An Assistant Professor with a $450K Annual Salary

A few days ago, an alert netter informed New Threads that a local newspaper in China had reported that a Chinese student gave up his $450K salary in the US and returned to serve his motherland. The newspaper story also introduced the hero, Dr. Mu Qiwen, as the Chief Scientist at the Medical University of South Carolina. However, the netter claimed that he knew the truth, that Dr. Wu Qiwen neither was a Chief Scientist nor has a $450K salary.

Dr. Wu Qiwen himself quickly responded to the charge. He referenced his page in at the South Carolina university which lists him as having two titles, one as "Adjunct Assistant Professor" and another as "Senior Investigator Faculty/Chief Scientist/Radiologist/Mentor in Doctoral and Postdoc Programs". Furthermore, he produced a job offer letter signed by his boss to prove his salary:

January 5, 2011

Dear Dr. Qiwen Mu,

　　

As you know, you are relatively unique in the world in some of your clinical and research training and knowledge. You have worked with Dr. Elliot Stein, who is a world leader in brain imaging and addictions. We were able to recruit you to MUSC where you worked for many years with our groups and learned and developed new techniques with image data analysis and TMS. You are also clinically trained as a neuroradiologist and have passed the required board examinations for licensure.

Based on your unique skills and knowledge, I would like to offer you the following positions - Senior Investigator Faculty (Professorship), Chief Scientist, Radiologist, and Mentor in Doctoral

and Postdoctoral Programs at Brain Stimulation laboratory, Medical University of South Carolina. Your responsibilities would include, but would not be limited to, interleaved TMS-fMRI, perfusion, diffusion, and spectroscopy. You will also be involved in clinical trials as well.

The annual salary for this position would be USD 450K.

　　

Thank you for your consideration. If you have any questions, please contact me.

Sincerely,

Mark S. George, MD

Distinguished University Professor of Psychiatry, Radiology and

Neuroscience

Director, Brain Stimulation Laboratory

Founding Director, Center for Advanced Imaging Research (CAIR)

MUSC Director, SC Brain Imaging Center of Excellence

Editor-in-Chief, Brain Stimulation: Basic, Translational and

Clinical Research in Neuromodulation

Dr Mu Qiwen challenged his detractors to contact Dr. Mark George for verification.

Although the evidence appeared convincing, suspicion grew nevertheless, especially from the awkward language used in the offer letter. Multiple inquires were indeed sent to Dr. Mark George's way, to which he replied thusly:

Dear Doctors:

I am confused and am not clear what has happened.

Dr. Mu was indeed a scientist working in our lab at MUSC for many years. He left last year to return to China. He told me that he was offered a position to do research in China involving imaging and TMS. He suggested that we try and continue collaborations, which I encouraged.

While at MUSC he was a very good and hard working scientist with numerous publications. He is trained as a research scientist and as a neuroradiologist. After he announced that he was returning to China, we offered him a continued appointment at MUSC, non-paid, in order to

continue analyzing data and potentially applying for grants.

In December Dr. Mu returned to Charleston and asked me to re-issue an offer letter. If Dr. Mu were available in the US we would indeed like to have him rejoin our faculty. I informed him that I would not be able to make a formal offer as I am not head of my department (psychiatry) and that it would take higher administrative approval and several months to get a fully binding letter. He asked that I sign the letter below which I read. He stated that he needed it signed and soon in order to apply for collaborative grants. I was confused. When I saw the salary level, I was surprised, as it is over twice my salary and I have been here 20 years. However, Dr. Mu is trained as a neuroradiologist, and their clinical salaries are higher than a psychiatrists. He found the salary number as the national average of neuroradiologists. It is not clear if he could serve as a clinical neuroradiologist without taking the US boards and completing a US fellowship.

I have no information about the number of houses or other issues you raise.

I am a bit astonished to be bothered by this exchange and I hope this email clarifies things.

Sincerely,

Mark

Mark S. George, MD

Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Radiology and Neurosciences

Medical University of South Carolina

Charleston, SC 29425

So there you have it, Dr. Mu Qiwen had manufactured his own position and salary, making himself a much bigger asset for his motherland.

Ministry of Science and Technology Revokes an Award

Almost a year after Xi'an Jiaotong University fired its professor Li Liansheng for fraud after a lengthy and difficult campaign by six elder professors, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China finally reached a decision to revoke an award it had given to Li Liansheng in 2005.

The ministry cited severe plagiarism and inaccurate economic impact data in the application for the reason for its action.

Multiple Fraud Led to a Retraction

The research journal Cancer Biology & Therapy retracted a paper recently in a case that was described as "nearly everything dishonest authors can do to doctor a manuscript, these authors did" by the web site Retraction Watch.

The paper in question have 5 authors, all from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (华中科技大学). According to the journal, at least 2 of the authors were not aware of their involvement in this paper, including one that is supposed to be the corresponding author. The other authors used a fake email address for the corresponding author to intercept any communication.

Besides such oddities, editors of the journal also found one figure in the paper is a re-publication of data in an earlier paper. "The authors have misrepresented their data as being from 2 separate cell lines," concluded the editors in the retraction notice.

More Retractions from Nobel Laureate Linda Buck

After retracting an influential paper from Nature a year and half ago, Nobel laureate Linda Buck is now retracting two more papers from Science and PNAS, respectively, as they have failed to reproduce the findings in these papers. All three papers were first-authored by Zou Zhihua (邹志华), a Chinese researcher who worked as a postdoc for Buck from 1997 to 2005.

The Scientist magazine also reported the retractions:

In 2008, Zou wrote in a statement provided by UTMB [University of Texas Medical Branch] that he was "disappointed" by the Nature retraction, he "declined to sign" the Science retraction, as reported online today in Science. But "we have no information to suspect misconduct," Natasha Pinol, senior communications officer at the AAAS/Science Office of Public Programs, told The Scientist in an email.

In addition to the irreproducible results, the PNAS paper also contained "figures inconsistent with original data," according to the FHCRC statement. While the PNAS retraction is "not embargoed," according to Managing Editor Daniel Salsbury, the journal refused to share any information with The Scientist.

Zou Zhihua is reported to be currently in China and unavailable to comment.

More Papers Retracted from Acta Crystallographica Section E

The little Jinggangshan University was already famous for committing massive fraud in the journal Acta Crystallographica Section E. A few months ago, the journal retracted more than 70 papers from the school and the school responded by firing two members of its faculty responsible for the deed.

The story did not end there. On March 18, the same journal announced another whole-sale retraction of 39 articles. Fang Zhouzi reports that of the 39 articles, 37 were produced entirely by authors in mainland China. The other two included both Pakistani and Chinese authors.

23 of the 39 articles have authors from Jinggangshan University, with 20 of them having Jinggangshan faculty as either first or corresponding author. This time, it also involves faculty with higher ranks, including full professor, associated dean, and dean.

A spokesman for the school claims that this most recent scandal is "different in nature" from the last one and denies that forgery was involved.

Xi'an Jiaotong University Fires Professor for Fraud

According to China Youth Daily, Xi'an Jiaotong University has made the decision to fire Professor Li Liansheng (李连生) for committing forgery.

Two years ago, on March 28, 2008, six elder professors from that school published an open letter on New Threads. The letter states that Li Liansheng's work, which was then just awarded a first-class prize by the national Ministry of Education, was a complete forgery. The six professors provided detailed description of their evidences and opinions. They also signed the letter with their real names.

A year after that, Li Liansheng sued three of the six professors in court. The six professors pooled their retirement funds to help the legal defense.

Their case suddenly turned in November, 2009, when Li Liansheng abruptly withdrew the lawsuit. On March 20, CCTV openly reported the case, which apparently spawn an immediate reaction from the school. Li Liansheng was stripped of his professorship and had his employment contract terminated.

Mass Production and Mass Fraud

In the field of crystallographic research, the journal Acta Crystallographica Section E: Structure Reports Online serves a special purpose. As its name implies, it collects newly obtained crystal structures and make the data available for other researchers. By its nature, it is relatively "easy" to publish in this journal. One needs to obtain or create a new molecule sample, measure its structure with off-the-shelf instruments, and submit data online. A software program actually creates the report automatically based on submitted information. In essence, the journal is an online database.

Except for the fact that the journal is a part of the Science Citation Index (SCI) since 2001. In recent years, many universities in China has adopted a policy of awarding faculties for publications in SCI journals. So, naturally, this journal became the preferred target where SCI "papers" can be massively produced with relatively little efforts.

This publication boom is quite remarkable, as the following statistics show:

University	number of "papers"	first appearance
Nanjing University	812	2001
Zhejiang University	681	2001
Shandong University	205	2002
Jinggangshan University	148	2005
Sichuan University	116	2001

Given that the papers are originated from either a single or only a handful of research groups in each school, the numbers tell the story of a purposeful mass production effort.

But it gets worse from here, much worse. Jinggangshan University (井冈山大学) is a relative newcomer in this game but is already getting ahead of itself. It appears that a couple of professors in that school can not even be bothered to mass-produce their papers. It is much easier to simply falsify them, massively!

In an unusual editorial, the journal revealed that they have found at least 70 "papers" from Jinggangshan University to contain fraudulent data:

The initial set of falsified structures arises from two groups. The correspondence authors are Dr H. Zhong and Professor T. Liu, both from Jinggangshan University, Jian, China. The co-authors on these papers included other workers from Jinggangshan University together with authors from different institutions in China. Both these correspondence authors and all co-authors have signed forms agreeing to the retraction of 41 papers published by Dr Zhong and 29 by Professor Liu. Details of these retractions appear elsewhere in this issue of the journal. Having found these problems with articles from Jinggangshan University, all submissions from this University to Acta Crystallographica Sections E or C have now been identified and are being checked for authenticity. Preliminary results indicate that further retractions will result from this exercise.

All Co-editors of Acta Crystallographica Sections E and C have been alerted to these fraudulent practices and have been advised of the warning signs that can be used in most instances to identify such attempts to deceive. It should be noted that many other possibly fraudulent submissions were rejected at the refereeing stage by alert and conscientious Co-editors, but until the scope of the fraud became apparent, these were reasonably regarded as one-off examples of incompetence or honest mistakes.

At Jinggangshan University, the school swiftly fired the two professors named by the Journal and claimed that they had recovered at least part of the associated award money. However, the school was silent on other co-authors in these papers.

Meanwhile, names of other professors who have been mass-producing papers in this Journal continue to be exposed on XYS. A few have gone public to deny wrong-doings or a motive for personal gain. Some are quietly removing the "publications" from their online resumes. One particular researcher has even claimed that he has been doing this on purpose to expose the shortcomings of the SCI-based awarding policies.

Scandal at Zhejiang University

Last October, a netter wrote to New Thread to report a case of multiple submission in Zhejiang University (浙江大学). It was then expanded into forgery as papers describing different experiments were found to contain the exact same set of data. By December, another netter did a series of study of papers published by the group and concluded that massive and systematic unethical practices exist, including forgery, plagiarism, and multiple submissions. The case finally received media attention this week after several international journals recalled the questionable papers. As of now, the number of questionable papers has reached 16.

The group in question is led by an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering by the name of Li Lianda (李连达) and concentrated in the study of certain traditional Chinese medicines. Li Lianda claims that he lives in Beijing and only travels to Zhejiang University sporadically and therefore did not know the existence of these papers, although all the papers bear his name and some identified him as the communicating author. He also accused the exposure of the case as a conspiracy by his rivals.

The president of Zhejiang University disclosed results of its investigation, which completely exonerated Li Lianda. The investigation put the entire responsibility of wrongdoings on a junior researcher who it says has published the papers without the knowledge of his coauthors. The junior researcher wrote a lengthy self-criticizing report on his own and was fired by the university.

The case has received such attention that Fang Zhouzi was featured on the evening news by Beijing Television. The video can be seen (with IE only) here. Fang Zhouzi does not believe that such a massive fraud could be done entirely by a single individual without the knowledge of his colleagues. International journals usually require the signatures of all coauthors during the submission process.

Cloning Human Embryos Exposes its Researcher

"A research team at Shandong Stem Cell Engineering Research Center has successfully cloned five human blastulas." Thus reported China Daily. The result was hailed as a major breakthrough in stem cell research, at least in China. However, it becomes immediately clear that the principle researcher of this project is more interesting in media discussion than the result itself.

Li Jianyuan(李建远), the chief of the laboratory which performed the research, has a resume that included a Ph.D. from a "Nobel Medical Institute" in America. At first, Li Jianyuan has refused to disclose the exact name of the institute in English as many interested parties, including Fang Zhouzi, failed to locate any accredited school bearing a similar name. More recently, Li Jianyuan produced a certificate bearing the name cited above, which purported to locate in California. However, an exhaustive search in California state record database failed to show such an institute either. Based on other relevant information, Fang Zhouzi concluded that the certificate is most likely a product by a Chinese-American individual who did not even bother to formally register his "school."

It is also established that Li Jianyuan has never traveled abroad and therefore could not have received Ph. D. training in America. Li Jianyuan explained that the degree was a result of a research paper he submitted along with some recommendation letters. He claimed that he has not taken it seriously himself either. Yet it did not stop him from using the Ph.D. title in his various versions of resumes and signature lines in his published papers.

As more information about Li Jianyuan surfaced, it became clear that Li Jianyuan not only did not possess any Ph.D. degree, he has likely forged a master degree certificate as well. In fact, chances are that he had never received a four-year regular college education. It is amazing to see how far he had achieved in China's academia with such a spotty history.

Students in Limbo after Expulsion

China Youth Daily tracked down a few students who had been expelled from the Newcastle University for using forged applications. Three of them agreed to be interviewed under the condition of not using their real names. They said all the students are now stuck in Britain unsure about their next steps. Eight of them had appealed their case and had them denied. Many were busy applying for other schools. But even if they are successful in that, they are not sure if they could maintain their visa status.

One of the three admitted that he/she knew that his/her application contained forged material. The other two claimed that they had never personally seen what were used in their applications. All of them had used some agencies in China to prepare and submit their applications. They declined to name the agencies.

From the interview, it appears that the agency or agencies took a free hand in fabricating TOEFL scores and personal experiences. School officials at Newcastle University appears to believe that these students were in fact swindled by the agencies. They have agreed to refund almost all tuition while remain unyielding with the decision of expulsion itself.

The mood of these students in their twenties is described as fear and helpless. Some of them have yet to tell their parents of their expulsion.

49 Chinese Students Kicked Out of British University

Forty nine new students from China, plus one from Taiwan, had been expelled from the Newcastle University in Great Britain for having forged their application material. A spokesman from the school was quoted saying "The forgeries, mainly certificates for English language qualifications or degrees awarded by other universities, are of such high quality that they could not have been detected by the usual checks carried out by admissions officers."

The school is advising other universities to take a closer look at their admission procedures.

IOC Decides to Investigate Gymnast's Age, Finally

The allegation that the Chinese government has deliberated fielded underage gymnasts in the Beijing Olympics has been brewing ever since the competition started. The International Olympics Committee had been steadfastly refusing to look into the matter, citing a lack of concrete evidences.

Until now.

It seems that the mounting evidence has finally reached the tipping point even for the reluctant IOC, which belatedly decided to launch an investigation. It is still not clear how aggressive and deep the probe is going to be. It is nice to see that for once IOC is not taking the date of birth in a government-issued passport at its face value.

For the record, my own Chinese passport lists my birthday as 10/28/1999. I better grow up fast so I could compete in the Olympics myself!

Did Professor Shi Yigong Step Over the Line?

Professor Shi Yigong, who recently gave up a prestige position at Princeton to return to Tsinghua University, had been making a name for himself in China. Unlike the fellow returnee Professor Rao Yi, Shi Yigong tended to boast a higher personal profile. In an interview on Science Times, he claimed that his return was motivated by a strong patriotic brief. He expressed the desire to teach a new course on patriotism in Tsinghua.

Yet Professor Shi Yigong had already become an American citizen while he was in the United States. It might be quite awkward for him to teach such a course in China.

What's more, his status in Princeton was far from clear. It did not appear that he had simply given up his post as he had claimed. The Princeton University web site listed him simply as "on leave until September 2009", which means that he still maintains a position there.

There was no question that Professor Shi is working full time at Tshinghua right now. But his status at Princeton University brought up a questionable issue in his receiving a research grant from the Chinese National Natural Sceince Foundation. The grant, intended for outstanding young researchers, had a clear requirement for any applicant of non-Chinese citizenship that they should not be holding any position in a foreign institute at the time of their grant application. Professor Shi had clearly violated this rule.

Fang Zhouzi openly raised the issue to the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation, accusing Professor Shi Yigong's alleged forgery in his application. As usual, this ignited a vast controversy. Rao Yi defended his friend, claiming that it usually takes a long time for a professor to make a transition between institutions. But he could not address the issue of the grant directly. Shi Yigong chose to remain silent in public. In private, he offered to talk to Fang Zhouzi with an explanation. Fang Zhouzi declined, insisting on dicussing the issue in public.

Artistic License Running Amok

The biggest forgery committed during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was apparently with a direct order from a member of the Politburo.

A Dean Lost His Job For Being Not Quite A Ph. D. (And Lied About It)

Last year, a netter with a pseudonym "woodpecker" reported on New Threads that the dean of the College of Environmental Science and Technology in Taiyuan University of Technology (太原理工大学) had fabricated his degree.

Professor Wang Zengzhang (王增长) had studied at the Helsinki University of Technology in Finland from 1994 to 2002. Upon his return, he told his colleagues that he had earned a doctoral degree there. But he never produced a certificate or thesis. According to the report by "woodpecker", someone called the school in Finland and found that Professor Wang actually only earned a Licentiate degree, half way between a Master and a Ph. D.

More than half a year later, another netter reported on New Threads that Taiyuan University of Technology had verified the claim. It stripped Professor Wang's position as a dean and his license to advice Ph. D. students. There was no mention whether he continues to teach in the university.

Buck's Retraction and Zou's Rebuttal

The high-profile retraction of a published paper by Nobel Prize winner Linda Buck has been widely reported in mainstream media. The retraction contains a paragraph outlining Author Contributions to the original paper, which appears to be pointing a finger to one of the co-principal authors. Without explicitly accusing forgery, it says that the said author Zou Zhihua (邹志华) had "prepared and analysed the mice and provided all figures and data for the paper". The authors now find that they "have been unable to reproduce the reported findings" and that there are "inconsistencies between some of the figures and the data published in the paper and the original data."

The news got much attention in Chinese media and community primarily because Zou Zihua is a Chinese and received college education in China. He had earned his Masters degree from the No. 1 Military Medicine University in GuangZhou, China, and then a Ph. D. from Osaka University School of Medicine in Japan. After that he joined Professor Buck's laboratory and performed the experiments now in dispute.

After the news broke out, Zou had maintained a public silence and declined all media interviews. However, he appeared to have entered a couple of comments himself on the Nature News site. In one of them, he was clearly resentful that he was being singled out as the sole responsible party. Despite the fact that he had also signed the retraction, he still stood by his data and figures:

Yes, I signed the retraction letter and hope every scientist who is aware of the problems with a paper will take similar actions immediately. However, I stand behind the conclusions of the paper and believe the experiments can be repeated. I am planning to do so. This will undoubtedly be daunting to a struggling junior faculty, and no one can guarantee success. I agree with the view that everyone who is on a publication should take full responsibility. Otherwise, stay in the acknowledgment.

Meanwhile, having totally lost her confidence in Zou's work, Professor Buck had asked for a review of two other publications in which Zou was also the lead author.

Xinhua Apologizes For Fake Photo

Thus reports the Wall Street Journal.

Xi'an Fanyi: A "Most Respected" School?

During October, 2004, a small news item appeared in several Chinese newspapers and online media about a ranking of Chinese Universities, done by an American organization. One such piece can still be seen on the web today. Rankings of colleges were just getting popular in China then, so such news wasn't all that interesting by itself. What was interesting, however, is its Top Ten list of universities: while the usual suspects such as Tsinghua and Peking Universities occupied the top 9 spots, the 10-th spot belong to a school by the name "Xi-an Fanyi University". Not many people had ever heard about that school by then.

What's more, the accompanying Top Ten University Presidents list ranked Ding Zuyi, the President of the "Xi-an Fanyi University" in the 2nd spot, right between the Presidents of Peking and Tsinghua universities.

Where did this ranking come from?

The news report said it was from the October 4, 2004 issue of Los Angles Times, which is certainly a reputed source. It also included an original English version, which perhaps inadvertently provided the first hint of something not being right:

Ranking of Chinese Universities by USA Fifty State Higher Education Union

　　The first list of most respected Chinese universities and their presidents was established by the USA Fifty State Higher Education Union through a survey. 80,000 questionnaires were distributed with 50,000 returned as valid. The event is the first of its kind in China done by international agencies. Noticeably, China's first private university Xi-An Fanyi University in the country's western province of Shaanxi has entered the top 10 list. It is now the biggest private universities in China boasting about 40,000 students in residence.

It's quite obvious that Los Angles Times could not have published something in such awkward English. The name of the institute "USA Fifty State Higher Education Union" also sounded fishy. Could this be another blatant fake?

Fang Zhouzi thought so. He was in China at the time when he encountered this "news". Without direct access to the Los Angles Times paper itself, he did the next best thing: searching its online archives. He found nothing. In his first report on this case, Fang Zhouzi was careful enough to point out that just because it was not in the online archive was not proving enough that the report was not in the paper. However, based on the English writing itself, he was confident that this news was a piece of forgery done by some Chinese people with sub-par English skills.

Although a self-claimed "university", Xi'an Fanyi University (西安翻译学院) is really a small college specializing in training for foreign language translators and interpretors. Unlike public colleges in China, schools like this one are "private" and charge hefty tuitions from students. They usually compete for the students who had failed to earn admission in the more traditional colleges and had to pay their own ways for a skill education. Not withstanding the successfulness or the lack thereof, such a school would not be qualified to be on anyone's Top 10 list.

After Fang Zhouzi's initial exposure of this "fake news", the school fought back immediately and provided copies of the certificates it had received to prove its authenticity. The two certificates read:

THE VENERABLE PRESIDENT OF
UNIVERSITY PRIVATE
UNIVERSITY IN CHINA

After a survey of American colleges, Professor Dingzuyi,
the president of Xi-an fanyi university is acknowledged
to be the venerable president of college run by the
local people in China.

and:

CERTIFICATE FOR THE FIRST STUDY-WORTHY
INSTITUTE
PRIVATE UNIVERSITY IN CHINA

After a deliberation of the colleges run by the local
people in China, Xi-an fanyi university is acknowledged
to be the first study-worthy by American Colleges.

It is quite interesting to note that, Xi'an Fanyi University, a school specializing in English skills, could not recognize the many mistakes in English in these certificates alone.

In the meantime, the news of the ranking was still spreading in China and made into mainstream news outlets including the official Xinhua News Agency and Chinese Youth Daily. A copy of the October 4th, 2004 edition of Los Angles Times was made available. The "news" of the ranking was indeed in the paper, not as a report, but as a paid advertisement. It was also found out that the socalled "USA Fifty State Higher Education Union" was registered in the State of California by someone named He Yumin as a company. The company was registered on May 26, 2004, merely 5 days before it delivered the "most respected" certificates. It is quite unlikely that the company had the time to send out 80,000 questionaries and process the 50,000 returns as it had claimed in the news/advertisement.

In December 2004, Fang Zhouzi's supportors in Los Angles visited the address on the registration and found the "USA Fifty State Higher Education Union" is no longer there. It probably never was.

But by now, Ding Zuyi (丁祖怡) had had enough. He decided to sue.

Wang Rui, One With Many Faces (And Genders)

In July, 2007, a netter reported to Fang Zhouzi that a Dean at Yunnan Nationalities University (云南民族大学) by the name of Wang Rui (王锐) has a peculiar resume. The resume was posted in the official school site but has since made unavailable.

In his resume, Mr. Wang Rui claims that he had spent six years (1997 - 2003) in University of Southern California (USC) under the Nobel Prize winner Professor George Olah and earned a Ph. D. in Chemistry there. He then spent a year or so there doing postdoctoral research. His resume then listed five papers he had coauthored and published in prominent research journals during the period.

What was peculiar, however, was that none of these papers listed USC as the author's address. Neither was Professor Olah in the coauthor list. Could this be a blatant case of identity theft?

This won't be hard to find out. Indeed, Fang Zhouzi's investigation quickly turned up the following facts:

1. One of Wang Rui's papers, published in Nature Biotechnology, is the product of a lab in University of Kentucky. The coauthor Wang Rui of that paper, is a female. Not even the same gender of the Dean at Yunnan Nationalities University.
2. The other four papers are all the products of a group from North Carolina State University. According to the corresponding author of those papers, Dr. Chen-Loung Chen, the Wang Rui in these papers is still in the United States and can not be the same person at Yunnan Nationalities University
3. Responding to Fang Zhouzi's inquiry, Professor Olah testified that "Mr. Rui Wang to my recollection spent maybe six months in my Institute on a Chinese fellowship in the late 90's. He never received a Ph. D. degree here or thus could not have been a post-doctoral fellow."
4. A search in ProQuest database showed two other Wang Rui's who had obtained Ph.D.'s during the time period in question. But their major areas are so different from the Dean's, they could not be possibly a match.

Therefore, it's pretty safe to conclude that the resume of this Dean at Yunnan Nationalities University is a complete fabrication. This Wang Rui most likely had never earned a Ph.D. degree as he claimed. His publications are stolen from other people with the same name.

Sadly, such a clear-cut fraud case did not seem to disturb much within Yunnan Nationalities University itself. Students in the school reported, anonymously, that their discussion of the issue in the internal BBS has been banned by the administration, and that Wang Rui continues to enjoy strong support from the school leadership.

Four months later, in November, a reporter from a local evening paper picked up the story. The reporter managed to get Mr. Wang Rui on the phone, who told the reporter that "not everything Fang Zhouzi said is true" and made an appointment to meet with the reporter. But alas, he turned out to be a no-show.

What Mr. Wang Rui did tell the reporter, though, is that he had since received a lot of phone calls from renowned professors throughout the country, inviting him to join together and sue Fang Zhouzi (presumably for libel and defamation).

The reporter still could not get in touch with Mr. Wang Rui and there is so far no news from Yunnan Nationalities University on this matter.

From Tiger To The Moon: The Credibility Crisis

Today's news from the Reuters has a blaring headline: "China Says Moon Pictures Not Faked From NASA". At the same time, the official China Daily had just declared that "South China Tiger Photos Are Fake". Two stories, neither may be of great significance in the long run, but both pointing to a phenomenon that can no longer be ignored in China: the great trust crisis.

The tiger photos came first in the early October. A farmer and hunter in the remote Shaanxi claimed to have seen a live "South China Tiger" in the wild and took a series pictures to prove it. This type of tigers has been declared extinct in the wild for decades. The farmer's stories and pictures were initially backed by local forestry authorities and given great fanfare in the Chinese media. However, the authenticity of the photos was immediately questioned by many on the internet. Much analysis shows that the pictures are more likely to be a product of photoshop-ing.

Then came the launch of Chang'e 1 in late October, the very first lunar probe from China. By any means, it is a big milestone in the China's surging space program. In deed, the official media in China hailed it as a great victory for the nation.

It took weeks for Chang'e 1 to reach its lunar orbit, during which there was a curious silence in the media on this subject. Rumors circulated on the internet that Chang'e 1 was in trouble, and may have been lost. It was not until a month later, on Nov 26, a picture of the moon surface taken by Chang'e was released to the public, first unveiled by no other than the Premier Wen Jiabao.

Taken the cue from the experience in the tiger pictures, the Chinese internet is once again abuzz on the possibility that this picture from Chang'e could be a doctored version of NASA's old picture, available on the internet. It has become the talk of the day, so much so that it was necessary for the high officials in China's space program to issue an official denial.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that such blatant forgery could be practiced in a high-profile program as Chang'e. But the problem now is, you can just never be sure. In China, people are suspicious on anything, no matter how sacred it could be.

It is a crisis in trustworthiness.

For the record, Fang Zhouzi was marginally involved in the debunking of the tiger pictures. He wrote a couple of articles commenting on the tiger's appearance and habitat. He also pointed out that, even if the tiger were real, it would be pointless to protect since the forest area involved was too small to support even a single tiger.

So far, he has not participated in the Chang'e picture debate.