Scientific Confusion in China

I was a 'science lover' in my childhood, like many others, and was always captivated by such topics as universe, dinosaurs, and various colorful chemistry reactions. At the same time the legends of UFO, dragon and the always amazing magics equally succeeded in fascinating my young mind. Later in my teenage years, however, I became a hard-core dissenter of the so-called pseudoscience and drew distinctive lines between, say, universe and UFO. Now, as a grownup an graduate student of chemistry, I believe that I can contribute my part in clarifying the always complexing debate on science vs non-science by and only by simply doing my own small part of study in polymeric materials - a very modest or even humble belief but also the traditional 'chemist' style of view.

This view has to change when I know more about the world today. I may be vocally silent, but should not be so mentally. I cannot be confused, especially when there are nowadays increasing number of people who are constantly trying to confuse the public at these issues; these people are of particular harm to the young development of science in China, my homeland.

The Blazing Debate in China

One of the foci of debate in China is the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Not long ago, a campaign to dispute TCM led by Fang Zhouzi, a famous soldier towards pseudosciences and frauds in Chinese scientific circle, founder of the website xys.org, provoked a nationwide war on the official abolishment of TCM - and more general pseudosciences - in China. The war upgraded on Nov. 15th, when Song Zhenghai, a 'researcher of the Institute for the History of Natural Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences', whose name, however, cannot be found in the faculty list in the institutes's website, sent emails to more than 150 Chinese scholars, appealing for stoppage of the abused use of the word 'pseudoscience' and actually delete it from the Chinese Law of Science Literacy, in order to save the traditional Chinese culture (including particularly medicine) from the attack of western scientism. He Zuoxiu, Chinese physicist, member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, called Song's idea as 'ridiculous'.

These three figures are not new to each other. Before becoming Song's target, the Law of Science Literacy had been used by Fang Zhouzi to claim his legality in his attack on 'Bagua Universal Theory' (an philosophic prediction of the tenth planet in the solar system by Liu Zihua in 1939, 65 years earlier than the actual observation last year) by the name of pseudoscience in a lawsuit. It is mentioned in the law that science literacy should 'insist in scientism, and oppose and battle with pseudoscience'. The word 'pseudoscience' appears only once here in the law. Obviously, if this word were deleted, Fang would not be able to keep legal according to this law, which would be music to his opposer's ears. Song has long been criticizing Fang in various forms including lectures and forums with recent focus on the subject of TCM as a supporter, while He Zuoxiu, ally of Fang, publicly announced his skeptical view toward TCM, which is by now a voice from the highest level in the Chinese scientific society.

Too Many Ironies

The biggest irony in this mass, in my opinion, is that there is a law regulating academic debates in China, which means your idea would be potentially a danger by law once regarded as pseudoscience which has no clear legal definition. This is not the first time when academic quarrels resort to law (often by accusation of slander) in China. It reflects the fact that we lack a standalone mechanism to judge scientific affairs inside the academic circle, if no civil rights are harmed.

While the crime of slander have little of no relationship to the academic details, the Law of Science Literacy may be more 'technically orientated'. By title, it shows the determination of the nation to reinforce its people by scientific knowledge and immunize them against pseudoscience. Science and technology is one of the most important policy after the statement by Deng Xiaoping, 'Science and technology are the first productivity'. The government thus rely on this law to ensure the 'safety' of science literacy in China. But where are the scientists? The fact is Chinese scientists are generally passive in contributing to the science literacy affairs. Media also become increasingly obscene in the modern times. Science seem no better than pseudoscience in the eyes of a casual observer.

The next irony is the obscure position of the Song's camp, who started their march of argument from a word - not the definition of it, but nothing more than simply stop using it literally. Therefore, they are not supporters of pseudoscience because they are only talking about the abuse of the word - abuse by definition is always wrong. It is even unnecessary to judge whether they are pseudo scientific or not, if the word should not exist. More ironically, it seems that by deleting the word from the law, TCM and other traditional Chinese cultures can be revitalized from the current dreadful situation.

Voices from the Public

In the comment page after the news of Song's movement on 163.com, one of the biggest news sites in China, the view of the Chinese public is clearly shown. Four of the top 5 entries (by numbers supporters) go to the Fang and He's camp, and the remaining one entry does not show explicit inclination.

However, they are only supporting science. When it comes to TCM, most Chinese choose to save it, although the reasons are complexed. Apart from the historical inertia, modern Chinese are emotionally reluctant to replace their own cultures with western ones, regardless of the comparison. Science is still seldom viewed as something belongs to the whole human race here. It is only some new culture introduced from the west in the early 20th century, the policy of the government now. What impede Chinese in accepting modern science? An essay published in 1998 on Science magazine by late Tsou Chen-lu might give a comprehensive, if not full, answer to this question (with particularly some early examples of pseudoscience in China). Moreover, if science is widely challenged even in the west, which seems to be the case, the only source of confidence of Chinese people on science may become more problematic.

There is also an insightful article in the forum of 163.com, which tries to distinguish the concepts of science, non-science and pseudoscience. Although the detail of reasoning is questionable in my view, it did put forward some valuable ideas. It proposed, for instance, that science should be defined as an approaching system towards the truth by human thought in the form of logic. By using the word 'approaching', the definition implies an essential fact that science is never the truth itself. The 'approaches', however, are pluralistic. Then, the author cited the concept of modal logic in parallel with formal logic, claiming that while creativity seems mystical in the view of formal logic, it is only a logical deduction in the view of modal logic. Modal logic is poorly investigated in the western contexts, but is essential in Chinese philosophy. TCM, derived from Chinese philosophy, is therefore 'logically sound'. Practice may prove something wrong temporarily, but never permanently, because the depth and width of practice itself is also in constant development. Thus, scientifically speaking there should not be any pseudosciences. Although the tone is somewhat agnostic, the idea that China can has its own version of science by development of modal logic is fresh.

The Ultimate Hypothesis

The modern public will not be satisfied by simple-minded quarrels as the media have shown them. TCM is still valuable in 21st century not only because it provides us with new natural products (and perhaps new total synthetic targets for ACIE or JACS papers ;P). We also wonder why, without any logical-looking approaches, ancient Chinese were able to find the right herbs with those active biomolecules. We are also curious why the TCM prescriptions, based on Yingyang and the Five Elements theories which is regarded today as pseudoscience, work, at least to some extent (Chinese are surely not so stupid as to allow their lives relied on something totally bullshit for thousands of years). Is there any biomedical basis of the validity of the four methods of diagnosis? (especially the appearance of the touch of the artery at the wrist which is almost the TCM equivalent of CT, MRI, etc.). What, scientifically speaking, is happening in other TCM treatments such as acupuncture and moxibustion, fire cupping, etc.

It is also important to distinguish TCM as a culture and TCM as medical practice or science. Culture can never be abolished, while no one refuses to rely on more scientific medicine, be it 'eastern' or 'western. Even when talking about culture we do not always keep all the old things going. Instead we often sift with modern criteria and retain only the fresh parts of the culture.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments should not approve or allow what is not modern-scientifically valid in official hospitals on which people's lives are dependent. TCM practices should temporarily be off in hospitals before it is verified or adapted by modern science. It is also preposterous to worry that the cultural importance of TCM will be diminished or perished if it is not in practice. Nor are the weights of Ptolemy and Aristotle in human history decreased by Copernicus and Galileo - they were deemed enemies only by the contemporaneous Catholic Pope, from whom modern conservatives derive.

Although we have been conducting science by hypothesis for centuries, history has come to the point where the ultimate hypothesis regarding 'what is science' is calling for postulations, so that the accumulating confusion, both academic and public, can be put on a universal basic and subsequently solved by an experiment in the largest scale - the future advancement of human race.