％％仟囂某(www.xys.org)(xys.dxiong.com)(xys.3322.org)(xys.dyndns.info)％％

　　From scientist to 'science policeman'

　　Jia Hepeng
　　(China Daily 08/18/2005 page14)

　　When Fang Shimin went to the United States for a doctoral degree 
in biological chemistry in 1990, he did not expect his life would be 
linked to writing articles of criticism and analysis instead of labs 
and microscopes.

　　"At that time, I wanted to be a scientist, but now, I am widely 
called a science policeman," said Fang, whose alias is Fang Zhouzi, 
best known in public for his criticisms of pseudoscience.

　　Born in Fujian Province in 1967, Fang was an excellent student at 
Hefei-based University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He 
was admitted by the Michigan State University to learn biochemistry 
after graduating from USTC.

　　On arriving in the United States, what attracted Fang most was not 
molecules or DNA, but the emerging Usenet, the precedent of the 
Internet.

　　Life tied to the Internet

　　"Among others, overseas Chinese students were the first group to 
access the computer network. The efficiency and convenience of the 
network attracted me to do something with the new tool," Fang said.

　　He thought of digitalizing ancient Chinese poems. With his and 
other Chinese students' efforts, voluntarily inputting lots of material, 
they set up a large online database of ancient Chinese poems.

　　Meanwhile, Fang and his friends tried to develop a literature 
website, xys.org, otherwise known as New Threads.

　　But another career soon lured him away from building Internet 
portals.

　　"When I came to the United States, I found many conservative 
religious groups quite active among overseas Chinese students," said 
Fang.

　　"I recognized religious freedom, but I cannot accept many false 
theories that attack Darwinism."

　　One such theory is the so-called theory of "scientific" creationism, 
which jumbles up so-called natural discoveries to refute Darwin's 
evolution theories.

　　As a biology researcher, Fang took up his pen to write articles on 
the emerging Internet medium to refute these theories.

　　"I did not think my articles would be so popular. So many overseas 
Chinese students read them and gave their comments," Fang said.

　　He soon found a new target to attack a group of so-called 
paranormal power "masters," who became nationally famous in China in 
1980s by promoting their special, somewhat supernatural, prowess.

　　One "master" claimed he could repair broken bones in several 
minutes by generating qigong (breathing exercises), while another said 
the success of putting out a big fire in Daxing'anling Mountains in 
Northeast China in 1997 was because of his magic spells in Beijing.

　　In the early 1990s, Sima Nan, a science communicator, and 
scientists such as He Zuoxiu, a physician at the Chinese Academy of 
Sciences (CAS), rose to expose the sham and the prevalence of those 
"masters."

　　"Unable to cheat people in China, many of the 'masters' went to 
the United States to seek audiences among overseas Chinese students," 
Fang said.

　　One day one of his friends went to attend a lecture held by a 
so-called master. Each member of the audience was charged US$600 
because the master claimed his speech could create an energy field and 
could cure diseases of the listeners or protect them against disease.

　　That motivated Fang to do something on behalf of true science.

　　He began to write series of online articles refuting the various 
pseudoscience theories behind the so-called supernatural power.

　　"If they have so-called magic biological electricity waves, why 
can't scientists detect and publish the results in academic journals?" 
asked Fang.

　　A Hong Kong-based editor collected his online articles against 
"scientific" creationism theories and other pseudoscience "masters" 
and compiled them into the book "New Interpretation on Evolution" in 
1997.

　　On home ground

　　In 1995, Fang got his doctoral degree, and then did postdoctoral 
studies at Rochester University and the California-based Salk Institute.

　　During his postdoctoral studies, he found academic research no 
longer interested him. He felt that as a researcher, one had to 
repeatedly deal with funding agencies in a routine way.

　　In 1998, Fang returned to China for the first time after a span of 
eight years.

　　To his astonishment, he saw pseudoscience books in bookstores, 
covering themes from fortune-telling, physiognomy, untested magical 
phenomena to some unknown "new sciences."

　　"One such science is called holographic biology, which claims that 
all the biological information of a creature can be traced from the 
hidden signals in part of its organs. For trees, it is leaves, and for 
man, it is one's palms," Fang said.

　　Fang decided to give up his biological studies to write columns 
for home media and publishers to refute what he considers pseudoscience.

　　The turning point came when the Fa_lun_gong cult was on the rise 
in China and the United States. Its practitioners claimed 
Fa_lun_gong's creator had mastered the science governing the whole 
history, universe, human beings and the spirit.

　　Since 1998, Fang, mainly based in the United States, has written 
articles one after another unravelling the loopholes in the preachings 
of Fa_lun_gong, on his website xys.org.

　　The prevalence of pseudoscience has its reasons, Fang said.

　　"Chinese lacks the spirit of skepticism, rationality and empiricism. 
For example, most people never test the truth of some cheating 
theories or practices even with basic scientific theories, as in the 
case of turning water into oil," he said.

　　In the early 1990s, Wang Hongcheng claimed he had found a way of 
transforming water into gasoline, using just a few additives.

　　"Anyone who has a basic knowledge of physics or chemistry would 
know the practice is contradictory to the law of energy conservation 
and the molecular structure of water," Fang said.

　　But few challenged Wang and he made 300 million yuan (US$ 37 
million) before being found guilty of deceit and fraud and jailed for 
10 years in 1998.

　　There is low scientific literacy in Chinese society today. A 2003 
national survey on scientific literacy by the China Association for 
Science and Technology shows that the percentage of Chinese who 
believe in fengshui the art of deciding the design of objects to bring 
good luck was 39 per cent, while those believing in samsara, or the 
return of life, accounted for 11.5 per cent of the population.

　　Some people have made use of people's zeal for learning science 
and for scientific development to their own advantage by promoting 
their pseudoscience ideas in the name of science, according to Tian 
Song, associate professor of philosophy of science at Beijing Normal 
University.

　　Fang said the rising commercialism in Chinese society enables the 
pseudoscience "masters" to bribe some media and even professional 
scientists to propagandize and prove their theories. As a result, Fang 
believes his work of identifying and exposing pseudoscience is made 
even more valuable.

　　Rising disputes

　　As well as the "masters" with "supernatural powers" and cult 
leaders, Fang has also exposed swindles by health food companies and 
by some science professionals.

　　In 2000, Fang debunked a US-trained female Chinese biologist who 
was branded a "gene queen" due to her donation of a gene library to 
China.

　　He said the biologist, who did not have a doctorate, was merely a 
lab technician and her "gene library" could be bought everywhere in 
the United States for a few thousand dollars. He claimed that her work 
was far from making her a "gene queen."

　　In 2001 he pointed out that the nucleic acid health food produced 
by a Dalian-based company had long been revealed as a scientific fraud 
by Nobel laureates in the United States.

　　In 2002, Fang targeted his criticism at academic corruption. He 
made it public that several famous natural and social scientists from 
Peking, Tsinghua universities and USTC, his alma mater, had committed 
plagiarism, copying from foreign scientists' works and papers for 
their own works.

　　"At first, my alma mater was proud of my criticism, but when it 
became a target, the praise suddenly disappeared," Fang said.

　　But he said he did not care.

　　"As long as I have evidence, I will continue my criticism and 
revelation of pseudoscience and academic plagiarism," he said. "I do 
not have a material pursuit and do not care if this means I lose 
chances of making money."

　　Most of the evidence Fang has used to expose pseudoscience and 
academic plagiarism has so far stood up to scrutiny.

　　But his practice has been increasingly reproached.

　　Liu Huajie, an associate professor of science communication at 
Peking University, said Fang abused the public confidence in him. Some 
of his criticism against so-called pseudoscience and academic 
plagiarism has not been double-checked, and "if he is wrong, the 
result would be disastrous."

　　Tian said Fang has gone to extremes with his approach to "put 
everything not having been proved by modern analytical science, such 
as classic theories of traditional Chinese medicine, as 
pseudoscience."

　　Since early this year, Fang has been widely criticized by 
environmentalists for his claim that human beings should not pay 
homage to nature.

　　Last December, the strong earthquake and tsunami caused great 
destruction in the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. Some 
environmentalists pointed out that great disaster should make people 
become more respectful of the nature. In fact, the human destruction 
of the coastal ecological environments such as red groves aggravated 
the tsunami disaster.

　　But Fang said protecting ecological environments has nothing to do 
with homage to nature. If human beings do so, they should only use 
nature to serve themselves as people. He said the so called homage to 
nature is a pseudoscience.

　　As a result, he has been seriously criticized by environmentalists.

　　Fang has faced the criticism squarely.

　　"Each time I plan to criticize somebody, I carefully prepare my 
evidence and my reasoning, so I avoid making the wrong judgments as 
much as possible," Fang said.

(XYS20050818)

％％仟囂某(www.xys.org)(xys.dxiong.com)(xys.3322.org)(xys.dyndns.info)％％