Tesla CEO Elon Musk has once again sparked heated discussions in the technology community. He said in an interview that 99.9 percent of papers in academia are useless and have no practical application value, and he believes that truly advanced technology should be kept secret and not hyped up.
This sentence pierces the heart. Musk believes that too many articles will only consume research resources, distract scientists, and prevent them from making real breakthroughs. He emphasized that innovative technologies with real practical application value are often developed in a confidential environment by teams within the company and the laboratory.
The remarks drew collective outrage among Chinese experts. In fact, our country has always ranked first in the world in SCI papers published in international journals, but the level of basic science and technology often lags behind some countries.
The number of papers produced by university teachers is too much for the editors to read
The most prolific essay is the faculty of colleges and universities. They are scholars when they say it well, and they are porters of garbage papers when they say it badly. They don't write their dissertations for any lofty scientific ideals, but for the purpose of going from "non-promotional" to becoming associate professors. Once I became an associate professor, the pace began to slow down. If you have a little pursuit, you will write a thesis for a full professor.
In addition to attractive job titles, it is also very attractive to get research funding. Otherwise, they won't find a great motivation to write a thesis. As long as the school does not assess, it does not write. School assessment, then write. Apply for a project, and if you have funds to cash out into your pocket, then write. There is no funding for the project, and if you can, you won't write it.
Teaching assistant to lecturer, thesis required. Lecturer to associate professor, thesis required. From associate professor to full professor, a thesis is required. To apply for a project, you need to have a published paper. At the end of the project, a thesis is also required.
If a school has 2,000 teachers, each person has 3 papers per year, which is 6,000 papers. In 100 schools in China, editors need to read 600,000 papers every year. There are 200 universities in China, and the number of papers read is 1.2 million. If you encounter some papers that are more violent, they are basically quite fierce, and you need to read at least 3 million articles.
3 million articles, how many editors do you need? Even if a person reads one article a day, it needs 100,000 editors. Do we have 100,000 editors?
Even if all the teachers have written papers, are you sure that these are not rubbish? How many of them have communication value? How many of them have contributed to the academic world? How many of them have made epoch-making progress for human development? How many studies have been transformed into commodities?
How many of them are written in universities?
Are the scientific and technological innovations of Huawei and Tencent written by experts from universities? Or are they researched in the laboratory?
Huawei's chip technology was discovered in a paper by a professor at which university? Isn't it the result of their own tireless struggle in the laboratory?
What about medicine? How much medicine can be done behind closed doors without going through clinical practice? Is it imaginary?
So many experts in China are just ornaments.
The publication of research with great fanfare is like a routine in Douyin that teaches you to make money every day
The academic conferences held by China's academic circles are all published content. Even the so-called pre-publication academic content held around the world is yet to be studied. If this thing will generate huge commercial benefits, and this is publicized in advance, wouldn't it be easy to be preempted?
This is like a truth in Douyin and Toutiao that teaches you how to increase the number of views and readings. If you look at the articles they write themselves, they don't read as much as you, so they dare to openly teach people how to make money. Those who are really making money are afraid that you will take away its traffic, and who will tell you the secret of really making money?
Have you seen Yu Minhong tell you how they managed to have tens of millions of followers? Have you seen Li Jiaqi tell you how he amassed wealth?