China legislates to tolerate scientific failures
Updated: 2007-08-28 09:08
The scientific research process was always a mixture of success and failure and many failures could lead to one success.
Supporters of a change in official attitudes cite the case of Thomas Edison, the US inventor of the electric light bulb, among other devices, saying he failed more than 1,000 times before finding the right material to make the filament.
Zhou Houjian, chairman of domestic electric appliance producer Hisense, said the success of his company depended on tolerance of failure during technical innovation.
"The regulation for tolerance towards scientists and technicians failing encourages more challenging research projects, " he said.
While showing tolerate to scientific failures, the draft bill brook no scientific fraud.
The draft bill stipulates that credit data shall be established for each scientist and technician who involve in state-funded scientific research projects, which will act as an important criterion for applying for new fundings.
The draft bill says scientists and technicians should observe academic regulations and ethics, improve their research capability and should not make fabrication in academic activities, or practice superstition or psudo-science.
Earlier this month, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) has blacklisted 13 academicians for fraud. This was the NSFC's fourth round of "naming and shaming" of scholarly fraudsters since 2005.
The fraudulent practices, including unattributed quotations, plagiarism, falsifying signatures, fabricating personal information and scientific data and violating application procedures, have been intended to gain research funds.
The draft law is expected to be further discussed and put for a vote after opinions of the academic circles are further solicited.
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