方舟子的Blog

（摄影：John Wu）

谎言揭露者

在大陆一些最富盛名的学者中广泛流行的腐败已经损坏了这个国家的科学界，但一个人决心要尽其一己之力揭露造假、净化学术环境。

记者：Paul Mooney
香港《南华早报》2010年1月31日

（Eddie翻译，经方舟子修改）

一月十六日，方是民以概述其二零零九年十大新闻来迎接这个新年。在他为人熟知的《新语丝》博客上，作为大陆自命的“科学警察”而同时被人尊敬和愤恨的方是民回顾了一系列惊人的指控：十二位大学校长和副校长被指抄袭；一位大学校长把一个并不属于他的科学大奖据为己有；两位教授因为在国际期刊上伪造科研结果被查出；一位医生为其新的手术方法夸大成功率，有可能已经导致了严重的医疗后果。

方是民列举的这些无赖行径让人觉得每一次当一位真正的天才灵机一动时就会有一位大陆科学家顺手偷窃其主意，获取不应有的荣誉。而这些案例对他博客的读者来说却又丝毫不令人惊讶。近十年来，以笔名方舟子创作的方是民一直用这个网站在与学术腐败作战。有些人认为，学术腐败在大陆如此猖獗，已经构成了对国家发展的威胁。

一九九五年在美国的密歇根州立大学获得生物化学博士学位的方舟子是在二零零年时开始关心这一现象的。那时候他开始在互联网和印刷媒体上看到越来越多的学术造假的报道。作为一个文学爱好者，方舟子已经有一个叫做《新语丝》的文学网站。他从那时起便把这个网站用来揭露学术欺诈。

“我关心中国的科学，”他坐在北京的一间咖啡厅里说道。“我希望看到它取得成就。（学术欺诈）在（这里）比其它任何国家都更普遍，比中国历史上其它任何时期都更普遍。”

中国科学技术协会做的一个调查发现他们联系的科学家中超出一半的人说他们亲身接触过学术不当行为事例。然而，只有极少数造假者受到惩罚。这是最令方舟子愤怒的地方。他在美国受到的训练使他了解到一种制度，那里很少有抄袭，而如果有的话，抄袭者会得到严厉的惩罚。

武汉大学信息管理学院的一位副教授沈阳率先开发了在大学论文里发现抄袭的软件。但使用这个新产品的决心还没有出现。

方舟子说在他揭露的九百多起学术腐败案例中，只有大约二十件受到了惩罚，而被惩罚者大多数是学生。

《新语丝》每星期有大约十万个点击。过去九年内有接近一千六百万人访问过这个网站，大多数是学术界人士和学生，也有记者。【译者注：原文如此。方舟子自己估计的是每星期十万位读者来访问。】政府有时候会屏蔽这个网站，迫使读者通过镜像站访问。

“《新语丝》是包括我自己在内的中国绝大多数科学记者的新闻资源，”《科学新闻》的记者方玄昌（与方是民无亲戚关系）说道，“实际上，最近几年媒体曝光的学术腐败事例中绝大多数都是最先由《新语丝》的供稿者揭露的。”这位记者把《新语丝》称作“深喉”，就像美国“水门事件”里那位告密者一样。

方舟子说他每天收到二十多件揭露学术腐败的电子邮件，他平均每天花四个小时时间处理这些事例。他说他处理时采用严格的标准：揭露者必须提供他们的真名实姓（很多人因为害怕报复而拒绝）；必须提供具体证据；揭露的事例必须有意义。方舟子经常自己做调查，有时候会请教他不熟悉领域里的专家。

从自吹自擂获得冒牌的国际奖项到对知识产权的剽窃，学术腐败涵盖了广泛的领域。不下十六位中国学者声称他们赢得过一九八四年开始颁发的阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦世界科学奖。有些年度，不止一个大陆科学家声称获得该奖，尽管这个奖每年只给一个人。在颁发该奖项的世界文化委员会的网站上搜索获奖者名单时却看不到一个中国人名字。

二零零六年，方舟子在得到一个线索后检查了清华大学医学院新任助理院长贴在网站上的简历，他注意到其列出的科研论文中有一篇是关于艾滋病毒的分子生物学研究，那并不是这位院长的专业。开始怀疑的方舟子追踪下去，发现那篇论文出自在美国的一位与这位院长有着同样的姓和名字的第一个字母的中国科学家。他还发现这位教授对他的工作经历撒了谎。

方舟子指出华中科技大学的泌尿科教授肖传国关于其获得过美国泌尿协会大奖的说法是谎言。他质疑肖传国鼓吹的一个新手术的成功率。这位医生两次尝试成为地位崇高的中国科学院院士均告失败，学者们把这归于《新语丝》的功劳。

方舟子说，在1990年代以前，政府对科学和研究有着强有力的控制，它能够把作弊的盖子捂住。

“改革开放以后，控制没那么严了。那是好事情。”他说道，“我们不希望政府控制所有的事情。但副作用是腐败和不正当行为都冒出来了。”

评论家说政府对高等教育系统现代化的努力让问题更加恶化。教育部和大学在学术上施加压力，要求在收录进“科学引文索引”的期刊上发表论文。学校的排名、资助和奖金经常与这样的标准挂钩。

方舟子说，一位博士候选人必须发表至少三篇论文才能毕业，许多硕士研究生也被要求发表文章。“这是一个巨大的负担，尤其是对学生物学或医学的学生。”方舟子说道。

这个不发表就毁灭的现象甚至已经延伸到在小学院和中学教书的老师那里。但在需要发表的论文数目超出这个国家的主要刊物能够刊载的数量时（这是一个每年接近五十万的数字），新的趋势便是出现了一系列低质量的“非法刊物”，在那上面作者可以付钱来发表自己的文章。

“这已经成为一个巨大的产业。”方舟子指出，“没有人相信这种刊物上发表的文章。那只是为了评职称。”

发表文章的压力使得学者们大量制造论文，经常顾及不到科研的质量或甚至不加注明地直接从其它资料里照搬材料。在许多情况下，教授让他们的研究生自己做科研。如果学生抄袭，教授便可以宣称不知情。

在方舟子看来，问题之一在于不用害怕被抓到。

“因为大多数科学家都卷入了不当行为，没人在乎了，”他说，“所以他们不觉得这有什么了不得的。你无需要担心会被抓住或受到惩罚。”

方舟子说官方也有责任。

“官员有着发放研究经费的权力，却对科学一无所知。”他说，“他们只知道数一个人发表的学术论文的数目。你只需去抄他人的论文，他们说，‘干得好，给你经费。’”

大学和政府通常不愿意惩罚造假者，尤其是那些高级科学家和与共产党有关系的人，也就是几乎所有的高级学术官员。

“政府官员不愿意调查和惩处大学的校长或副校长，因为这对他们没有任何好处。”方舟子指出。

大学通常会掩盖这样的行为来保护学校的声誉。方舟子说科学院的院士能为他们的学校带来大量的资金。他说，他的网站揭露了几十位院士的不当行为却没有一个被正式调查或惩罚。

中国科学院生物物理所的何士刚是方舟子的支持者，他说，“所有的事情都归结于政治制度。如果政治制度腐败，就没办法让其它事情有一个清洁的环境。”

“（虽然造假数量在增加），媒体上报道的只是非常小的一部分，”方玄昌说，“记者得考虑报道这些事时是否有风险。结果许多案例就没有被报道。”

中国的学术作弊源远流长。在清朝（1644-1911），需要通过科举考试才能获取有油水的官僚位置的考生使用过各种各样的手段，包括偷带进微型书籍、指甲大小的作弊材料，甚至穿着写有相关材料的内衣内裤。

一九六四年，毛泽东在一次讲话中竟然为了批评僵硬的教育系统和其对考试的重视而鼓吹作弊。他宣布说：“考试可以交头接耳，甚至冒名顶替。冒名顶替时也不过是照人家的抄一遍，我不会，你写了，我抄一遍，也可以有些心得。”

作弊在学生中间也很普遍。近年来，“枪手”被雇佣来代考。在大陆可以找到枪手参加任何考试，包括英语考试。一个现在已被关闭的网站提供三种服务：两千元可以获得一个枪手，四千元可以事先得到答案，或者只花一千二百元，考试的答案可以通过一个不比指甲大的进口的“卫星接收器”传递进考场。

方舟子说他不通过网站获得任何收入，他通过写作科普书籍谋生。

已经有十一件案件起诉这位斗士：法院在三个案件上判决对他不利，驳回了五个，另外三个还在等待判决。

肖传国在他任教的湖北省武汉的地方法院上起诉方舟子诽谤，他赢了该官司和上诉案。方舟子对判决不予理睬。去年，法院从他妻子的银行账户里取走了40763元。

有些案例看起来近乎荒唐。二零零六年十一月，学者刘子华的家属控告方舟子诽谤。在三十年代，刘子华认为他已经用中国古代哲学的八卦理论发现了太阳系第十颗行星。方舟子把它称为“伪科学”。北京第二中级法院判方舟子输了，对他罚款两万元，尽管刘子华已经在十四年前离世。

何士刚认为方舟子在法庭上的失败是政治、地方保护主义和不健全的法制系统的结果。“我觉得他的工作做得非常仔细。这是我非常尊重他的原因。”

支持者们已经建立了一个资金来帮助他支付法庭费用和支持另一个反驳他的批评者的网站。

同时，越来越多的人担心学术作弊可能会对大陆的科学和教育的发展形成威胁。方舟子说国际学术刊物现在对接受来自中国科学家的论文很犹豫。这个问题在上个月得以凸显：科学刊物《晶体学报》E分卷发表社论宣布由江西省井冈山大学两位科学家在二零零七年提交的七十篇晶体结构论文是捏造的。

纽约州立大学列文国际关系贸易研究所的一位高级研究员曹聪在这个月撰文介绍说这个同行评议的刊物现在已经充斥了来自中国的论文，主要是因为这只是一个晶体结构的数据库，文章长度通常只有一页纸，不需要经过严格的评议程序。曹聪写道，黑龙江大学的一位化学教授在过去五年里在《晶体学报》发表了297篇论文。

这个事件引起了医学刊物《柳叶刀》主编理查德·豪顿的注意。他认为产生这些问题的原因是根据中国学者发表文章的数目进行奖励的制度。

“不幸的是，在中国存在着造假的巨大动力，”他在《柳叶刀》的网站上写道，“当你把有名声的工作位置和大量的金钱同发表数目紧密地联系起来时，便会创造出造假的条件。

“问题是中国的科学在一些领域是否还值得信任，这会影响到中国的经济发展。”

“学术腐败对纳税人的钱的浪费骇人听闻，”方玄昌说，“而且，学术界的腐败趋势会降低科学研究效率，严重地阻碍中国的国际化梦想。”

尽管表面上看来《新语丝》只得到了有限的成功，北大生命科学学院院长饶毅指出，“如果没有方是民，中国的学术腐败会更严重。”

“方舟子与学术不当行为的斗争效果不应该只用受到惩罚的人数来衡量，”方玄昌说，“更重要的是让那些可能作弊的人害怕，这已经导致减少了学术界这种现象的发生。”

方舟子说虽然教育部和科技部都颁布了处理学术不端行为的条例，但他怀疑是否会被执行。他说科技部在二零零七年成立了一个科研诚信建设办公室，但他从没听说这个办公室调查过一个案例。他还认为科技部的一些官员自身腐败，在分发科研资金时接受回扣。

“至少那里有一个办公室，”他乐观地说，“政府现在认识到这是个问题，虽然它还没有做什么事，我也觉得这是个进步。”

Lie Detector

Widespread corruption among some of the mainland’s most ambitious academics has undermined the country’s scientific community but one man has made it his mission to expose the culprits and clean up the system 

Paul Mooney
Jan 31, 2010, South China Morning Post Magazine
      
On January 16, Fang Shimin kicked off the new year with a recap of his top 10 news items of 2009. On his popular New Threads blog (www.xys.org), Fang, both respected and hated as the mainland’s self-appointed “science cop”, revisited a string of startling allegations: 12 university presidents and vice-presidents accused of plagiarism; a university president who claimed a leading scientific prize that was not rightfully his; two professors caught faking research results in an international journal; and a medical doctor who distorted the success rate for a new surgical procedure, which could have had serious health implications.
Fang’s rogue’s gallery made it seem like every time a light bulb goes on in the head of a genuine genius, there’s a mainland scientist at hand to steal the idea and bask in the illicit glory, but the list came as no surprise to followers of the blog. For close to a decade, Fang, who goes by the pen name Fang Zhouzi, has been using the site to battle academic corruption, which, some say, has become so endemic on the mainland, it poses a threat to the country’s development.
 Fang, who earned a PhD in biochemistry from Michigan State University, in the United States, in 1995, became concerned about the phenomenon in 2000, when he started to see an increase in reports of academic cheating on the internet and in the print media. A fan of literature, Fang had a literary website called New Threads, which he has since employed to expose academic fraud.
“I care about science in China,” he says, sitting in a Beijing cafe. “I want to see it go somewhere. [Academic fraud] is more common [here] than in any other country and more common than in any other period in Chinese history.”
A survey conducted by the China Association for Science and Technology showed more than half of the scientists contacted said they were personally familiar with cases of scientific misconduct. However, few of the guilty parties are punished and that’s what irks Fang, whose training in the US exposed him to a system in which plagiarism is rare and, when it does occur, is severely punished.
Shen Yang, an associate professor at the Information Management School of Wuhan University, pioneered software that detects plagiarism in university papers, but the will to implement such innovation has yet to surface.
Fang says that out of the more than 900 cases of academic corruption he has exposed only 20 have resulted in punishment - and the majority of those involved students.
New Threads receives about 100,000 hits a week, with close to 16 million people - academics and students primarily but also journalists - having visited it during the past nine years. The government occasionally blocks access, forcing users to reach it via mirror sites.
“New Threads is the news source for the vast majority of science journalists in China, including myself,” says Fang Xuanchang (no relation to Fang Shimin), a reporter with Science News. “Actually, the vast majority of the cases of academic corruption that were brought to light by the media in recent years were originally exposed by contributors to the New Threads blog,” says the journalist, who calls the site the “New Threads deep throat”, in reference to the informant in the US’ Watergate scandal.
Fang Shimin says he gets more than 20 e-mails a day reporting academic corruption and he spends an average of four hours following up on the claims. He says he applies strict criteria in handling reports: accusers must provide their name - many decline to do this out of fear of retribution; concrete evidence must be provided; and the case must be relevant. Fang often does his own research, sometimes consulting with experts in fields he is less familiar with.
Academic corruption runs the gamut from false claims about international awards to outright intellectual-property theft. No less than 16 Chinese scholars have claimed to have won the prestigious Albert Einstein World Award of Science since it was launched in 1984. For some years, more than one mainland scientist has claimed the award, despite that fact that it is given to only to one person a year. A search of the recipients list on the website of the World Cultural Council - the body that bestows the honour - yields not one Chinese name.
In 2006, when Fang, acting on a tip, pored over the online resume of the new assistant dean of Tsinghua University’s medical school, he became suspicious when he noticed that one of the research papers it listed was about the molecular biology of HIV - a subject not related to the dean’s speciality: surgery. Fang dug a bit further and discovered that the paper had been written by a Chinese scientist in the US with the same family name and first initial. He also discovered the professor had lied about his work experience.
Fang argued that Xiao Chuanguo, professor of urology at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, had lied about winning a major award given by the American Urological Association and questioned the success rate of a new surgical procedure being touted by Xiao. The doctor failed in two attempts to be appointed to the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and scholars credit New Threads for this.
Fang says that prior to the 1990s, the government had tight control on science and research and managed to keep a lid on cheating.
“After reform and opening, the controls were relaxed, and that was a good thing,” he says. “We don’t want the government controlling everything. But the side effect was that corruption and misconduct emerged.”
Critics say government efforts to modernise the higher-education system are exacerbating the problem. The Ministry of Education and universities put pressure on academics to publish in journals catalogued by the Science Citation Index. School rankings, funding and monetary rewards are often based on such results.
A PhD candidate has to publish at least three papers before he can graduate, says Fang, and many graduate students are also required to publish. “That’s huge, particularly for someone in biology or medicine,” says Fang.
The publish-or-perish phenomenon has even extended to people teaching at junior colleges and high schools. But as more papers need to be published than can be accommodated by the country’s key journals - the numbers run close to 500,000 per year - the trend has spawned a raft of low-quality “black journals”, in which people pay to have their papers published.
“It’s become a huge industry,” says Fang. “And no one trusts the papers published in this kind of journal. It’s just for promotion.”
The pressure to publish has meant scholars churn out papers, often paying little attention to the quality of research or even lifting information from other sources without giving attribution. In many cases, professors allow their graduate students to do their research. If the student plagiarises, the professor pleads ignorance.
One of the problems, as Fang sees it, is that the fear of being caught is no disincentive.
“No one cares because the majority of scientists are involved in misconduct,” he says. “So they don’t think it’s a big deal. You don’t need to worry about being caught or punished.”
Officials bear some of the blame, too, says Fang.
“The officials who have the power to distribute funding for research know nothing about science,” he says. “They only know how to count the number of academic papers one has published. You only have to copy other peoples’ papers and they say, `You’ve done a good job, here’s your funding.’”
Universities and the government are often reluctant to punish cheaters, especially high-level scientists or someone who has Communist Party connections, which means just about any senior academic official.
“Government officials don’t want to investigate and punish a vice-president or a president of a university because there’s nothing in it for them,” says Fang.
Universities will usually try to cover up such behaviour to protect the reputation of the institution. CAS members bring in large amounts of funding for their universities, Fang says. His website has exposed the misdeeds of about 20 members of the academy but none has been officially investigated or punished, he says.
He Shigang, of the CAS’ Institute of Biophysics and a supporter of Fang, says: “Everything boils down to the political system. If the political system is corrupted you can’t have a clean environment for anything.”
“[Although the number is rising slightly] what appears in the media is a very small minority of the cases,” says Fang Xuanchang. “Journalists have to consider whether or not there’s a risk in reporting something. As a result, many cases go unreported.”
There’s a long history of scholarly cheating in China. During the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), scholars taking the rigorous imperial exam, to win coveted positions in the civil service, resorted to all sorts of tricks, including smuggling in miniature books, cheat sheets the size of a fingernail and even undershirts covered with relevant information.
In 1964, Mao Zedong went so far as to endorse cheating during a speech in which he criticised the staid education system and its emphasis on exams.
“At examinations, whispering into each other’s ears and taking other people’s places ought to be allowed,” he declared. “If your answer is good and I copy it, then mine should be counted as good.”
Cheating is also rampant among students. In recent years, qiangshou, or “hired guns”, have been employed to take exams. Their services can be retained for just about any test on the mainland, including English language exams. One now-defunct website offered three options: a hired gun for 2,000 yuan (HK$2,275), answers in advance for 4,000 yuan or, for 1,200 yuan, answers provided during the test via a wireless device described as an imported “satellite receiver” no bigger than a thumbnail.
Fang says he makes no money from his blog, relying instead on the popular science books he writes to earn a living.
Eleven lawsuits have been brought against the crusader: courts ruled against him in three cases and dismissed five, while three are pending.
Xiao sued Fang for libel in a local court in Wuhan, Hubei province, where he teaches, winning the case and an appeal. Fang ignored the ruling and, last year, the court deducted 40,763 yuan from his wife’s bank account.
Some of the legal cases have bordered on the absurd. In November 2006, the family of scholar Liu Zihua sued Fang for libel. In the 30s, Liu argued that he had used the Eight Diagrams theory - from ancient Chinese philosophy - to discover a 10th planet in the solar system, a claim Fang labelled “pseudoscience”. The No 2 Beijing Intermediary Court ruled against Fang, fining him 20,000 yuan - despite the fact that Liu had passed away 14 years earlier.
Fang’s legal setbacks are the result of politics, local cronyism and a flawed legal system, claims He. “I think he does his homework very carefully. That’s the reason I respect him so much.”
Supporters have set up a legal defence fund to defray his court costs as well as another website to fight his detractors.
Meanwhile, there is growing concern that academic cheating could adversely affect the development of education and science on the mainland. Fang says international academic journals are now reluctant to accept submissions from Chinese scholars, a problem that was highlighted last month when scientific journal Acta Crystallographica Sections E published an editorial announcing that some 70 crystal structures submitted by two scientists from Jinggangshan University, in Jiangxi, in 2007, had been faked.
Cao Cong, a senior research associate with the Neil D Levin Graduate Institute of International Relations and Commerce at the State University of New York, wrote this month that the peer-reviewed journal had been flooded with Chinese papers, ostensibly because it’s just a database of crystal structures in which articles are usually one page long and go through a less-than-vigorous review process. Cao wrote that one chemistry professor at Heilongjiang University had submitted 297 papers to Acta Crystallographica over the past five years.
The incident attracted the attention of Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of medical journal The Lancet, who wrote that rewarding Chinese scholars for being prolific publishers was creating problems.
“In China, unfortunately, there are great incentives to commit fraud,” he wrote on The Lancet’s website. “When you make prestigious jobs and large amounts of money closely tied to publication, that creates conditions for fraud.
“The concern is if science in China cannot be trusted in certain areas, that undermines China’s economic growth.”
“Academic corruption is an incredible waste of taxpayer money,” says Fang Xuanchang. “Furthermore, this general trend of corruption in scholarly circles will lead to a decline in the efficacy of scientific research and seriously obstruct China’s dream of internationalising.”
While on the surface it appears New Threads has had limited success, “without Fang Shimin, academic corruption in China would have been worse”, says Rao Yi, dean of the School of Life Sciences at Peking University.
“Fang’s goal of fighting academic misconduct should not be simply reduced to the number of people who are punished,” says Fang Xuanchang. “The more important thing is making those potential cheaters afraid, which has resulted in reducing the emergence of this phenomenon within the academic world.”
Fang Shimin says the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) have both laid down guidelines for dealing with academic misconduct but he doubts they will be enforced. MoST set up the Office of Scientific Research Integrity in 2007, he says, but he’s not heard of the office investigating a single case. He also contends that some MoST officials are corrupt and accept kickbacks for handing out research funding.
“There’s an office at least,” he says, optimistically. “The government now recognises that it’s a problem - and although it hasn’t done anything, I think that’s progress.”