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Comment by d110af5ccf | Hacker News Reader

Such incentives are somewhat more isolated in the west. I'm not sure if it's still the case, but ~10 years ago the Chinese government offered bounties to researchers for publishing in various western journals. The bounties varied in size based on perceived prestige. The result (rampant fraud) was entirely predictable.

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Why is predictable that offering a reward to get published in prestigious journals would result in fraud? Why would any scientist who wants to further one's career, not want to publish in prestigious journals? Why would adding an extra incentive on top, result in more fraud than otherwise already would have happened?

The greater reward incentivizes greater risk. Kinda obvious.

That is not obvious at all. That's like saying giving salespeople high bonuses means they're more inclined to break the law (e.g. blackmailing people to sign contracts) as opposed to working harder through legal means.

If the risk of penalty is low enough and breaking the law is easier than working harder through legal means, then I think we could assume they would be more inclined to break the law.

And is the penalty low? China is not known for low penalties.

This article from 2018 said they were upping checks and penalties for academic fraud: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-science-idUSKCN1IW0...

This article says that a researcher was punished. The investigation found no plagiarism but did find ethics violations, so even ethic boards are a thing in Chinese academia nowadays. https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1006745/top-chinese-scientist...

I was more responding to your analogy. I couldn't say whether the penalty is too low in this case, and you may be right.

I think it was like $100k US.

Damn I sell a year’s worth of my time for that in the UK… definitely might be worth ruining my reputation for in China if I was immoral.

And it's more like ten years salary for a typical Chinese university professor.

It is a bit different - this is $100k on top of what is presumably already a fair market rate.

It is a lot more like a massive bonus than a salary. More than enough to have someone unscrupulous start lying, especially if they think their research is marginal quality.

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