In spring last year, a thesis falsification case was reported, with former director of Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biological Chemistry and distinguished research fellow Chen Ching-shih (陳慶士) found falsifying data and committing research misconduct.
After an investigation that took more than a year, the Ministry of Science and Technology shared their findings, which, surprisingly, not only concealed Chen’s name, but also issued a light penalty, suspending his rights for only five years and retracting NT$600,000 (US$19,367) in grant money. Academia Sinica itself remains silent.
In connection to this breach of academic ethics, many issues immediately come to mind:
First, from being hired by Academia Sinica in 2014 to his resignation after the case was exposed last year, Chen served as a full-time distinguished researcher and director of the institute, with a monthly salary of probably several hundred thousand NT dollars. During this period, he was also a professor at Ohio State University.
Second, Chen was in charge of more than NT$40 million in ministry research grants for projects he led, but the amount of internal Academia Sinica funds that he was in charge of or in direct control of during his years of service there remain unknown.
Third, Chen is likely to have participated in many large domestic research programs and served as judge or reviewer for academic awards. Who might have benefited from his judgement and who might have encountered their downfall because of it?
Academia Sinica and the ministry have an undeniable responsibility to publish a detailed report addressing these issues.
The case brings to mind a forgery scandal from November 2016, when medical research papers published by National Taiwan University (NTU) professor Kuo Min-liang’s (郭明良) research team were reported to contain forged research using duplicated images. Although many people were dissatisfied with how the case was handled, NTU made a good effort by holding several news conferences and issuing statements during the investigation to explain its progress.
Within a few months, NTU released an investigation report of more than 100 pages that showed the results in detail. The investigation process was bumpy and jerky, but it was a great step forward in how academic ethics issues are handled in Taiwan. Unfortunately, those lessons have faded from the public’s mind.
However, the past should not be forgotten, but should be a lesson and guide. The purpose of scientific research is to search for the truth and to resolve the profound mystery of how matters interact and function in the realms of nature and the universe. The spirit of science is to seek the truth.
Hopefully Academia Sinica — Taiwan’s most prestigious academic research institution — will soon release a professional and comprehensive report of the investigation into Chen’s case.
Lin Juhn-jong is a professor at National Chiao Tung University’s Institute of Physics and Department of Electrophysics.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS