There is a usual routine in Chinese media in praising patriotic scholars returning from abroad to serve the motherland. Inevitably, they are described as giving up privileged academic positions, luxury houses, and fancy cars for a presumably much lesser environment in China. The description might have had some truth in it in the past couple of decades but it has gradually lost its base as China is more and more willing to spend big money luring oversea talents.
The most recent media star Professor Shi Yigong is being described in the same manner. Before returning to China, Shi Yigong was the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of molecular biology at Princeton University. So it is true that he had given up a lot in returning. He was made a professor and associated dean at Tsinghua University, one of the most privileged school in China. As the media campaign on his sacrifice continued, his salary at Tsinghua University became the talk of town.
A professor at the same college as Shi Yigong at Tshinghua University disclosed that Shi Yigong's salary is about 1.7 million RMB, which is roughly more than 200,000 in USD. If this figure is true, his salary will be at least compatible with what he earned at Princeton and more than ten times of other professors in the same Chinese school. So much for the sacrifice.
The issue received world-wide attention. A news report by Nature initially quoted the 1.7 million figure in describing how China is attracting top talents. The story drew a firestorm in its online comments and the magazine was forced to apologize and revise its content to exclude the exact figure.
Shi Yigong's colleague at Peking University, Professor Rao Yi, claimed that his salary is actually less than one million in RMB. Shi Yigong and Tsinghua University chose to remain silent. Fang Zhouzi is advocating for an open policy regarding salaries in public schools. He used examples of public schools in America disclosing professor salaries to illustrate that concerns of privacy do not apply in such a situation. Tsinghua University, like pretty much every other school in China, is a public and national institute.
Lately, Fang Zhouzi had been invited to present his case in a radio talk show.
Showing posts with label media distortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media distortion. Show all posts
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Shi Yigong Becomes a Media Star in China
A few days into the new year, a media blitz unfolded in China in praise of Tsinghua Professor Shi Yigong. It involves the official Xinhua News Agency, CCTV, People's Daily, Guangming Daily, and Economics Daily, i.e., all the heavy weights under the direct control of the central government. The Economics Daily cited Shi Yigong's claim that "Returning home country to work, I feel my career has more meaning". Guangming Daily listed three personal goals from Shi Yigong himself. People's Daily priasied Shi Yigong as the model for all returning oversea Chinese scholars. The syndicated media campaign for a scientist is quite unusual. It looks like Shi Yigong is being molded into the new patriotic hero of China.
None of the media reports mentioned the controvercy of Shi Yigong's grant application and subsequet approval. With all the praise for his patriotism, they did not bother to point out that Shi Yigong is, in fact, an American citizen.
What they did mention, however, was the fact that Shi Yigong has been a recipent of the Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award, billed as "one of the most prestigous awards in biology". In reality, the award is a common one aimed for young scientists.
None of the media reports mentioned the controvercy of Shi Yigong's grant application and subsequet approval. With all the praise for his patriotism, they did not bother to point out that Shi Yigong is, in fact, an American citizen.
What they did mention, however, was the fact that Shi Yigong has been a recipent of the Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award, billed as "one of the most prestigous awards in biology". In reality, the award is a common one aimed for young scientists.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
A Combinatorial Interpretation of TCM's Emperor Court Hiearchy
Dr. Chen Zhu (陈竺) is not only an outstanding biologist and researcher in China, he is also the head of the Ministry of Health in the government. He is also well known as a strong believer and advocate of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). As a scientist and health official, he has frequently spoken out the importance of TCM as a cultural heritage as well as useful means for curing diseases and improving health. With his position, he is working on providing more and more fundings into the TCM.
He is also active in using the modern biological research tools, particularly the systems biology, to prove the philosophy and methodology in TCM. His latest result is causing a mini wave in the Chinese media.
In a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Dr. Chen and his coworkers (including his wife Chen Saijuan), described their dissection of mechanisms of a TCM formula as an effective treatment for promyelocytic leukemia.
The TCM formula, or the medicine Compound Huangdai Tablets (复方黄黛片), has been available and in active medical use in China for many years. There are a few earlier researches testifying its effectiveness in treating leukemia, but none of them appear to meet the rigorous standard of drug testing. Chen's new paper provided more evidence of the drug's effect at cell level.
But Chen et al. also go further. They dissected the compound medicine into three major active ingredients and claimed that they acted in combinatorial synergy in treatment. That is, one ingredient could not do the job as effectively without the presence of the others.
Still, there is nothing terribly new here.
But when the news of this paper's publication is reported in China, it took an entirely different tone. China Daily, in its English report, was quite modest in claiming that "TCM applauded for leukemia treatment". Other media went much further. Based on a press release from Chen's institute itself, the news was widely reported as PNAS's recognition of TCM itself. Chen's research, the reports said, not only shown the effectiveness of one drug, but also proved the ancient TCM philosophy of how to construct a compound drug: 君臣佐使.
Simply put, this philosophy models four components or roles in a compound drug as a court of an emperor. The emperor (君) serves as the principle in attacking the disease; the minister (臣) acts as assisting and augmenting the principle; the assistant (佐) also assists the principle and counter-reacts any possible side-effects of the principle; the servants (使) acts to deliver the medicine where it should go.
Such terms did not exist in Chen's paper itself, although the paper emphasizes on the combinatorial synergy of the components it identified. However, a diagram in the press release displays their belief that their research indeed is based on and provides evidence of this ancient philosophy:
Interestingly enough though, they only had three components so the two cohorts, the ministers and the assistants, have to double-duty as delivering servants as well.
The press release and news report also contains many descriptions of the "Yin" and "Yang" of the components, which did not exist in the research paper itself, just as the above diagram.
Fang Zhouzi criticizes these news report as another example of distortion to fit its own agenda of advocating TCM. Also, due to Dr. Chen is a member of PNAS' editorial board and PNAS' archaic policy, Fang questions whether this paper has been properly peer-reviewed.
He is also active in using the modern biological research tools, particularly the systems biology, to prove the philosophy and methodology in TCM. His latest result is causing a mini wave in the Chinese media.
In a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Dr. Chen and his coworkers (including his wife Chen Saijuan), described their dissection of mechanisms of a TCM formula as an effective treatment for promyelocytic leukemia.
The TCM formula, or the medicine Compound Huangdai Tablets (复方黄黛片), has been available and in active medical use in China for many years. There are a few earlier researches testifying its effectiveness in treating leukemia, but none of them appear to meet the rigorous standard of drug testing. Chen's new paper provided more evidence of the drug's effect at cell level.
But Chen et al. also go further. They dissected the compound medicine into three major active ingredients and claimed that they acted in combinatorial synergy in treatment. That is, one ingredient could not do the job as effectively without the presence of the others.
Still, there is nothing terribly new here.
But when the news of this paper's publication is reported in China, it took an entirely different tone. China Daily, in its English report, was quite modest in claiming that "TCM applauded for leukemia treatment". Other media went much further. Based on a press release from Chen's institute itself, the news was widely reported as PNAS's recognition of TCM itself. Chen's research, the reports said, not only shown the effectiveness of one drug, but also proved the ancient TCM philosophy of how to construct a compound drug: 君臣佐使.
Simply put, this philosophy models four components or roles in a compound drug as a court of an emperor. The emperor (君) serves as the principle in attacking the disease; the minister (臣) acts as assisting and augmenting the principle; the assistant (佐) also assists the principle and counter-reacts any possible side-effects of the principle; the servants (使) acts to deliver the medicine where it should go.
Such terms did not exist in Chen's paper itself, although the paper emphasizes on the combinatorial synergy of the components it identified. However, a diagram in the press release displays their belief that their research indeed is based on and provides evidence of this ancient philosophy:
Interestingly enough though, they only had three components so the two cohorts, the ministers and the assistants, have to double-duty as delivering servants as well.The press release and news report also contains many descriptions of the "Yin" and "Yang" of the components, which did not exist in the research paper itself, just as the above diagram.
Fang Zhouzi criticizes these news report as another example of distortion to fit its own agenda of advocating TCM. Also, due to Dr. Chen is a member of PNAS' editorial board and PNAS' archaic policy, Fang questions whether this paper has been properly peer-reviewed.
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