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Comment by luminati | Hacker News Reader

I’m seeing lot of Hwang level energy here.

There is a lot of pent up National shame in Korea for not having won any Nobel prize. It does lead to some weird behavior.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_affair

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I agree that Korea has a lot of idiotic bureaucrats who apparently think the purpose of scientific pursuit is to win a Nobel prize, but "pent up national shame" is a bit exaggerating. Go to the streets of Gangnam and ask random people what are Korea's biggest problems, and I guarantee not a one in 100 would mention the Nobel prize.

https://xkcd.com/2357/

Retraction, Gangnam style!

An entertaining documentary on the subject is https://youtu.be/ett_8wLJ87U

It has nothing to do with Hwang. Hwang's paper was published in Science and he was called pride of Korea. In superconductor case we see infighting and even Koreans are very sceptical. If anything people who hyped this paper were mostly randoms on twitter.

Even if this is assumed to be fraud, it seems premature to pin it on this nationalistic motive without some specific supporting evidence.

If this was any other country besides Korea I'd agree with you. This is a place where Gangnam style was heralded as a great artistic achievement nationally. There's almost a fetish for success there, anything Korean that achieves global influence is celebrated there.

I don't follow the logic here. So you are assuming that Koreans are already celebrating something that hasn't been peer-reviewed as a great "Korean" achievement that is getting international recognition?

I won't deny that the papers smell, but this kind of comment on Korean's national character is wildly inappropriate.

The article you linked doesn't mention anything about Korea not having won any Nobel prizes, though?

It's a mix of Hwang, Steorn, and Theranos. I'm just in it for the popcorn reading at this point. I no longer fear that it will be validated and destroy society.

Could you elaborate on destroying society? Wouldn’t validation of these claims be good for society?

Not if you’re a fossil fuel fan I guess

How would RTSC destroy society?

I'd wager they mean it like how the internet, the transistor or antibiotics destroyed society.

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