Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Chinese Scientist Admits To Stealing Chip Research 236

Posted by Zonk from the do-you-want-to-make-money-sure-we-all-do dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A prominent Chinese scientist, one of the founders of the chip manufacturing industry in the country, has admitted to stealing his research." From the article: "Chen Jin, a dean of Shanghai's prestigious Jiaotong University and the leader of a government-funded high-tech research project, was dismissed from his university posts this week and stripped of other government titles and perks. The government also said that Chen had been permanently banned from taking part in any government-funded science projects. In a statement Friday, Jiaotong University--one of the nation's elite schools--said, 'Chen Jin has breached the trust of being a scientist and educator. His behavior is despicable.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Chinese Scientist Admits To Stealing Chip Research More

Chinese Scientist Admits To Stealing Chip Research

Comments Filter:

  • Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Xshare ( 762241 ) on Sunday May 14, 2006 @08:31AM (#15329245) Homepage
    What are the chances that this guy just did something against the Chinese Government's wishes, and so they faked this whole scandal. I mean, TFA makes it seem like the Government is in this a lot more than the blurb makes it seem so.

    Meh, maybe I'm just too paranoid. Anyone know more about this? Is that a possibility?
    • Meh, maybe I'm just too paranoid. Anyone know more about this? Is that a possibility?

      Yeah it's possible but it's the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Lets ruin this guy's carreer while at the same time ruin any credibility of a product that works that was created legitimately?? They Chinese government would have to be idiots to do something like this. They have enough problems with intellectual property issues.

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jopop ( 952828 )
      That would make China admit that they were wrong, and i don't believe that's how the chinese government works.
      • China admit that they were wrong, and i don't believe that's how the chinese government works.

        I think that applies to just about every government. When was the last time you heard any government admit it was wrong. The only time this tends to happen is many years after the fact and even then you they won't really admit THEY were wrong. They always have some excuse or other person who the true blame lies with.

        • Libya... (Score:3, Interesting)

          by YesIAmAScript ( 886271 )
          About 4 years ago now Libya renounced their backing of terrorism in the 80s (and 90s) and said they'd like to return to the world community. And since it was Ghadafi in charge then and now, he had no weaseling to do. He just said he was wrong.

          It does happen. It takes a lot of humility to do it, which is why we're unlikely to see the US admit wrongdoing soon. On anything like, say, the Cuba embargo.

        • Admission (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Mark_MF-WN ( 678030 ) on Sunday May 14, 2006 @06:27PM (#15331388)
          An interesting off-topic little factoid: the government of British Columbia, the province in which I am occasionally proud to live, is considering passing a law that would make it easier for businesses, prominent individuals, and the government to apologize. It's kind of cool if you think about it -- consider how many matters can be resolved quickly and painlessly if one party just says "I fucked up, sorry dude." A bit of goodwill goes an amazingly long way.

          The problem of course is the potential legal/financial liability that goes with that, which is what this new law would eliminate. I read that there's a lot of interest in such a law in many parts of the US as well. Could we be entering a time when governments start to be a bit more honest about their screw ups?

          • The problem of course is the potential legal/financial liability that goes with that, which is what this new law would eliminate.

            Does the law eliminate liability for any screwup as long as the entity apologizes for it before getting sued/charged with a crime? Or does it just eliminate liability for anything that wasn't public knowledge before the apology?

            In either case, but especially the former, I can see problems with that law big enough to drive a truck through. (Unless that truck were a Ford wi

    • No way (Score:5, Informative)

      by cyfer2000 ( 548592 ) on Sunday May 14, 2006 @08:50AM (#15329311) Journal

      From what I have known, this guy applied government research funding, but developed nothing because he knows nothing about chip design at all, and failed to find any expert would like to work for him, then he bought several chips from Transmeta and Freescale, removed any brand information on those chips, and printed their information on those chips, then showed those chips to the public as their products.

    • What are the chances that this guy just did something against the Chinese Government's wishes, and so they faked this whole scandal.

      Why? I mean, come on. Not everything done by China is something sneaky and awful. It's just another country, abeit one with a leadership that has some policies that most of us don't like much.

      That's like hearing about someone being arrested for plagiarism in the US and assuming that a bunch of guys with black helicopters trumped up the scandal.

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by posdnous ( 469992 )
      http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-03/1 5/content_536821.htm [chinadaily.com.cn]

      Plagiarism, fake research plague academia
      By Zhu Zhe (China Daily)
      Updated: 2006-03-15 05:39

      As China marks the World Consumer Rights Day today, the spotlight would inevitably be on poor products and shoddy service.

      But attention is also being focused on the rights of a special group of consumers: subscribers or readers of academic journals.

      Plagiarism and fake research have become rampant in China, and are eroding people's trust in academia,

      • Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14, 2006 @12:35PM (#15330075)

        Plagiarism and fake research have become rampant in China, and are eroding people's trust in academia, Ren Yuing, a member of the Councillors' Office of the State Council, told the recent meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top advisory body.

        He cited a recent survey of 180 PhD degree holders, of whom 60 per cent paid to be published in academic journals; and about the same percentage copied others' work.

        Based on my own experience working with a visiting scientist, this seems to be a problem in Korea as well. I did alot of work with this scientist that yielded some interesting results at the beginning. This scientist went on to do other research while I wanted to continue probing our initial experiments. Eventually, I stopped working with this scientist because of their methodology (tossing out data that didn't agree with the hypothesis, abusing statistics to make conclusions, misrepresenting the methodology period) and desire to make a huge breakthrough in the field.

        This is one datapoint though, so I am generalizing alot. What makes me suspect that there is a problem in Korea is that I came to find out that, somehow, this scientist had published these results in well-known Korean scientific journals. This disturbed me and my colleagues because we didn't want our names anywhere on those papers as they represented the worst in research. Not to mention the fact that they were just an abuse of the trust people have in scientists. We've since severed relations with this scientist, but we shudder at what was going on. It simply was not good science and should never have been published. We suspected bribes or connections.

        I've not had similar experiences working with Taiwanese or Japanese researchers though. While I've always been aware of problems in China (and these news reports simply reaffirm it), the research papers produced by Taiwanese and Japanese researchers have generally been quite good. I'll also point out that my old advisor did research with a Korean researcher who was apparently very good, though I never worked with him directly and I've worked with some talented Chinese scientists, so this shouldn't be used as a pretext to devalue the contributions of all Chinese or Korean scientists. It should be seen as a need to start examining what's wrong in those countries with respect to science.

        And yes, I am posting anonymously out of professional concerns.

        • Can you explain why you are posting anonymously? What professional concerns? I thought one of the cornerstones of academic ethics was to only post up statements that you can stand by, and are prepared to defend, and reference. Anonymous postings with no references - or justifications regarding the methodology - are no more valuable than bar room gossip surely?
    • It is much more indideous than that. China has an international reputation for having a lack of respect for patents or copyrights. Reguardless of you opinion on "intellectual property," they copy research results and produce product at a much decreased cost because they do not have to pay for the R&D. (I am sure there are other factors, but that is the most significant to this story.)

      China knows this, and wants to divest the responsibility from the state. How so best to do this than to blame an in

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Sunday May 14, 2006 @12:40PM (#15330099) Journal
      What are the chances that this guy just did something against the Chinese Government's wishes, and so they faked this whole scandal.

      Zero chance.

      This is CHINA we are talking about here. They don't need to fake anything. If they want him gone, he's gone... nobody will ask questions. No reason is necessary.

      Besides, this isn't exactly a surprise. From the first minute this story hit the presses, people were speculating that this is exactly what happened. China isn't exactly known for discouraging this kind of thing, either.

  • IP Theft (Score:2, Insightful)

    by JehCt ( 879940 )
    This exposes one of the great flaws of a command economy: the politicization of everything. People get appointed to positions because of government connections and ideaology. Unfortunately, these appointees often aren't the most qualified people, and they are usually amoral. They'll do or say whatever they must to get what they want from the political machine. I spent several years working in Russia and saw this effect up close. We see the same thing in the United States when government gets involved in

    • Re:IP Theft (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld.gmail@com> on Sunday May 14, 2006 @08:58AM (#15329334) Homepage
      We see the same thing in the United States when government gets involved in economic development activities.

      Actually the United States government's involvement in economic development activities is one of the primary factors of the late 20th century computer revolution.
      • Well, yes and no. Certainly the development of the networking protocols and early routing hardware that evolved into the Internet was under the auspices of the U.S. military, but the advent of the microprocessor and the personal computer were largely private-sector affairs. It began with Intel taking a part originally intended for a Japanese calculator and repurposing it as a general-purpose microprocessor. I took the parent's remark to mean: we see the same thing when government gets involved in funding a
        • Certainly the development of the networking protocols and early routing hardware that evolved into the Internet was under the auspices of the U.S. military, but the advent of the microprocessor and the personal computer were largely private-sector affairs.
          Not exactly. Much of the big expansion of the semiconductor industry was paid for by the Apollo and ballistic missile programs.

          • Re:IP Theft (Score:3, Insightful)

            by ScrewMaster ( 602015 )
            Yes indeed, but then again the military has long made enormous investments into basic research that have had wide-ranging military and civilian application. In fact, there's nothing like a good war (cold or otherwise) with an enemy at technological parity to encourage such development. The Soviet Union made a similar trillion-ruble investment in military and space technology, and truly they achieved some amazing things. However, they never achieved the economic gains that the United States did by commercial

      • Re:IP Theft (Score:5, Insightful)

        by electroniceric ( 468976 ) on Sunday May 14, 2006 @11:00AM (#15329691)
        If I had mod points, I'd give both parent and grandparent credit for insightful statements. The claim that politicization of the economy is responsible for bad and bogus ideas making it through is almost certainly true. The Army Corps of Engineers is a shining example of that. Not only that, but economic development money almost always involves government picking the winner somehow - that's a tough pill to swallow, and something we should always be wary yet. At the same time, there's no doubt that government investment has been critical to the development of nearly every technology we use today. Barring a few altruistist or self-proclaimed visionaries, private capital simply does not have the incentive or wherewithall to make 20 year investments. The only conclusion I can come to is we need good government - transparent, accountable, and well overseen. And that takes a lot of effort from the citizenry, which why the notion that government is fundamentally incapable and hence should be dismanteled frustrates me so much. Government is only as capable as we make it, and it may be less efficient at delivering goods and services, but it's about the only choice we have for making critical long-term investments, so we'd better work on making it as good and efficient as we can.
    • Of course, the obsession with money in capitalist economics would *never* lead to people who are primarily interested in making money reaching positions of power. We have the most moral people ever watching out for the interests of society, because self interest and interest in society *naturally* go hand-in-hand, thanks to the magic of the invisible hand.
    • People get appointed to positions because of government connections and ideaology. Unfortunately, these appointees often aren't the most qualified people, and they are usually amoral.

      And how do you think this differs from your average corporate hierarchy? Ideology and connections are the prime mechanisms of power in any society.

      We see the same thing in the United States when government gets involved in economic development activities.

      You're apparently not familiar with the way democratic governments in fre
      • And how do you think this differs from your average corporate hierarchy? Either the directors or shareholders will fire incompetent management, or the market will punish the company's share price until it get's taken over. Then the new owner will clear out all the fools. With non-democratic government there is no chance of cleansing, short of a revolution.

  • Another quote.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by x-guru ( 653854 ) on Sunday May 14, 2006 @08:52AM (#15329315)
    In an interview this morning, Daffy Duck agreed with Jiaotong University.

    "Indeed, his behavior is despicable", said Mr. Duck.

    • x-guru: In an interview this morning, Daffy Duck agreed with Jiaotong University. "Indeed, his behavior is despicable", said Mr. Duck.

      Anonymous Coward: Sylvester's catch phrase was "sufferin' succotash!"

      Or, as Mel Blanc [imdb.com] would have put it:

      "Indeed, hith behavior ith dethpicable", said Mr. Duck.

      "Thufferin' Thuccotath!", said Sylvester.

  • Shocked! Shocked! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sqlzealot ( 553596 ) on Sunday May 14, 2006 @08:57AM (#15329328) Journal
    IP theft in China reminds me of Casablanca:

    -"I am shocked, shocked to find gambling in this establishment!"
    -"Your winning's sir."
  • Have some US company outsource its production to China, copy the specs, you're set. Where's the big deal?
    • Because China is trying very hard to become an economic super-power. Copying technology from other nations won't get them that, because they'll always be playing second fiddle. Instead, they want to produce technology that exceeds the rest of the world so that they can take the place of the United States and Europe as the source for all new technology.

      • Re:Why so much effort? It's way easier (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday May 14, 2006 @10:24AM (#15329585)
        Well, it worked for Japan, that's for sure.

        The first step is to catch up. That's usually done by having foreign companies manufacture in your country. The second is joint ventures, where foreign companies offer the money, you create a company in your country and manufacture in license. That's also already achived.

        Next would be to have your students and your "brain power" catch up, this is either done by sending your students abroad or by hiring high class teachers. China will most likely opt for the latter.

        This worked for Japan, and the only reason that Japan didn't simply take over the world economy is that Japan lacks two essential factors: Manpower and resources. They are quite limited in space, and thus workforce, and there are almost no resources on their islands.

        It's very different with China. And once they completed step three... good night Europe.
        • Actually this isn't true. Japan did not allow foreign corporations to setup shop. Instead they allowed non-Japanese firms to partner with Japanese firms. GM, Ford, US Steel and IBM did not setup factories they had agreements with companies like Toyota, Mazda, Nippon Steel. Taiwan and Korea did something similiar.

          Japan didn't take over the world economy, because of the amount of cronyism between corporations and businesses and the lending of cheap yen. Which is exactly what China is doing with it's state own

  • "His behavior is despicable."

    How cute. The country that uses Buddhist monasteries as target practice for rockets thinks someone is despicable.
    • Do you have any proof that this official did any of the things you mentioned, or are you just making a bigoted generalization about all Chinese people?
      • I suspect he's referring to the Chinese rocket attack on the Ganden Monastery in Tibet. Considering the attack occurred c. 1950 I don't think it's likely that anyone currently in government was in any way involved. However I wouldn't put such a thing past them.

      • Bigotry (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Bullard ( 62082 )

        Do you have any proof that this official did any of the things you mentioned, or are you just making a bigoted generalization about all Chinese people?

        Did the poster claim that this particular Chinese regime spokesman had personally taken part in the destruction of any of the some 2,000 (i.e. almost all of them) Tibetan buddhist monasteries that the communist party's army has destroyed in Tibet since China's invasion in 1950? No.

        Neither did the poster claim that this particular official personally murder

    • Re:Hehe... that wacky China (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      How cute. The country that uses Buddhist monasteries as target practice for rockets thinks someone is despicable.

      How cute. The country that uses foreign embassies, hospitals, and allied troops as target practice for smart bombs thinks they have a right to judge other countries.

      • Re:Hehe... that wacky China (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        How cute. The country that uses foreign embassies, hospitals, and allied troops as target practice for smart bombs thinks they have a right to judge other countries.

        Uh?? Where in the GP's post does it indicate what country the poster was from?? I couldn't tell if he was American or Russian or German. Unless you have some inside knowledge, you have no justification for that idiotic comment.

        It's just another desperate attempt at knee-jerk US bashing. It's so typical on slashdot nowadays and so utterly p

      • Um, there is no indication in the grandparent post that the poster is a country that uses foreign embassies, hospitals, and allied troops as target practice for smart bombs. In fact there is no indication that the grandparent poster is a representative or even a member of such a country. asshole.

  • Industrial Espionage and China (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Edoko ( 267461 ) <erocheNO@SPAMmac.com> on Sunday May 14, 2006 @09:49AM (#15329488)

    Anyone following the press sees almost daily reports of Chinese industrial espionage circles working around the world. It is not just chips, but formulas, software, manufacturing techniques, and many trade secrets.

    China is not the only country that does this. There have been serious incidents with Russia, Japan, France, etc.

    However, in the case of countries with which the US does not have a defense treaty, wholesale theft of technology and related trade secrets risks strengthening the military establishment of those countries. This makes it a national security issue for the US.

    Unfortunately, even if exposed, the chances in the US of getting caught, prosecuted, and having to pay for industrial espionage are so low that for all practical purposes US technology is free of charge. You probably have a better chance of winning the local lottery than getting punished.

    The problem occurs when foreign espionage organizations target private [non-military related] companies that do not have adequate security measures.

    In terms of this particular case, the reaction of the Chinese government is out of character to its past actions, which have somewhat ignored wholesale violation of intellectual property rights, and have encouraged massive collection of economic and technical information from the West.

    There is no way other than the use of industrial espionage to explain the short amount of time China took in developing its space program and supercomputer capabilities.

    In this chip case, the reaction seems motivated by one of two factors: 1/ it is an emotional reaction from someone higher up who felt duped by the scam of the "researcher", 2/ it is a politicized attempt at public relations -- one of those highly publicized "crack downs" that periodically emerge from China before everything gets back to normal.

    It's really a non-event. There are probably dozens of other laboratories working right now on other pilfered technologies. In the long run, however, China is graduating enough engineers to surpass the West within about 25 years. In which case, all of this will seem rather transitional in nature.

    • "There is no way other than the use of industrial espionage to explain the short amount of time China took in developing its space program and supercomputer capabilities."

      You do realize China has been sending things to space since 1970, and modules that could be manned since 1999. So, potentially manned modules for 7 years, does that number sound familiar? The US made it to the moon in 7 years when it *had never been done before*, and you seem to think that it is beyond thinking that China could put people
    • There is no way other than the use of industrial espionage to explain the short amount of time China took in developing its space program and supercomputer capabilities.

      or to explain how Linux overtook SCO. ;-)

    • > There is no way other than the use of industrial espionage to explain the short amount
      > of time China took in developing its space program

      Sure there are. To name two obvious ones:

      1) Learning from Russian technology
      "Are Chinese engineers just copycats, blueprinting the Shenzhou after the Russian Soyuz spacecraft design?" (link [space.com])

      2) Longer development than you think
      "[China]'s first satellite...was launched in 1970" (link [wikipedia.org])
    • There is no way other than the use of industrial espionage to explain the short amount of time China took in developing its space program and supercomputer capabilities.

      Pot. Kettle. Black. The Ruskies got the first orbit, first satellite, the first lifeform in space, the first human in space and the first space dock between two vehicles. Then a couple of years later the US combines all of these and puts a man on the moon. I call shenanegins!!

  • Token Sacrifice (Score:2, Interesting)

    by argoff ( 142580 )
    The Chinese have no concept of copyright and patent restrictions like Americans do. This was probably a token sacrifice to appease the whiny US companies who just want to sit on their butts and collect royalties from the billions of masses. I don't know what their concept of plagiarism is, but ironically enforcing copyrights and patents encourages plagiarism - because you just can't be honest about and say "yeah, I did copy it".

    Truthfully, I'm glad they don't respect copyrights and patents. It's one of t
    • Truthfully, I'm glad they don't respect copyrights and patents. It's one of the few freedoms that actually keep China from flying off the deep end. I could't even imagine RIAA types backed by authoritarian Chinese power.

      Try harder.

      Imagine a Chinese book or film taking hold in the world market on the scale of "Harry Potter," a franchise worth a billion dollars in royalties to the author alone.

      But also a persuasive and accessible celebration of traditonal Chinese culture. Its propaganda value beyond measu

    • The concepts of patent and copyright are hardly unique to America, nor are they fundamentally flawed ... and the system our Founders laid out worked rather well for a very long time. Unfortunately our system of limited protection for creative works has been mucked about with by an incompetent and/or corrupt Congress to the point where it is more of a liability than anything else. Frankly, if the Chinese want to follow in the European Union's footsteps and "harmonize" their "intellectual property" laws with

      • There are lots of other rights and protections in the US constitution that the Congress hates just as much, but didn't grow out of contoroll like copyrights did precicely because copyrights *are* fundamentally flawed. You can't tell people that they have this God given right to controll how others use information at their disposal, and then expcet them to not try and secure this "right". The only way that the copyright system can keep going is if it is constantly expanding it's powers into other peoples

    • The Chinese have no concept of copyright and patent restrictions like Americans do.

      Is that still true?
      I was really surprised by the reports of the Dragon CPU: The designers looked at the existing patents, and did not implement the patented instructions. I think China is learning that copying destroys the economy - it's own economy.
      I'm a bit afraid of that:
      Right now the custom control can stop many chinese products, and thus protect the local markets. But what about the future, if chinese companies hav

    • From the OP, I thought token sacrifice too, not that American companies wouldn't do the same thing. Then I read this quote from the article, "Now, the government and Jiaotong say, none of the chips had the capabilities Chen claimed, even though the government had earlier said that the chips had been tested by government appraisal teams"

      So do the chips work or not? Are they ditching the chips because they don't work or because they got caught with stolen technology?
    • The Chinese have no concept of copyright and patent restrictions like Americans do.

      I suggest you pick up a history book and start reading about these "Americans". They did the exact same with British (and other) IP during their fledling years. China is no different, they are just a century or two behind.

  • I'm sorry, but I've seen too many first-hand examples of industrial espionage performed by Chinese engineers and scientists to find this at all surprising. I'm just surprised he admitted it, that's all.

    And just to be clear, I'm not referring to American citizens who happen to be of Chinese extraction, or individuals who emigrate to the U.S. with the intention of becoming American citizens. I mean personnel that come here on a visa, work for a few years or go to school here, and then take what they have learned back home. That doesn't bother me in and of itself, but often this includes taking things such as research, engineering drawings and prototypes that don't belong to them. Other nations do this as well, of course (including us) but few on as grand a scale.
  • Do those government critics ever criticize their government?

  • False summary (Score:3, Insightful)

    by belmolis ( 702863 ) <billposer AT alum DOT mit DOT edu> on Sunday May 14, 2006 @01:20PM (#15330261) Homepage
    Chinese Scientist Admits To Stealing Chip Research

    Hunh? Nowhere in the linked news article does it say that Chen has admitted anything. To the contrary, it says he could not be reached for comment. A correct headline would be:

    Chinese Scientist Accused of Stealing Chip Research

    It's bad enough that both the summary and the headline contain such a glaring and defamatory error, but how come none of the more than one hundred previous posters noticed this? Sheesh.

  • After years of reading Pravda, you learn Commie-speak.

    My translation of this article is: this poor schmuck has fallen out of favor with the Central Committee. After being ordered to replicate western technologies, the Red Chinese now humiliate him as a token whipping boy to allay US/European concerns over intellectual properties.

    This poor guy is probably going to be shot and his family will be charged for the bullet. Chances are we'll probably never knows what his real crime was.

  • It ended differently in Australia's Sci.Fraud case (Score:3, Informative)

    by ivi ( 126837 ) on Sunday May 14, 2006 @09:02PM (#15331955)
    In Australia, the [Chinese, as it happened] researcher,
    who felt compelled to blow-the-whistle on her research-
    head (for apparently not performing several experiments
    reportes as if they'd been performed, etc) the whistle-
    blower suffered, but the "bad guy" still has his job at
    University of NWS & may still be involved in scientific
    reseach there...

    BACKGROUND:

    2002: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s53140 6.htm [abc.net.au]

    "Scientific & Financial Misconduct [re: Professon Bruce Hall at UNSW in Australia]

    The Science Show - Broadcast Saturday 13/4/2002

    Summary:

    This week on The Science Show, Norman Swan presents a major investigation into
    scientific and financial misconduct at the University of New South Wales.

    Transcript:

    Norman Swan: Hello, Norman Norman Swan here sitting in the chair on The Science
    Show this week instead of Robyn Williams, because today I have a special and
    disturbing feature for you.

    Hong Ha: I want my story to be heard by the public because what I have been through
    I don't want my children or any one else's children to go through. I want them to
    admit the faults that they have done: they exploited me for free labour. This
    problem has been going for too long. I want it to be stopped.

    Norman Swan: This is a story about powerful scientists with international
    reputations who've committed scientific misconduct so severe, it could be
    considered fraud; as well as mismanaging public funds where the institution,
    the university in which they work, has been slow to protect staff who've raised
    their concerns. In fact, at times the university seems to have actively favoured
    the strong over the weak. It's fifteen years since the exposure of Dr. William
    McBride's scientific fraud, what you're about to hear suggests that safeguards
    against scientific misconduct are still inadequate.

    [Reading from UNSW Homepage:]
    Why study at the University of New South Wales? The University of New South Wales
    is one of Australia's major research institutions, attracting top national
    competitive research grants and has extensive international research links.

    Norman Swan: The University of New South Wales is one of the largest universities
    in the country with a highly respected medical faculty. A few years ago, following
    Sydney's sprawl to the south west, the university set up a clinical school in that
    area centred on Liverpool Hospital.

    They even attracted Bruce Hall, a well-known Australian immunologist, back from
    Stanford University in California. Bruce Hall is a kidney specialist who researches
    how the immune system deals with transplanted organs. The university made him
    Foundation Professor of Medicine at Liverpool where he set up his own lab.

    With him came his wife, Dr Suzanne Hodgkinson, a neurologist who studies rats with
    brain inflammation similar to Multiple Sclerosis. Bruce Hall hired Dr Clara He,
    a medical graduate from Shanghai with an Australian PhD and post-doctoral
    experience in immunology.

    Clara He: Professor Hall was asking me if I was interested in his new senior
    position in Liverpool Hospital. I feel that could be new opportunity for me, so
    I can design my program. I respect him; I believe we can collaborate and
    make good program.

    Norman Swan: Dr He has her own research group at Liverpool and is also the
    laboratory manager. She's introduced molecular biology into the lab and
    her small team has cloned and produc

Slashdot Top Deals

Whenever people agree with me, I always think I must be wrong. - Oscar Wilde

Close