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.