Rao Yi Out of Academician Race, Protests Openly

Rao Yi, professor of biology and the dean of College of Life Science at Peking University, lost out in the first round of the selection process for a new class of members of the Chinese Academy of Science.

The outcome was both shocking and expected. While an excellent research scientist in his own field, Rao Yi has also been very outspoken in his criticism of the current academic system in China.

In an unusual response, Professor Rao Yi wrote a post in his blog expressing gratitude to the scholars who nominated him but declared that he would never be a candidate for CAS again. The news and his protest is carried in at least some of the official newspapers in China.

Local Chinese Court Steals Money from Fang Zhouzi's Wife

One of the most significant fraud case exposed by Fang Zhouzi was that involving Professor Xiao Chuanguo, a self-claimed world-famous urologist. The case first came to light in September, 2005, when Xiao Chuanguo was being nominated to become an Academician. Fang Zhouzi publicly accused Xiao Chuanguo for having engaged in various acts of exageration in his credentials.

Xiao Chuanguo's Academician candidacy was then denied by Chinese Academy of Science. Xiao Chuanguo blamed his lose entirely on Fang Zhouzi's words and sued the later in local courts in Wuhan, Beijing, as well as New York.

He won his case in Wuhan, whose court issued a few ridiculous justification for its verdict that had become running jokes on the Internet, such as the definition of "international journal," the validity of Xiao Chuanguo's award claim, and a procedure supposed to be named after him. The case gained its dramatic status after Xiao Chuanguo published a foul-mouthed open letter of his own and hundreds of Chinese scholars co-signed an open letter to support Fang Zhouzi.

After losing his appeal, Fang Zhouzi has refused to obey the court order of apologizing to Xiao Chuanguo and paying a fine. The case seemed to have disappeared from public view, especially after many officials of that local court, including the judge in the case, were later disciplined for corruption charges. Fang Zhouzi had assumed that the case was forgotten.

Until now.

Messages posted by Xiao Chuanguo's well known pseudo-name showed up in online forums lately, boasting that he had received monetary judgement from Fang Zhouzi. It was not until Fang Zhouzi was alerted of the messages when he discovered that a sum of more than 40,000 Yuan (5,840 USD) has disappeared from his wife's private bank account. Upon inquiry, the bank confirmed that they transferred the money at the order of the Wuhan local court.

The unusual and stealth way that the court has taken the money both surprised and angered Fang Zhouzi, as well as many of his supporters on New Threads. Fang Zhouzi vowed to fight for this unlawful case. He explained that he and his wife have maintained independent financial records and his wife is never involved in his efforts of exposing frauds that led to his various court troubles.

Rao Yi Reports on a Fraud Case

In his online blog, Rao Yi reported a recent case of scientific fraud in a Shanghai institute of the Chinese Academy of Science.

About a month ago, the Journal of Neuroscience informed the institute that a paper authored by a researcher of the institute contained practices of scientific fraud. After investigating for a month, the institute informed the Journal of their findings. It decided to fire the researcher and close the laboratory within a year.

Rao Yi praised for the swift and strict disciplinary action. However, he did not mention the name of the accused or disclose any details of the case.

Is the Chinese Academy of Science the Culprit of the Melamine Poisoning?

The crisis of tainted food is still spreading deeper and wider in China. Melamine contamination is now found in milk, dairy products, candies, and chicken eggs. It has now become apparent that, for many years, the chemical melamine has been added to animal feed and milk to artificially inflate the reading of protein levels. This intentional act is responsible for the pet food scare a year and half ago and has now caused four infant deaths and thousands of children in hospitals suffering from kidney stones and other illnesses.

Although the addition of melamine has been a wide-known secret in China, nobody really know how it got started. About a month ago, a netter posted in XYS an advertisement of technology transfer, dated July 30, 1999, from the Chinese Academy of Science. The ad promotes a new, cheap, and easy-to-make additive for animal feed that would boost the nitrogen content of the feed. It had a simple description of the raw materials (industrial organic chemicals and fertilizers) and equipments (boilers, mixers, and driers) involved and a price for the expertise and training. It did not, however, disclose the name or content of the additive.

The ad was reposted all over the Internet in China. Could this be the "invention" of the melamine contamination? The uproar is so deafening that the Chinese Academy of Science issued a rare public denial this morning.

The Academy spokesman conceded that the ad did read suspiciously close to a melamine operation. But a group of experts who had analyzed the ad concluded that its advertised technology could not reach the high temperature required for melamine. Therefore, it could not have been an advertisement for making melamine additives. The spokesman further claimed that the institute from which the ad had appeared no longer exists. The person resposible for the advertised technology was not even a researcher, but an "institute leader" who had come from a logistical support background.

However, the Academy did not disclose any information on the material or technology involved in the original advertisement. They did promise to continue paying attention to this issue.

Hijacking The Albert Einstein Award

A couple of weeks ago, a netter reported on New Thread that a suspiciously large number of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners are claiming themselves to be recipients of an "Albert Einstein World Award of Science". Indeed, a simple google search on the "Albert Einstein World Award of Science" in Chinese ("阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦世界科学奖") yielded many such claims:

1985: Zhu Renkan (朱仁康)
1987: Liu QiuFang (刘猷枋)
1987: Tu Youyou (屠呦呦)
1988: Yu Guiqing (余桂清)
1988: Tang Youzhi (唐由之)
1989: Xie Zongwan (谢宗万)
1989: Chen Keji (陈可冀)
1990: Cheng Xinnong (程莘农)

Among them, Chen Keji and Cheng Xinnong are academicians in the Chinese Academy of Science and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, respectively. There are also indications that more people had received this award, all of whom are TCM practioners in the Academy of TCM.

The Albert Einstein World Award of Science is a prestigous award given out annually by The World Cultural Council headquartered in Mexico. A list of its recipents are available on their web site. None of the above names existed.

Fang Zhouzi recently wrote to the World Cultural Council for an inquiry, and received the following reply from its General Secretary, which he posted on New Thread:

（Certainly, there is a misunderstanding regarding this situation. I have already checked, all these people were candidates nominated for the Albert Einstein Award in the respective mentioned years. But none of them got the Award.

I have checked our records and found that, the Council has sent them by post mail in those days, a diploma recognizing their participation as candidates to the Albert Einstein Award in the respective years. I would like to inform you that the winners must receive the Award in person at the Award Ceremony, the Award consist of a Medal a diploma and a cheque.）

Apparently, these distinguished TCM practitioners, including our Academicians, had mistaken a receipt of acknowledgment as an actual award, never mind that they had never received any medal or check.

Xu Liangying Awarded 2008 APS Sakharov Prize

The American Physical Society has awarded its 2008 Andrei Sakharov Prize to Xu Liangying (许良英) of Chinese Academy of Sciences, "For a lifetime’s advocacy of truth, democracy and human rights -- despite surveillance and house arrest, harassment and threats, even banishment -- through his writings, and publicly speaking his mind."

In China, Xu Liangying is perhaps best known for his translations of Einstein's Works which were published in late 1970s. In an article published a couple of years ago, Fang Zhouzi fondly recalled his meeting with Xu in Beijing. Fang credited Xu's translation as one of the most influential in his pursuit of science in his youth.

Xu Liangying is also a well-spoken scientists who had got into serious trouble with the government many times. The New York Times had profiled him as Einstein's Man in Beijing: Rebel With a Cause.

A Statute of Limitation on Plagiarism?

The plagiarism case of the new Academician Xie Huaan is getting some public attention. In an article in favor of Xie, the official People's Daily reported a little inside story of how his candidacy was approved by the Chinese Academy of Science.

After receiving reports of Xie's plagiarism, the CAS dispatched a group of three Academicians to Xie's institute for investigation. Their findings were reported to a general meeting of Academicians. The details were not disclosed but it appears that the facts of plagiarism was not in dispute. Fang Rongxian (方荣祥), who headed the investigation group, was quoted saying "there was a heated debate" after the report.

While some Academicians held the opinion that plagiarism should automatically disqualify Xie's candidacy, others disagreed. They pointed to the fact that Xie's plagiarism happened 10 years ago, when "there was no clear-cut regulations on academic integrity in China, especially in the requirement of citing references". Xie's act was not appropriate in today's perspective, but was understandable at that time.

Xie was able to garner more than 2/3 of approval votes from Academicians and thus became one himself.

One had to wonder, in the eyes of those more than 2/3 Academicians, when was a clear-cut regulation on academic integrity in China established? Or what kind of statute of limitation is in practice in today's China?

Does Xie Huaan Qualify to be an Academician?

Every two years, the Chinese Academy of Science admits a new batch of Academicians, a pinnacle of personal achievements for those selected. On December 27, 2007, CAS announced its latest batch: 29 were admitted from 287 candidates.

It's the smallest number in years. CAS has a ceiling of 60. During the years of 2001, 2003, and 2005, CAS had admitted totals of 56, 58, and 51, respectively. This year's 29 is a very substantial drop-off. Either the CAS is tightening its standards, or the remaining talent pool is shrinking in an alarming rate, or both.

Nevertheless, in today's atmosphere of China's academy, it did not take long for these new Academicians to become targets of fraud-busting at New Thread. The first name to be reported is Xie Huaan (谢华安).

Xie gained the honor on the strength of his cultivating and popularizing a new kind of hybrid rice. His achievement here is not in dispute. But was it enough for him to become a CAS Academician?

A few years ago, the pioneer of China's hybrid rice research, Yuan Longping (袁隆平), who had far bigger achievements than Xie had tried and failed to gain a CAS Academician after several tries. The argument was that such research was more of a technological breakthrough, rather than scientific one. So, Yuan settled with an Academician position of the Chinese Academy of Engineering instead, a position that is regarded as far less prestigious and lower standard. There are also other such examples of candidates who had failed at CAS and settled in with the CAE.

However, Xie Huaan was the first person who had gone the opposite route. He had failed to gain an Academician position within the CAE for several years and turned in his application to CAS this time. And he made it in one-shot.

Well, that by itself is not such a big deal. Maybe the CAS saw something in Xie the CAE did not see. But much more damaging for Xie is that, he is reported as a plagiarist.

Although successfully innovated his kind of hybrid rice, Xie does not have a lot of publications of his own. Perhaps realizing his shortcomings, Xie published a journal article and a book recently. The problem is that the article was a summary of three papers published by others. According to Fang Zhouzi, who had looked at the papers, Xie's article "is not even a review, but only a studying notes" of others' work. In the article, Xie included data and materials from the original papers but never cited his sources.

"It's an obvious case of plagiarism" said Fang Zhouzi.

What about the book? It turns out the book was the work of a team of people who had worked for Xie. They wrote up the book as a collective effort, only to see it published with Xie as the sole author.

The real puzzle is that, before CAS made its decision, Xie's fraud has been duly reported to CAS. CAS claimed that it had conducted its investigations (but did not bother to publish its findings). Somehow, Xie Huaan was still elected as an Academician.

Hao Bolin Criticizes CAS Leadership on Ethics

A renown and outspoken theoretical physicist Hao Bolin (郝柏林) has published a speech in his own blog criticizing a leadership figure in Chinese Academy of Science for unethical behavior. According to his note, the speech was prepared for a meeting of the Committee for the Construction of Scientific Ethics (科学道德建设委员会) of the CAS. The meeting was held in early November. Hao was not able to attend himself but submitted his speech in written form. He later learned that the Committee had decided that his speech "deserves much further study" and was not published during or after the meeting.

Since two months have past and his speech was still "under study", Hao decided to publish it on his own in his Blog. You can also see the speech (in Chinese) at New Thread.

In the speech, Hao made it clear that he was not satisfied with the previous investigation work on ethics which, in his opinion, had only touched "small flies", while unethical behavior came from the very top of the CAS leadership. He singled out the practice of officers signing their names on research papers that they had not contributed or even read.

"The higher an officer's rank is, the more papers he publishes per year. That is a general phenomenon today," lamented Hao in the speech. To prove his point, he listed the number of papers apparently authored by a top leader of the CAS from 1985 to 2004. It showed a steady uptrend, coinciding to the author's rise in the ranks of CAS leadership. During 2003, the latest year Hao has the complete data, the author published 51 papers in SCI journals, approximately one per week!

Although Hao did not mention the leader by name, Fang Zhouzi revealed that Hao's target is Bai Chunli (白春礼), a physical chemist and Vice President of the CAS.

An Academician Who Plagiarized

In 2001, someone reported to Fang Zhouzi a plagiarism case involving a famed Academician of the Chinese Academy of Science, Professor Yang Xiongli (杨雄里). In 1998, Yang published a review article in Chinese, which is almost verbose of an earlier published review by Eric Newman and Andreas Reichenbach, "The Muller Cell: A Functional Element of the Retina" in Trends in Neuroscience, 1996.

To be sure, Fang Zhouzi did a thorough analysis of the two articles and concluded that it was indeed a blatant plagiarism. Yang's article has 14 paragraphs, 11 of which were either entirely or almost entirely copied from Newman and Reichenbach. In the few cases that Yang tried to make adjustment to the text, he actually misrepresented the original meaning. The details of the analysis can be seen here.

Professor Yang did not respond to the charge himself. His students published an open letter defending his character and laud his achievements. But the only defense to the plagiarism charge they had was that the original article was cited in Yang's article, albeit near the end.

The case was never investigated by any authority. Fang Zhouzi raised this case again earlier this year when a professor from Fudan University, Yang's school, asked the public to report fraud cases. But he has received no response.

Earlier this month, Fudan University did hand down punishments on three fraud cases in the school. Yang Xiongli's was not among them.

Would/Could a clear plagiarism case involving an Academician be investigated?