News on China's scientific and technological development.

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Icmer

Junior Member
Registered Member
taxiya said:
That's good.

However, if the statistic foundation is questionable, the conclusion ("discrepancy") would not be justified.
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I get it, you object to the term "discrepancy" since it has connotations of falsification (even though that is not necessarily denoted by the term alone). Let's use more awkward, but more unequivocal terminology: "a large proportional gap." Would you still object to its notability?

How could arguing against the questionable method be interpreted to ignoring something else?

I have only argued that to achieve an economical superiority one need different tiers of skills, in a pyramid shape with top talent doing the design, while the lower layers doing the hands-on work. The opposite is de-industrialization by outsourcing which is proven to fail US and Europe. Neither did I say that the lower tier should not be lifted along with overall lifting of economy. But one thing remains certain, it is pyramid. Whether we have a difference (my ignoring or not) depends on if you agree with the pyramid model or not, I think.
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Your repetition of this argument even when I have not ever disputed it gives the impression that you are dismissive of concerns or discussions about the structure of China's workforce and its ability to cope with drastic technological change in the future. You are simply repeating "China's research capacity is huge and will dominate through sheer numbers" (this may be true; I have never disputed this) and claiming that the article's method is questionable or misleading since it does not disprove this claim, despite never seeking to.
 
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I

Icmer

Junior Member
Registered Member
ZeEa5KPul said:
@Bltizo, brother, you have the patience of a saint.

Let's not lose the forest for the trees. You can define variables any way you like and do whatever analysis you want with them - but what I pointed out was a basic mathematical error. This isn't a matter of opinion; the author is clear that he mistakenly believed China has 75% fewer researchers, not 75% fewer researchers as a share of the percentage of American researchers with Nobel Prizes per kilometer of rail built in Burundi per annum. 75% fewer researchers full stop.

He then proceeded to allege rampant fraud. I'll be generous and presume that it's because the variables he defined are so hopelessly convoluted that they've confused him. The entire "report" is just a piece of propaganda to bolster Washington's hostility and belongs in a trash can. It might be interesting to study how many such reports America produces as a share of the workforce relative to China.

The whole premise of this report is that China competes "unfairly" and that America should do the same (he makes another mistake in assuming it doesn't. Funny how it's not "competing unfairly" when America does it, there it's public-private partnerships advancing innovation for future jobs or whatever other sophistry). America can do whatever it likes and tell itself whatever lies it wishes, but we shouldn't forget a simple, basic fact about fairness: there's nothing more unfair than a head start.
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The fact that the "number of researchers being 75% less" figure was not accompanied by a citation anywhere in its vicinity should have been a clear indication that it was referring to the previous statistic in the article about share of researchers. "Number of researchers," again, is obviously just a truncation of the "number of researchers as a share of total workforce" statistic discussed in Figure 1.
 
ZeEa5KPul

ZeEa5KPul

Colonel
Registered Member
Icmer said:
The fact that the 75% less figure was not accompanied by a citation anywhere in its vicinity should have been a clear indication that it was referring to the previous statistic in the article about share of researchers. "Number of researchers," again, is obviously just a truncated form of the "number of researchers as a share of total workforce" statistic discussed in Figure 1.
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At best, this "75% less" is a worthless statistical artefact, no better than "share of the percentage of American researchers with Nobel Prizes per kilometer of rail built in Burundi per annum." Nothing can be concluded from it. And what exactly is "China's abysmal educational accomplishment" that you claim? I'll tell you an educational accomplishment of China's: Tsinghua was recently named the #1 university in Asia
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not so abysmal an accomplishment.

In the rivers of digital ink you've spilled here about the issue I brought up, not once did you address the fundamental point I made that the inept (and possibly dishonest) author used what you call "a large proportional gap" to allege rampant fraud.
 
I

Icmer

Junior Member
Registered Member
ZeEa5KPul said:
At best, this "75% less" is a worthless statistical artefact, no better than "share of the percentage of American researchers with Nobel Prizes per kilometer of rail built in Burundi per annum." Nothing can be concluded from it.
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Now this is just denial and refusal to use logic. I have already explained why this is notable using OECD data.

And what exactly is "China's abysmal educational accomplishment" that you claim? I'll tell you an educational accomplishment of China's: Tsinghua was recently named the #1 university in Asia
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not so abysmal an accomplishment.
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My criticism of China's educational metrics (not once have I ever used the term "accomplisment," by the way) was always in specific reference to China's populace or general population.
Have a look:
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In the rivers of digital ink you've spilled here about the issue I brought up, not once did you address the fundamental point I made that the inept (and possibly dishonest) author used what you call "a large proportional gap" to allege rampant fraud.
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I never addressed it because I never disputed it. In my first post, I very clearly specified that my point of contention was your insinuation that the author did not understand (or was attempting to mislead with) the "number of researchers" statistic he used.

These economic papers do have utility, no matter how much you view them as rags. Take note of the accompanying analyses, but obviously do not let a few questionable points of speculation lead you to dismiss the whole paper (yes, I don't mind if Western experts make their own speculation, as long as they qualify it as such - this author did not present it as unequivocal fact.) Even @Bltizo has acknowledged that many of the indicators in this article are indeed useful and interesting. They are, after all, using real and reputable data. Keep in mind that without such reports, you would be limited to Chinese-language material, and Chinese think-tanks tend to be more exclusive to the party in terms of what is released.
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
Icmer said:
The fact that the "number of researchers being 75% less" figure was not accompanied by a citation anywhere in its vicinity should have been a clear indication that it was referring to the previous statistic in the article about share of researchers. "Number of researchers," again, is obviously just a truncation of the "number of researchers as a share of total workforce" statistic discussed in Figure 1.
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I've now read again the sentence the other guy didn't like

"This suggests Chinese government figures for R&D investment may be significantly overstated, as they show Chinese R&D as only 24 percent less than that of the United States, whereas the number of researchers is 75 percent less."

and yeah, it's fishy, LOL

Today at 3:16 PM
Jura said:
LOL I was curious what's going on here;

one member noticed inside
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an interesting wording at p. 17:
"This suggests Chinese government figures for R&D investment may be significantly overstated, as they show Chinese R&D as only 24 percent less than that of the United States, whereas the number of researchers is 75 percent less."

I checked the numbers, from googlefu for 2016:
1096/4255 is the percentage for researchers (number of researchers per one million inhabitant, China/USA), about 26%
370760.5/476460 is the percentage for funding (in millions of PPP USD, China/USA), about 78%
OK, then

in absolute terms, 2016 again:
1379*1096 = 1511384 (about one million and a half) researchers in China
323.4*4255 = 1376067 researchers in the US
then

the number of researchers in the US was about 91% of the number of researchers in China
then

476460/1376067 (about 346 thousand) was an average funding per US researcher, in PPP USD
370760.5/1511384 (about 245 thousand) was an average funding per Chinese researcher, in PPP USD

and this is what appears to have led to the conclusion
:
"A more likely reason is both government labs and Chinese companies, particularly state-owned enterprises (SOEs), have strong incentives to inflate R&D numbers when reporting to the central government because the government has made R&D a top priority (figure 6)."

I mean to the authors it was hard to believe, or they made it sound in the way that it should be hard to believe, the real spending could be that high in China (more or less the same as the US spending)
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Quickie

Quickie

Colonel
Another thing that is fishy is the sudden change in the notation used in figure 19 in
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The description of the figure is given as "Figure 19: Chinese Patents Filed Under the International Patent Cooperation Treaty as a Percentage of the United States, 2008–2018",

but on the bar chart itself, the fractional notation was used instead of a percentage.

This way 0.9 is read off as 0.9 percent when it is supposed to be 90%, lol.
 
K

Klon

Junior Member
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Abstract
We assess and compare computer science skills among final-year computer science undergraduates (seniors) in four major economic and political powers that produce approximately half of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates in the world. We find that seniors in the United States substantially outperform seniors in China, India, and Russia by 0.76–0.88 SDs and score comparably with seniors in elite institutions in these countries. Seniors in elite institutions in the United States further outperform seniors in elite institutions in China, India, and Russia by ∼0.85 SDs. The skills advantage of the United States is not because it has a large proportion of high-scoring international students. Finally, males score consistently but only moderately higher (0.16–0.41 SDs) than females within all four countries.
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I

Icmer

Junior Member
Registered Member

China's computer science programs are mostly mediocre, with only a few exceptions outside the C9 league. They're infamous for their outdated curricula, which have a poor emphasis on real-world applications.
 
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