The case suddenly drew attention from western media on scientific misconduct in China. Numerous western media including WSJ and NYT as well as geek websites such as Digg and slashdot reported how Professor Chen Jin of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) was found guilty of academic misconduct. However, they all missed the point that this was not an academic misconduct case.
First, there's nothing academic here in the project. The project was to design and produce an ancient time digital signal processing time with no scientific value at all. It's rather easy to make such a design, but rather difficult to manufacture one. So far, none was manufactured.
Secondly, thousands of people, many top companies and top government experts in the field were directly involved in the project. There is simply no way Dr. Chen can fabricate everything by himself.
The Seagull does not want to draw any conclusion at this point, and actually, any logical reasoning from this point is scary. In the least, it is Shanghai Jiao Tong University, instead of any individual, should be held accountable for this.
Earlier entries: orginal coverage, Update 1, 2, 3
New York Times, Business Week, Christian Science Monitor, Guardian, Washington Post, North Korea Times, Wall Street Journal, Taipei Times, Slashdot, Daily Inida, Seattle Post Intelligencer
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