Professor Wang Zhizhen is an expert in protein folding and served as Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese Political Consultative Conference from 2008 to 2013. This image is provided by Professor Wang Zhizhen.
Wang Zhizhen is a biochemist and molecular biologist, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a former vice chairman of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (2008-2013). Since the 1990s, Wang Zhizhen has been engaged in protein folding research, creating a new direction for the study of folding enzymes and molecular chaperones in China.
In this interview, Wang Zhizhen combined his scientific research and CPPCC work experience to elaborate on the social responsibilities of scientists. Wang Zhizhen believes that China is in great need of intellectuals with insight, vision, ability, responsibility and mission. The essence of independent thinking is to seek truth from facts, only to be realistic, and to rely only on the interests of the country and the people. When faced with major public issues, Chinese scientists are able to adhere to independent scientific judgment and make effective suggestions based on their own professional knowledge. She also hoped that women science and technology workers would receive more attention from society, and called for strengthening exchanges and dialogues between scientists and the public.
Written by | Gu Chao (Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Science, Technology and Medical History, Peking University)
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<h1>Hard work is a habit</h1>
Gu Chao: What is the driving force behind you to take scientific research as a lifelong struggle, soaking in the laboratory every day, day after day, leaving early and returning late?
Wang Zhizhen: Many interviewers will ask me similar questions, and I don't want to say it so tall. Our generation has received education in New China since the beginning of its understanding, and it is the first batch of red scarves, and patriotism and listening to the party's words have melted into the blood of our generation. On the other hand, learning is also a habit that I have developed since I was a child. After the "Cultural Revolution", production was promoted, and experiments could be done, and everyone did not dare to waste a minute. At that time, our laboratory only had a turn to do experiments with a fluorescence spectrophotometer for a week or two, and if we missed this time, the data would have to be delayed for a week or two. Once in the face of heavy wind and rain, I rode for an hour and a half to the laboratory, my whole body was soaked, I had to seize this opportunity to do experiments according to the time I registered, it was as simple as that, it was my own habits and interests. The habits of learning and doing things seriously from an early age are related to the education of our time, that is, "strict requirements for ourselves." Politically demanding progress, business, life strict demands on themselves, I think this is naturally the case.
Gu Chao: During the Cultural Revolution, you also continued your scientific research work?
Wang Zhizhen: At that time, there was no work to do, either to hold meetings or read the newspaper to "study", so I could not go on, so I went to the secretary of the party branch Li every day and asked him to arrange a job for me, no matter what I did, as long as there was work to do. Thank you to the leader for putting me in the insulin structure research room.
Gu Chao: You once said that you came out of insulin, what impact did your work in the insulin structure research laboratory have on your later research?
Wang Zhizhen: At that time, I went to work in the insulin biochemical team, mainly through chemical modification to prepare various insulin derivatives, study their physical, chemical and biological properties in solution, and analyze the structure and function relationship of insulin molecules. This was the beginning of my real scientific research after graduating from university, which prepared me for my visiting research at the Wool Institute in West Germany on a Humboldt Scholarship, and laid the foundation for my future protein folding research. My independent protein folding research began in the early 1990s at the State Key Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, late, but I was already lucky for my generation.
Gu Chao: You have said that compared with the Nobel Prize achievements of Anfinsen in the United States in the same period of "interest and free exploration", China's insulin research is task-oriented, has achieved important results, and has also reached the window of major breakthroughs in similar scientific issues, but it is missing from pushing this window. Is this a universal phenomenon in scientific research? (In 1972, Christian Anfinsen, along with Stanford Moore and William Howard Stein, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their study of the structure and function of RNAases.) ）
Wang Zhizhen: I can't say that this is a rule. The work of Mr. Tu Youyou and others is also task-oriented, starting from the investigation of traditional Chinese medicine, and finally making a new drug in the true sense of effective treatment of malaria. Artemisinin is not a traditional Chinese medicine, it is a modern chemical medicine. But generally speaking, the foundation of major scientific breakthroughs is free exploration, so this question should be asked in reverse, why is free exploration easy to produce innovative results?
Basic research is essentially small science, done by small teams of several people or even one person. But modern development has developed big science, such as the Manhattan Project, the Apollo Project, and the Human Genome Project, which are more typical big science projects. Now Europe's large hadron collider LHC and thermonuclear fusion reactor ITER are also big sciences, bringing together many of the world's best scientists. However, big science is also based on the scientific research work of individual scientists, and after the development to a certain extent, it is coordinated, integrated, upgraded and breakthrough by the state or international organization. We in China are in a better position to give play to the superiority of the socialist national system.
Gu Chao: Although your independent research on protein folding started very late, it made progress very quickly, what are the main innovations?
Wang Zhizhen: My work comes from the protein folding problem in insulin synthesis. Zou Chenglu's team completed the pilot work of insulin A and B chain disassembly, solved the problem of synthetic route, and ensured that the chemically synthesized A and B chains were reconstituted with high yield to recombine active insulin molecules. There was a protein folding problem that had not been raised at the time in the field of biochemistry.
It was not until after the reform and opening up that Mr. Zou was able to start exploring the basic research of successful insulin disassembly at the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. I had the honor to participate in the study of protein disulfide isomerase catalyzing A and B chains to produce natural insulin, and on this basis, together with Mr. Zou, I proposed the hypothesis that "protein disulfide isomerase is both an enzyme and a molecular companion", which is contrary to authoritative views. The paper we offered on protein disulfide bond isomerases with intrinsic chaperone activity independent of their isomerase activity was quickly cited, and was named one of the ten most cited papers in the Chinese mainland for two consecutive years in 1997 and 1998.
Further, we successfully distinguished the two activities of the enzyme isomerase and the chaperone, and obtained the conclusion that "the folding enzyme activity of the protein disulfide bond isomerase is composed of the two activities of the isomerase and the chaperone, and only the synergistic effect of the two activities makes it play the role of the folding enzyme, helping the peptide chain folding and catalyzing disulfide bond formation", the hypothesis has been accepted by international peers. Now the biological function and regulation of protein disulfide bond isomerases as folding enzymes is being elucidated in a growing number of physiological and pathological activities.
<h1>Advice</h1>
Gu Chao: When you were the vice chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, you were busy with official duties, and you often rushed back to the laboratory as soon as you got off the plane. In the history of New China, there are actually many scientists who hold important leadership positions, some have changed to full-time politics, some have become scientific and technological managers, some have become strategic scientists, and you still adhere to the professional research of protein folding, how do you consider?
Wang Zhizhen: I never thought that I would be allowed to serve as vice chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, extremely suddenly, without any ideological preparation, but the party and the state handed over this burden to me, and I must complete this task well. Although I don't want to be an "official," I don't want to get rich, and I don't have any motives for personal gain, I am bound to have unfamiliar and inexperienced deficiencies. Therefore, I use the serious, rigorous, and diligent attitude of doing scientific research to do every new work, step up the study of documents and relevant policies, ask the people around me for advice, I believe that I can learn and improve in doing it, and complete the tasks of political consultation, participation in the administration and discussion of state affairs, and democratic supervision.
Since I am not working full-time in politics, I can still stick to a little scientific research. I began to focus on nurturing young people and pushing them to the front line. The staff in my group have basically not been trained abroad for a long time, and now some of them are researchers, so they can work hard under domestic conditions.
Gu Chao: In what areas did you make suggestions and suggestions when you were in office?
Wang Zhizhen: When I was a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, my suggestions and suggestions were mainly in the scientific research system and the training of students. At one point I remember being particularly clear, I commented that the relationship between some tutors and students was like the relationship between shepherds and flocks. In some labs, dozens of students are hung under a mentor. Mentor Z asked a student, whose student are you? The student replied that I was a student of Mentor Z. It can be seen that the tutor does not know the student, and the student does not know the tutor. After I told this story everyone laughed. I think this is the pursuit of fame and profit, and it is irresponsible for scientific research and students. Unfortunately, there are some similar situations in academia until now. There are articles on the Internet about certain scientists who are very big, have great reputations, and have many connections, but the articles are not written by themselves, and the experiments are not done by themselves. Many people say that we are very tired of writing two or three articles a year, and each article has to be changed more than a dozen times, but some people can produce dozens of articles a year, and I believe that obviously he did not write it himself. These people have both fame and fortune. In recent years, there have been several major retractions in international journals.
Now that there are companies that specialize in producing papers and forming a thesis production chain, we must crack down this kind of industry that violates the law and harms people! Some disciplines, such as medicine, have many phenomena and may be related to the evaluation system. Many doctors in China have to see dozens or even hundreds of patients every day, and it is difficult to have time to do experiments and write papers on their own, but he can be a clinician with rich experience. I said to Rao Yi, now that you are the president of Capital Medical University, can you consider dividing the evaluation into two lines: one partial medical research and one partial clinical medicine; you can be a professor of medical research, or you can be a famous doctor with superb medical skills, and they can have considerable treatment. Of course, the most brilliant are the medical scientists, both.
Gu Chao: After you retired from your CPPCC post, do you still have suggestions and suggestions like this?
Wang Zhizhen: After retiring from the CPPCC post, I took on a formal social work position, the president of the China Association of Women Science and Technology Workers, and stepped down at the end of 2019. The work of our association of women scientific and technological workers is to establish and enhance the self-confidence of female scientific and technological workers and female students, encourage them to make outstanding achievements; organize female scientific and technological workers to go down to the grass-roots level to cooperate with poverty alleviation and send science and technology; go deep into schools to do science popularization and exchanges, expand their social horizons, and enhance their sense of social responsibility. To this end, we have also established the "Women in Technology Workers Service Award" to recognize and encourage more contributions to social development. At the same time, through this platform to help them solve some problems.
One of the works that is particularly meaningful and well agreed upon is that, taking into account women's fertility and breastfeeding time, it is recommended that the number of years for female scientific and technological workers to receive funding or rewards (such as Jieqing) be postponed by two to three years on the basis of not lowering the level. We also organize some popular events for women science and technology workers, such as the "Science and Art" concert held on Women's Day every year in cooperation with the Central Conservatory of Music, and the "Happy Run and Fast Walk" event.
The proportion of female Nobel laureates is very low, less than 5 per cent, and even less in the fields of physics, chemistry and economics. The proportion of women at the top of China's technology sector is about 5-10%. I hope that women science and technology workers, who account for 40% of all science and technology human resources, will receive more attention from society.
Gu Chao: Why are very few female scientists university presidents and very few are in leadership positions in the scientific and technological community? Are women scientists discriminated against in China?
Wang Zhizhen: Equality between men and women is the basic national policy of new China, and the growth of my generation can be said to be the beneficiary of this policy, at least I personally or the female science and technology workers around me believe that they have not been discriminated against by sex. However, the development of society in recent years has made this problem stand out.
I participated in a symposium held by the All-China Women's Federation a few years ago to discuss the development of "high-level" women you mentioned, and I also participated in the Chinese Academy of Sciences' research on the issue of female scientific and technological workers. In the undergraduate, graduate and even doctoral stages, the ratio of men and women is basically 1:1, some majors (such as life sciences, languages, etc.) and even slightly more women, but the more they develop, the fewer and fewer women, to the so-called high-level, the proportion of female professors up to 10-15%, university presidents, society presidents, chief experts of large projects, senior leaders in the scientific and technological community The proportion of women academicians is reduced to less than 10%, and female academicians are about 5%. Unfortunately, this proportion shows no clear signs of changing today.
Social prejudices and unhealthy social climates affect the tech community. In society, especially for young women, there are problems that we did not have before, such as "it is better to do well than to marry well", "I would rather cry on a BMW than laugh on the bicycle", envy and admiration for singers and stars who can become famous overnight. There is a problem with women's values, which are actually demeaning and looking down on themselves. In this regard, social publicity and education have a certain responsibility. I call on the media to shift their attention more to science and technology, to scientists, especially young scientists and female scientists, and to promote comprehensive innovation with scientific and technological innovation as the core is the hope of our country.
Why only ask women the so-called "balance of family and career" question, but never to men? This is obviously a social prejudice, I completely agree with Yan Ning's point of view, in fact, men should answer this question. Some very smart female students may choose the requirements of low-standard careers in the face of marriage, family, and children's problems, which is a pity. Fortunately, there are still many girls who stick to their ideals, overcome difficulties, and bravely move forward.
Gu Chao: How should this situation change?
Wang Zhizhen: President Xi Jinping said that it is necessary to more actively implement the basic national policy of gender equality, give play to the role of women's 'half the sky', and support women to make meritorious contributions and realize their ideals and dreams in life. We now have many outstanding young women scientists, and recently I attended the "Science Exploration Prize" ceremony, and the number of female winners has increased by one more than last year, from 10% to 12%, although it is only 2%, which shows that more attention is paid to the growth of female scientists, and more efforts are being made to improve. This year's Nobel Prize women scientists also sparked cheers from the scientific and technological community.
In addition to the slight delay in the age of some fund applications and awards for women scientists, it is called for a definite proportion of women in the education sector of science and technology in the future, and it is entirely necessary for women to have the ability to participate in senior management. I think the most important thing is to criticize and abandon the backward social atmosphere, make efforts in education and publicity, enable girls to establish correct values from an early age, value themselves, cultivate the spirit of self-improvement, self-confidence, and self-reliance; guide the whole society, especially men, to respect the "half of the sky" women, coordinate in work, and cooperate in life. At the same time, we will improve social functions, such as running kindergartens, primary schools, and middle schools, and truly support and guarantee the work of female scientists.
<h1>Social responsibility of scientists</h1>
Gu Chao: Do you think that chinese scientists can achieve the scientific normative standards of universality, commonality, selflessness and methodical skepticism proposed by Merton?
Wang Zhizhen: Chinese scientists cannot be separated from society, they are not in a closed ivory tower, so various trends of thought and behavior in society will definitely affect the group of scientists. Now some scientists are also starting or participating in the establishment of enterprises, and it is worth encouraging to transform the results, but if you mislead the public in order to sell your own company's products, it is self-interest. As a whole, China's scientific and technological personnel lack standardized scientific spirit and scientific ethics education. I was a member of the Ethics Committee of the China Association for Science and Technology and was concerned about this issue. The Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Engineering, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, and the Foundation Commission have successively issued a series of policies and regulations in recent years, which are very good; but greater efforts are needed to be implemented in place.
As far as I know, graduate students from Peking University, Tsinghua University, National University of Science and Technology and other schools now have scientific ethics courses. Moral education should be something that must be included in the ideological and political science class. The basic moral education in primary and secondary schools is done well, which will lay the foundation for the future behavior of life. In fact, if each of us cultivates the habit of honesty and law-abiding from an early age, generally speaking, we will not commit moral problems in the field of science and technology, and there will not be so many corruption problems. Of course, there are specific rules in the scientific and technological community that need to be learned, understood and observed, but the key, basic, and essential is the quality of people.
Methodical skepticism is the basis for doing research. I once visited the Comrade Chen Yun Memorial Hall, which has a painting he wrote: "Not only on the book, only the truth, the exchange is more repetitive", I especially liked it, the memorial gave me this banner, I hung it on the wall of the office. The first half of the sentence makes the most touching exposition of the spiritual temperament of science, and the second half of the sentence gives specific grounded guidance to the methodology of science.
Gu Chao: What social responsibilities do you think scientists should assume in addition to doing their own research and adhering to academic ethics?
Wang Zhizhen: Some scientists say that we are using the hard-earned money of the working people to "play" science, yes, we are using the money of Chinese taxpayers to do research, and our responsibility and obligation are of course to give back our scientific research results to the society and the people. Even if we do basic research, we must consider topics of great scientific significance, or that serve national security, or face the main battlefield of the national economy, or serve the health of the people.
Scientists must have a sense of social responsibility and a sense of mission. The sense of social responsibility is to think that their own work should be responsible for the country and the people, and do something other than their own work to the society to the best of their ability, such as science popularization and so on. The sense of mission may be a little higher, such as taking the initiative to give up the existing superior conditions and do something that you think should be more difficult for the country and the nation. Not being satisfied with the status quo, not willing to lie in the existing comfort nest, but to do the bigger things that the country needs more, even to throw away everything that exists, and to do it from scratch, this is a higher realm. How much China needs such insightful, visionary, capable, responsible and mission-minded intellectuals! Historically, many major developments in science and technology, economy, society, and humanities, both at home and abroad, have indeed been driven by big intellectuals.
When I was the president of the Chinese Protein Society, I asked that after each academic conference, participants must be organized to go to local universities and middle schools to do science popularization. Our association of women science and technology workers also enters the campus and the grass-roots level every year to do training. The speakers are all big-name scientists.
Gu Chao: We hope that scholars in the humanities and social sciences will have independent ideas, especially some ideas that lead to human progress. But for scientists, the knowledge of their professional field is not understood by ordinary people, even small colleagues may not be able to understand, so what is the impact of scientists' independent thinking on society?
Wang Zhizhen: The essence of independent thinking in different fields and at different levels is to seek truth from facts, not only the superior, not only the book, not only the mainstream, not afraid of authority, not pursuing fame and profit, only being realistic, only scientific, and only the interests of the country and the people. At a large macro level, the opinions of strategic scientists are particularly important for leading decision-making. For example, in some major projects involving national security, economic development, and the fundamental interests of the people, scientists should seek truth from facts, adhere to science, and not get caught in the slightest bit of selfishness; on the other hand, leaders should encourage a hundred schools of thought to compete, fully exchange views with scientific and technological personnel, and comprehensively consider all kinds of different opinions, especially the opinions of a small number of people, in order to make correct decisions. Mr. Huang Wanli's insistence on independent thinking in the construction of China's water conservancy projects is a model for Chinese intellectuals.
Gu Chao: Do you think Chinese scientists can adhere to independent scientific judgment when facing major public or important social issues?
Wang Zhizhen: The scientists of our previous generation were highly sensitive to major public issues or important social issues, had a strong sense of responsibility, and were able to adhere to independent scientific judgment.
I remember, for example, the "water to oil" scam, which has been fermenting for more than ten years since the 1980s, was actually signed by 10 professors of a university and signed an appraisal of its "invention" and affirmed by some leaders, and many enterprises invested. In 1995, He Zuoxiu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a signed article in China Science Daily, questioning the authenticity of "water turning oil". Later, "China Science Daily" published He Zuoxiu, Zhao Zhongxian, Zou Chenglu, Wu Wenjun, and 41 members of the CPPCC National Committee in the scientific and technological circles jointly calling for "investigating the investment situation of "water turning oil" and the consequences of sabotage to economic construction." Scientists such as He Zuoxiu also issued a challenge to the public, and the result, of course, was that the inventors of "water turned oil" did not dare to face the battle and slipped away.
In the early days of reform and opening up, he trumpeted the "scientific breakthrough" of a "molecular biologist" and invented "Traditional Chinese medicine with miraculous efficacy for cancer and coronary heart disease". At the appraisal meeting attended by more than 50 experts, Mr. Zou Chenglu pointedly pointed out that there were errors in the enzymatic experiments of this molecular biologist that were all taught in college chemistry classes, and for this reason Mr. Zou was named by the newspaper as "an 'authority' who has not done enough, has more than enough failures, does not know how to pretend to understand, and pretends to be an expert.", and even the newspapers demanded that "relevant departments and judicial departments" give such "people who sabotage scientific research undertakings" "due party discipline and state law sanctions."
Commercial hype under the banner of high technology is one after another, "nucleic acid nutrition" incident, "gene queen" event, "holographic embryo theory". In particular, the bragging incident that publicly threatened that "206 tissues and organs of human beings will be cloned in 5 years" was openly questioned by Academician Li Ao and Mr. Zou Chenglu, so Mr. Zou obtained an "informed notice" threatening "economic and legal disputes", of course, the threater later hid underground. As for the well-known "Hanxin No. 1", it is even more defrauding the state of huge funds, deceiving experts and leaders, and playing a game of core replacement.
Not long ago met Mr. Zhao Zhongxian, but also talked about the Qiu's rat poison incident that year, five experts issued a document "calling on the news media to scientifically publicize the extermination of rats, Qiu's rat poison contains the state banned the use of highly toxic drugs fluoroacetamide, causing ecological imbalance and the harm of secondary poisoning of human and animals, should be banned from sale." As a result, he was sued by Qiu Shi in court, and was judged to lose the lawsuit in the first instance and compensate for the loss of reputation. This incident caused the anger of academicians, Wang Xuan, Wang Daheng and other 14 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences called for in the "China Science News" to propose the establishment of a scientific and technological jury system to maintain the dignity of science. Finally, the Beijing Intermediate People's Court finally dismissed the first-instance judgment of the Haidian District People's Court of Beijing Municipality; rejected Qiu's litigation claim. The 31-month-long case has finally settled and become a landmark event in which science will triumph over ignorance.
I think these examples are examples of Chinese scientists being able to stand up and expose pseudoscience, safeguard the dignity of science, and adhere to independent scientific judgment when faced with major public or important social problems.
Two recent events show that The community of young Chinese scientists is also able to adhere to independent scientific judgment and speak out. One is that after a scientist published an article on a new gene editing method in a top journal, a group of scientists reacted relatively quickly, found that his experiment could not be repeated in many laboratories, and immediately came out to speak out and ask for timely investigation. The response of the scientific community to this matter was swift, positive and positive. Of course, this scientist is still relatively young and cannot be beaten to death with a stick; but it is necessary to explain this matter clearly, fully reflect on it, learn a lesson, and work seriously from now on. What is important is that leaders should sum up experience and learn lessons from the essence, and should not exaggerate wrongdoing.
Another thing is the scandal of gene editing babies, the response of Chinese scientists is also very rapid, positive, positive, positive, Bi Guoqiang and other 122 scientists in the field of biomedical science issued a joint statement, resolutely opposing and strongly condemning this crazy violation of scientific ethics, and establishing the courage and righteousness of Chinese scientists in the international community in safeguarding scientific ethics and morality and fighting against perverse behavior.
Gu Chao: Do you think scientists can make effective suggestions and influence decision-making based on their expertise when faced with major social problems?
Wang Zhizhen: Most CPPCC members have prepared proposals very seriously and made many suggestions, some of which are very good. Our Jiusan Society has put forward good suggestions such as protecting the source of the Three Rivers and has been adopted by the state, which has played a very crucial role. I heard that after many years of parking fireworks, some people talked about "tradition", saying that fireworks are traditional culture, and resumed the Spring Festival fireworks. In 2013, I wrote an article entitled "Calling for No Fireworks During the Spring Festival to Reduce PM2.5" and published it in China Science Daily. I wrote to the mayor again, hoping that Beijing would not set off fireworks during the Spring Festival. The mayor attached great importance to it and sent comrades from the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau to communicate with me. The Public Security Bureau has indeed done a lot of things, such as arranging a lot of doctors, arranging a lot of fire trucks and other preventive measures. In order to reduce smog and damage, many cities have indeed slowly lost their time.
There are many opinions on education, especially basic education. In order for primary and secondary school students to enter the school well, the whole family has to pay a huge price. Classes are not taught, but only after-school classes that charge money. To go to 985, you have to take this kind of class that teaches so-called difficult problems, strange problems, and deep problems. Academician Yang Le said that the Olympic number is useless, and the innovative mathematician is not cultivated by the Olympic number, but parents still force their children to read it.
Gu Chao: In addition to the institutionalized channel of the CPPCC, what other ways do scientists have to make suggestions?
Wang Zhizhen: The Academy of Sciences has an academician consultation project, which is a good way. Each faculty will organize, and there are several topics a year, which are important matters of national urgency. In addition, the National Natural Science Foundation of China also has some research projects.
<h1>Science Communication</h1>
Gu Chao: In major public events, in the face of rumors related to science, the voice of the scientific community seems to be very small and weak.
Wang Zhizhen: The two things above show that the scientific community has spoken rapidly and positively. In the face of some science-related rumors, various societies and academic societies should indeed speak out faster and more, break rumors, and publicize science. The masses believe in scientists more and expect the community of scientists to reassure them and provide guidance.
The problem is that even within the scientific community, the debate between different points of view is too scarce. This phenomenon is mainly related to the culture of our Chinese, the culture of human feelings is deeply rooted, afraid of hurt and angry, dare not adhere to the principle, which is contrary to the basic spirit of science, unfortunately in scientific research activities everywhere, the improvement is slow.
Gu Chao: You told the story of "a little-known science story in synthetic insulin" at the 2019 "I Am a Scientist" annual ceremony, and the general public who do not understand protein also feel interesting and educated, which is a very good example of science popularization for the public. But few scientists are willing to do science communication these days?
Wang Zhizhen: Now more and more scientists are willing to do science popularization, and the China Association for Science and Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences attach special importance to science popularization. In recent years, various forms of popular science works have sprung up, and the rewards for outstanding popular science works and popular science people have become more and more influential in society, such as the "Mr. Sai" Science and Medicine Public Communication Award initiated and funded by the people. Since science popularization itself is also a profession, especially the emergence of new media technology now, we scientists should learn how to do it, how to do it well, and work together with professional science popularization workers to contribute to the great rejuvenation of our nation and the improvement of national quality.
One of the reasons I tell the story behind insulin synthesis is that from a scientific point of view, the protein folding problem in insulin synthesis is a particularly innovative part, which may be little known and I am willing to share it with the public. My own research work also began with the problem of protein folding in insulin synthesis, so I often say that I came from insulin.
Gu Chao: How do you think scientists should prevent the occurrence and spread of "information epidemics"?
Wang Zhizhen: First of all, you can use your own brain, you can't follow the crowd, you must use your own scientific knowledge to analyze information, even if it is not the information within the scope of your own knowledge, use the most basic scientific knowledge and the most basic scientific principles to analyze, you can also get a general judgment without falling into a trap. For example, "water turns to oil", "lemon is an alkaline food", any medicine that can "cure all diseases", simple judgment can be.
Gu Chao: Science communication is twofold: scientists are on one side and the public on the other. Ideally, scientists should not only talk about scientific knowledge, but also interact with the public and have public participation, which we don't seem to see much now.
Wang Zhizhen: Right. I think Dr. Zhang Wenhong has done a particularly good job. He speaks scientifically, and is very realistic, grounded, and humorous and vivid, especially in the period when the "information epidemic" you just said is raging, the people love to listen to his words, can understand his words, believe his words, look forward to his voice, he can get the trust of most people. I think it is because he has the sense of responsibility of a Communist Party member, the benevolence of an angel dressed in white, and the selfless heart of a grand duke, so he is fearless.
Gu Chao: Now that there are criticisms of scientists on the Internet from time to time, how do you evaluate this phenomenon?
Wang Zhizhen: Let's return to this question: what kind of social responsibility should scientists bear, and how to bear it? Science communication should have been the social responsibility of scientists, and the simplest thing is to teach science to the public and students. But if we want to expose, criticize, and correct a problem, we must uphold justice and dare to fight against mistakes, and we must take risks, which may not be able to be done by most people. The performance of Chinese scientists in this fight against the new crown virus is very prominent, the response is rapid, the results are obvious, and they are shared with the world in a timely manner.
As for the criticism of scientists on the Internet from time to time, I think it is better to strengthen the communication and dialogue between scientists and the public to solve it. Scientists should be more patient in popularizing science or explaining scientific problems of public concern, methods and techniques should be more effective, and make more active efforts to cultivate public interest in science and greatly improve the public's scientific quality.
Gu Chao: Can scientists lead the social atmosphere?
Wang Zhizhen: When I talked about Mr. De and Mr. Sai on May Fourth, our Jiusan Society talked about patriotism, democracy, and science, which are all very good traditions, and now we should carry forward the May Fourth spirit. In 1956, the Party Central Committee issued a call to "march toward science", and the whole country quickly set off a boom. In 1978, Xu Chi's reportage "Goldbach Conjecture" caused a huge sensation, and then the National Science Congress was held, announcing that the "spring of science" had arrived. It should be said that these two times are under the leadership of the party, and scientists have led the social atmosphere.
Today, our country has entered a new era, and the higher requirements for science and technology should give scientists more say in society. China's scientific and technological development situation today is the result of the correct leadership of the Communist Party of China, which also has the indelible contribution of a large number of scientists.
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The original English article was published online on January 19, 2021 in the National Science Review (NSR) under the title "Chih-chen Wang: The Social Responsibility of Scientists." NSR is a journal of Science Press, published jointly with Oxford University Press. Intellectuals was authorized by the NSR to publish Chinese edition of the article.
Original link:
https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaa299