going down to South America and orchestrating the assassination of the democratically elected President of Chile using CIA operatives, and beginning one of the ugliest, bloodiest, and most oppressive dictatorships in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Ultimately leading to the slaughter of between 50,000 and 70,000 innocent people, and the absolute gutting of all human rights.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[scamper_22]

I full agree with your formulation as a general concept.

I just didn't want to have the conversation tilt towards the validity and conclusions of the science. It's besides the point of what science's place in society should be and would only distract the real political conversation.

That's why i said (assume I'm talking about gravity) :P

I leave it up to the scientific field to figure out 1 and 2. The rest of society only steps in during Q3...the actions and the politics.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[dkleinsc]

The danger in that position is that there are people who are anxious to use science as an excuse to take away liberty.

The thing is, when you're talking about sound research, the liberty is already gone. I don't have the liberty to fall upwards, no matter how much I want to.

Regarding social sciences, like other areas of study, some findings are indisputable and should probably have strong influence on public policy, while others are not. For instance, black defendants in the US get much harsher sentences than white defendants for the same crime, and that should probably affect public policy.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Genda]

When Japan laid claim to huge sections of China just before WWII, it was to stoke the fire of their growing economy with raw materials and cheap slave labor from China. It was also a flagrant thumb at the rule of international law, and the rest of the world. How would you have handled that in a neutral way? China has been marching all over Tibet for years now, claiming its a long lost state come home. Nobody wanted to start WWIII over Tibet, and that's understandable, but it was still wrong on a thousand levels. Now they claim the entire South Sea, all its islands and inhabitants. Their claim would give them complete control over critical shipping lanes and vital resources that don't belong to them. How exactly would you handle a pit-bull in a neutral fashion?

I do agree this has to be a global response. The U. N. has to say "China, enough already with the sucking up the landscape. It was wrong when Germany did it. It was wrong when Japan did it to you. Its now wrong when you try to do it to others. Cease and desist, before things get out of hand and unhappiness ensues for all."

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[jmorris42]

I used GW because it illustrates so many of the problems well. The trick is for science to fully inform the political process and not become politics wearing the mask of and usurping the good name and reputation of science.

That means #3 should stay in the realm of science. Only after science fully informs the political actors of ALL of their options and properly accounts for their costs (accounting is also a hard science. or should be.... Enron/Worldcom/CBO/OMB accounting isn't accounting it is criminal.) can the politicians make informed choices. And very well might make a choice that isn't the mathematically optimal one since every variable can't be nailed down perfectly.

I objected to the "funding solar research or healthcare for the poor" because that is an example of what science can't answer. But it can answer (or at least give a best educated estimate) of whether a billion dollars invested in solar will payoff in pure economic terms, how much CO2 it can be estimated to avoid emitting in a given time frame,etc. It can offer an estimate of whether a billion dollars of our federal health budget spent on AIDS research is likely to save more lives than the same money spent on a line of research into heart disease or stem cell research. And again, the politicians are within their rights to sometimes overrule the pure math, and award the money to AIDS research because the gay lobby is a core voting block for the Democrats. And if we object our solution is the ballot box, not trying to establish Science as superior to elections.

As someone else in this thread put far more succinctly: Scientists are staff, not command.

Re:Could be like Canadian Gov't

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said American right wingers hate AIDS? They love AIDS. It's another thing to blame teh gays for and use as evidence that God wants them and all the promiscuous heathens to die.

Here's one gay that's clearly to blame for the spread of AIDS.

Re:Could be like Canadian Gov't, I agree

[OldHawk777]

Spread the hate with more lies .... Last I remember you can get AIDS from politicians and clerics by spilling the blood of innocents, swapping spit, and hugging a tree in any forest.

Save US and EU from AIDS by burning all politicians and clergy at the stake.

Well (think pumpkin-toss) politicians, clergy, C*O tossing across the widest and deepest part of the Grand Canyon would sell tickets, draw a large crowd, and help pay down the deficit and improve economies while helping save the environment.

Why should anyone trust the same gang of criminals that raped US and EU to fix anything?

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[DerekLyons]

Why not nominate the Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Board. They are correct in that "political maps that seek to advance disputed territorial claims have no place in scientific papers".

Then why was the Science Editorial Board insisting that the map be changed to one that seeks to advance a disputed territorial claim? There's two sides to every dispute, and their preferred map is the one preferred by their 'side' - which in effect is every bit as political as the map preferred by the Chinese.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[NonSequor]

When has logic ever resolved a political dispute? Logic isn't applicable to politics because there is no logical way to choose premises and definitions, and if you cherrypick the right ones, you can rationalize away whatever silly political notions you have.

United States of Redskins

[Anonymous Coward]

Some folks seems to dispute lines of ownership in North America as well.
I commend the publishers for being politically astute in their editorial practices, so now if we can rewrite in its entirety, every offending reference to Euro North America for the last 500 years or so, it would be a great humanitarian gesture towards the voiceless oppressed parties in these disputes.

let the Chicoms have it

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but what is the likes of the Philippines ever going to do with some islands in the South China Seas?
Put in more shanty towns like metro Manila?
At least the Chicoms can do something productive with these islands.

It would be like giving Texas back to the Mexicans.

Re:let the Chicoms have it

[Lakitu]

These islands are not so much islands as they are rocks barely jutting out of the sea. Nobody lives on them, and they are basically completely uninhabitable. I hope this helps in realizing how much of a total idiot you are. Thanks!

Re:let the Chicoms have it

[lolcutusofbong]

They're going to mine the shit out of the Spratlys and drill for oil - supposedly there's a huge reserve under there.

Re:let the Chicoms have it

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, you're welcome.
You're Mexican right?

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[Anonymous Coward]

"Science is the boss and should tell politics what to do, not the other way around. We can't have politicians telling scientists what the laws of physics are, it has to be the other way around."

As a scientist I respectfully disagree. I strongly believe that science should have influence in political decisions, especially when the issue is a scientific one, but I think our job as scientists is to provide the information necessary for a decision, not to make the actual decision. In a democracy the decision should be made by an informed public and the representatives they elect.

If politicians want to defy reality and the laws of physics, that's their choice, just like it is anyone else's choice if they want to step out in front of a moving bus if they don't believe physics is real. It's the scientists job to inform them about the likely outcome if they were to do so, and perhaps advise about alternative actions, but it's the individual person's call what to do with that information. And if a politician wants to tell scientists what the laws of physics are, they can go ahead. We will simply laugh at them the same way a plumber would laugh at someone who knows nothing about plumbing if they suggested using lead pipe.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the Nobel Peace Prize awards committee has turned the Peace Prize itself into a political and ideological advocacy/popularity contest (e.g. Obama's award for, as it turns out, not much at all)

It's not like they have just recently started doing that, it goes back nearly 40 years of controversies.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[scamper_22]

yes, sorry, I misread your 3 as being the choice part of the equation. Yes 3 is in science and the next step 4 is the political decision process.

That all said, in philosophical terms, you're basically talking about utilitarianism.

It sounds ideal, except it by in large turns out to be a values game disguised as numbers.

For example,
Some study might say we could increase our life span by 5 years by banning fast food. Let's say we assign this value a +5.

But that of course that infringes on freedom. How do you measure something like 'freedom'. You can't and different people feel about it differently. So the value you assign to freedom is pretty much completely arbitrary. For me, I think such an infringement would be a -100. To some libertarian it might be -infinity. To some socialist, it might be 0. To some progressive, it might be +5 as they twist the definition of freedom.

So action = 5 + (-100 or -infinity or 0 or 5).
In each case you end with a different answer that ultimately ends up being completely arbitrary and about values.

The 'math' you put on top of it just attempts to mask a values discussion with numbers.

And of course this doesn't even taken into account that some things are just really very hard to predict. At no other point in time have we had so many brilliant people in the finance field. These folks somehow managed to completely much up the entire global economy despite all their models and numerical analysis. And that's just the economy.

You'll find this more often than... science doesn't really offer you much value in such POLITICAL decision making. There are a very very very small subset of questions that science can meaningfully produce a pure math answer in the manner in which you propose.

Quantifying things across different domains generally just ends up being a values exercise disguised as numbers.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Anonymous Coward]

Arafat was small potatoes compared to Kissinger, who got the prize even earlier. Kissinger's body count is at least two orders of magnitude higher, although admittedly he never did any actual fighting like Arafat. His military experience was limited to being a translator for Operation Paperclip, IIRC.

And Kissinger was nothing compared to Le Duc Tho, who was too busy to accept the prize because he was planning his country's next invasion at the time.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[camperdave]

Specifically, that means that no scientist should ever be told which map to use by any country.

So when the US wants to drill for oil off the coast of Alaska, east of the 151st longitude, should they abide by US regulations, or Canadian regulations? Which country's laws should be obeyed when deploying lobster traps on the Georges banks plateau. Should research vessels be allowed to travel through foreign territorial waters? Suppose an Iranian research vessel wanted to do a high resolution sonar map of Chesapeake bay? Should the US military react if a US research vessel was commandeered by the Chinese Navy in the South China sea?

Sorry, but politics will always play a role in any international endeavour, and doubly so in disputed territories.

Bowling trophy

[200_success]

I nominate Obama for a bowling trophy.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[camperdave]

Yes, and when the politicians say that the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference is 5/4 to 4 (and they did), should we go along with that?

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG WE MUST STOP THE SPREAD OF COMMUNISM (pay no attention to the democratic socialist behind the curtain)

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Lakitu]

The Arafat award was largely a joke, but it had a much larger historical precedent in Henry Kissinger, who got one for changing his opinion from "we have to not only continue the Vietnam war, but expand it into Laos and Cambodia so the Soviets don't think we're pussies" to "I guess the Soviets won't think we're pussies" and helping to end what was essentially his own war. It's not bad to recognize this change of opinion and laud it, but to act as if the winner of the prize is some globe-trotting do-gooder superhero has been a joke for a long, long time, which is why only a few partisan hacks got bent out of shape over Obama winning one recently, and why condemnation of Arafat's win is relatively muted and limited to Israelis and Jewish people worldwide.

It should also be noted that it's not unreasonable to think that expansion of the Vietnam war, CIA clandestine activity in SE Asia, along with support of international drug-trafficking to help finance the "democratic" Vietnamese war effort not only destabilized the region and helped the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot to come to power and murder millions of people, but it also helped cement the Golden Triangle as the origin of much of the world's drug trade laid the groundwork for lots of heroin trafficking into the United States. One Nobel Peace Prize is just not enough to recognize all of Kissinger's many glories in international politics. Thanks Hank!

Re:Could be like Canadian Gov't

[silentbrad]

Not sure why the AC was downmodded, but if it's a case of [citation needed], I'm pretty sure he was talking about this

An insidious game

[ceabaird]

When I was working as a science editor, any maps like this extending disputed political claims were sent back to the author for revision, and if they refused, were revised by us. We refused to be used as a proxy for claims of "publically recognized acknowledgment" in support of these claims.

Re:An insidious game

[Compaqt]

How did you determine which maps were extending political claims and which weren't? The US State Department's idea of where China begins and ends? US Geological Survey? NatGeo?
So were you a science journal, or an agent enforcing borders recognized by the US?

Is a map showing Tibet in China extending a political claim? Or did you send back maps to be revised with Tibet to be shown as an independent country?

In any case country maps are inherently political: that's why they're called political maps.

Now geographic maps, those can be called scientific.

The moment you start drawing lines on a map (even if it's mostly about geography), that's political.

As a descendant of a Chinese researcher,

[qwerty765]

I understand that any Chinese researcher would be angry if the Nature journal tell him or her not to include the political map of China. This is amounting to censorship of research articles. If she say that she refused to change the map, then the Nature journal should respect her choice. I do not want to see any researcher being subjected to restrictions on academic freedom or speech freedom. This situation reminds me of Galileo who had to face a jury of religious leaders over his publication. Researchers should write articles, not caring about what other people think. That is academic freedom.

Focus on Researcher's choice

[qwerty765]

She said that she refused to change the map. I'd say that she stood up against the Nature's demand. I fully support her decision.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[oldhack]

Pfff.

UN with what army?

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[robberbarron]

The TFA had a good suggestion. You don't use one or the other. You call it "under dispute".

Now, you also suggested there are 'two sides' do this. You might also say there are more than that. There might be 193 sides, one for each member of the UN. 192 of them feel one way and 1 feels the other. Doesn't seem so 50/50 any more does it?

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Anonymous Coward]

You make me sooo want to play Europa Universalis :D

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Coren22]

Seeing as how the US has always been the army that the UN uses, are you blind?

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Coren22]

Frankly, the article isn't about political borders, so why even have borders show on the map?

Some would say she did more harm than good

[Quila]

Her idea that unnecessary suffering is noble and brings one closer to Christ is pretty sick in my book. But she did dedicate her life to helping people, and inspired many others to do so. IMHO she deserved it.

Re:Politics out of science or science out of polit

[Chris Mattern]

Yes, and when the politicians say that the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference is 5/4 to 4 (and they did)

No, they didn't.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize to the Science Editorial Boar

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, The Nobel prize website is currently blocked by the Great Firewall...

Research Grants Ad baculum

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Singing the songs of the hand that feeds you increases the probability of grants, salary, and promotions.
2. Not singing the songs of the hand that feeds you jeopardizes your grants, salary, and promotions

Nature needs to consider the circumstances of the Chinese researchers; they are under the yolk of a 21th century Catholic Church. An editorial comment speaking on behalf of academic freedom and individual expression will get silent cheers from the Chinese scientists (as well as artists, humanists, and social "scientists). The emigration of Chinese scientists to develop countries, some specifically to not be encumbered by politics, is evidence enough that the Chinese government's policies are harmful. So please, never forget why China opened up: "to learn knowledge and truth from the West, in order to save China".