And you can apparently do it again:
A South Korean biotechnology professor agreed to retract two papers on anti-aging technology published in international science journals after the institute discovered he fabricated data, officials said Friday.
Kim Tae-kook, a professor at the state-run Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, acknowledged that he forged data on a paper on anti-aging technology that was published by the journal Science in 2005 and a follow-up report published by Nature Chemical Biology in 2006, said Seo Yeon-soo, a member of the KAIST investigation team.
Said AP:
The news is the latest blow to South Korean academics after the country’s most prominent scientist, Hwang Woo-suk, was found in 2005 to have used faked evidence in purported stem cell breakthroughs that had been internationally hailed. One of Hwang’s papers also had been published in the journal Science.
(HT to reader)
21 Comments
I think I saw this on the 9 o’clock news a couple of days ago. Well better late than never.
Anyway, expect more of the above from the Korean scientific community. The culture here breeds this sort of stuff and it doesn’t look like there is any sign that it will change.
That’s nothing. My wife’s professors would have her and her classmates design an experiment, do the research, write the papers, and then they’d put their own names on it without giving any credit to the students.
#2, Amen! I have heard of that exact thing happening over and over again!
Don’t go into Biology. It is den of liars.
Similar to politics.
Study physics, mathematics, chemistry, electronics, computers.
Biologists are not good scientists.
They cannot handle calculus. They is why they cannot do any real science. They are bad with mathematics.
Gott in himmel, do you never tire of making blanket statements, or do you have a machine that generates them strapped to your arse?
As a favor, I once edited a lengthy research paper (in English) for a Korean friend of mine who was a SKY (one of them) PhD student and finance guy, and who had his sights set on eventually becoming a SKY professor. The department was Business Admin. The paper was also set to be submitted to an int’l conference on its area in hopes the author would get to present and speak it to global academics.
After it was finished, I met him for beers and congratulated him on an impressive paper and the prospects it would have for his career. He gave a pained/wry smile and told me that the paper was going to be published under his PhD advisor’s name (who was head of the Business dept at the time, at said SKY university) and that THAT professor would be submitting and going to present it if accepted to the conference.
The explanation was just “well, I have to” and that that high-ranking professor, in return for the boost the paper gave to his career, would make sure my friend eventually got his foot in the door to a professorship at a good university.
The whole thing went down that way. The paper was published in an academic journal under the name of a man who was not it’s author, and presented by him at a conference too. I was even asked to coach the senior prof on the English presentation, but declined. A few years later, a few months ago, my friend got his appointment to one of the top 5 universities, and I have no doubt his PhD advisor’s network was a big part of that.
That’s one of the top 3 uni’s in Korea, and that’s the department head. And that’s one tentacle of the academic cancer in this country.
Hwang “redeemed… sort of”:
http://www.time.com/time/healt.....63,00.html
The Academic Hub of Asia.
There’s also the science books that have a Korean author’s name on it whose content resemble that of books I used when I was at university.
#5
You,sir, are an ass. To say that: “Biologists are not good scientists” only proves (not scientifically) the idiocy of your statement.
#5
I’m sure your math skills rock! Your English skills suck!
“They is why they cannot do any real science. “
# 12
LOL, I was going to write something similar in
response to “They is why they cannot do any real science”.
Oh proper English, you temptress you.
All of your Base are now belong to us.
#11,
Don’t take anything Baduk says too seriously. His statements don’t really reflect his opinion. His shtick is making overly cynical comments, even preposterous ones, to see if they turn out to be true. The scary thing is that once in a while, he actually hits the nail on the head. For example, you can quote him as being the first to accuse Hwang Woo Suk of being a fraud (which he did several months before he was revealed to be one).
It’s residual Confucian feudalism, really… Profs honestly feel that when a student produces something good under his supervision, from his teaching and by his guidance, then it’s really his product, too — as the top-dog in that “faction” to which the student is loyal member and thru which the student hopes to advance, he deserves to get the credit, can legitimately take the credit.
Letting the younger not-yet-paid-dues student collect honors while supposedly-famous Prof just sits there would upend the social hierarchy and disrupt functioning of the faction… We couldn’t have that! They don’t know any other way to think. But the new generation will be different, watch…
#16,
No, it’s not that they feel it’s their due, far from it. Deep down inside, they know what they are doing is unethical. They simply do it because they know will get away with it.
Well someguy, i’m not sure if either one of us is a qualified as mind-reader of Korean professors. My own experience of hanging around and believe the beast has led me to believe that what i said in 16 is how it has been, and what you said in 17 is how it is now becoming…
So many Korean professors getting their advanced degrees in Western nations these days is bound to be making a tremendous difference in these attitudes, as they are exposed to more global sorts of standards — and that trend can be expected to continue as embarrassments of plagiarism scandals keep on coming, and keep on being punished.
We should all keep in mind that the practice of superiors taking credit for the ideas and labors of their subordinates is infamous and even sometimes standard-practice in the Western worlds of business and politics. When those Americans running for President are at the podium proclaiming their policy platforms, do they include the names of their staffers who actually had the idea and wrote all the details up? Yes, what we’re talking about here is a big step worse, but it’s just a matter of degree not an entirely different system of social morality…
ooops, that third line is supposed to be “of hanging around the belly of the beast has led me”… Damn voice-recognition software…
Sanshinseon,
It is fairly common practice in academia, particularly the sciences, in both North America and Japan, for senior professors to put their names on articles even when most or even all the work was done by their subordinates… however, the subordinates’ names are also listed as co-authors, although the senior prof (usually) gets top billing. Thus you find many scientific papers with multiple authors. Everybody knows this is done, and it is accepted as more or less legitimate. One factor that contributes to perpetuating this process is the funding-grant apllication and award procedures… the senior prof is listed as ‘principal investigator’ for grant purposes, even though, once again, he (or she) will often not actually do the work that’s being funded, but is somehow responsible to see that it gets done. What is completely illegitimate, however, is not to list the subordinates as co-authors of studies. We should all have contempt for anyone who does that, and expose them to the public disgrace they deserve.
I’m a complete agreement with you, Bad Monkey tho you may be. I was just explaining and giving perspective, not trying to say that i think it was or is OK.
What was once perfectly acceptable in the Korean academic system (to Koreans themselves) is no longer legitimate, as shown by the number of recent scandals about such cases or anything that could possibly be called plagiarism. Standards are tightening up, and that’s good. Any professor who plagiarizes (including their name on a student’s paper) had better know that they are likely to get busted for it, and little mercy will be shown by their institution or the Journals (maybe not even if they are a relative of the university president or a high government official, anymore!). Good.
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