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China's Scientists Set New International Record -- For Faked Peer Reviews (nytimes.com)
China now has more laboratory scientists than any other country in the world, reports Amy Qin in the New York Times, and spends more on research than the entire European Union.
But in its rush to dominance, China has stood out in another, less boastful way. Since 2012, the country has retracted more scientific papers because of faked peer reviews than all other countries and territories put together, according to Retraction Watch, a blog that tracks and seeks to publicize retractions of research papers... In April, a scientific journal retracted 107 biology research papers, the vast majority of them written by Chinese authors, after evidence emerged that they had faked glowing reviews of their articles. Then, this summer, a Chinese gene scientist who had won celebrity status for breakthroughs once trumpeted as Nobel Prize-worthy was forced to retract his research when other scientists failed to replicate his results. At the same time, a government investigation highlighted the existence of a thriving online black market that sells everything from positive peer reviews to entire research articles...
In part, these numbers may simply reflect the enormous scale of the world's most populous nation. But Chinese scientists also blame what they call the skewed incentives they say are embedded within their nation's academic system.
In part, these numbers may simply reflect the enormous scale of the world's most populous nation. But Chinese scientists also blame what they call the skewed incentives they say are embedded within their nation's academic system.
I don't see how these skewed incentives are any different in Western countries.
Presumably you have performed research in both China and in the West and your comment is drawing on your deep knowledge of the educational systems of both countries? No? The ability of slashdotters to hold strong opinions on subjects which they know next to nothing about never ceases to amaze. In China, Master's students must publish a certain number of papers above a certain impact factor in order to graduate. For PhD students, the bar is set higher. Principal investigators are given cash sums - which can be quite substantial - based on the impact factors of their papers. Add to this the weak separation between personal income and research funding and the incentive to cheat is huge.
Chinese scientists also blame what they call the skewed incentives they say are embedded within their nation's academic system.
It sounds like they have a similar problem to the US's collapsing "publish or perish" paradigm. People should be less focused on what the scientists are doing and focus on the cause of such behavior.
To change the behavior of a group you must correct the feedback loops that control them.
In the US, gross misconduct (like impersonating other scientists in order to review your own papers) is a career death sentence, in part because "publish or perish" is administered by a tenure vote of the people you work with (and compete with), instead of a bean-counting administrator somewhere. There are lots of incentives to do semi-unsavory things - e.g. splitting your work into "least-publishable units", or "P-hacking", where you try every combination of data to see if one of them supports your conclusion - however if you cross the line and start doing things your colleagues aren't willing to do, they'll be happy to come down on you like a ton of bricks.
One thing I see when I look at faked research and retractions of papers is that it often is in biology and medical research or things like sociology. In the hard sciences like physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, meteorology and dare I say it climatology it doesn't seem to happen nearly as often. Maybe it's harder to fake the data in those sciences or maybe there's just more variability open to interpretation in the results from biology/medicine.
In the US, gross misconduct (like impersonating other scientists in order to review your own papers) is a career death sentence, in part because "publish or perish" is administered by a tenure vote of the people you work with (and compete with), instead of a bean-counting administrator somewhere.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/15/02/13/2113248/unearthing-fraud-in-medical-trials
you new to the research thing?