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| South Korean 'Netizens of the Year' |
| The online scientific community and Internet media challenge old hierarchies |
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Ronda Hauben (netizen2)  |
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Published 2005-12-29 12:58 (KST) |
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 | |  Screenshot of comments from the BRIC site | | | | Two contending sets of events have shaken the scientific community in South Korea in the past few months. One is the fabrication of data and the ethical violations that have come to light in research papers by the celebrated scientist, Professor Hwang Woo Suk.(1)
The other is the role played by the online scientific community in South Korea to support honest and collaborative scientific research. These two contending events have significance not only to the development of science in Korea, but also to the worldwide scientific community.
Much of the media coverage around the world has raised the specter of scientific fraud in Hwang's scientific papers as a major indication of what is happening in South Korea. Some media, however, both within Korea and elsewhere, have noted that it was the online scientific community in Korea that made it possible to understand the problems in those papers, by functioning in the way that scientists are supposed to function.
An article that appeared in the New York Times in mid December noted (2):"Although the new disclosures are being presented as a blow for South Korean science, they can also be seen as a triumph for a cadre of well-trained young Koreans for whom it became almost a pastime to turn up one flaw after another in his work. All or almost all the criticisms that eventually brought him down were first posted on Web sites used by young Korean scientists." While broad-ranging access to the Internet in South Korea has helped to make possible this scientific discussion and commentary, it is the netizens of the scientific community who have demonstrated a new form of scientific review appropriate for the 21st century. (3) Netizens of the scientific community in South Korea are posting on Web sites like BRIC, the site of the Biological Research Information Center, and Scieng, the site of the Association of Korean Scientists and Engineers, about the scientific problems in Hwang's articles.
Online newspapers and other Internet discussion forums and blogs not only helped to amplify and spread knowledge of these critiques, but also contributed with online discussion and commentary.
In the 1960s, the computer networking pioneer, J.C.R. Licklider, proposed a vision for computer networking that would make it possible for scientists to collaborate and communicate in their endeavor to solve difficult problems. In an article he wrote with Robert Taylor titled, "The Computer as a Communication Device," (PDF) Licklicker envisions a future where computer networks will provide the scientific community with an environment that is "a common medium that can be contributed to and experimented with by all." (4)
The respected journal Science accepted and published Hwang's articles, but failed to identify any problems. The netizens of BRIC and Scieng and other online sites, demonstrated that their online communication and collaboration was a powerful scientific force making it possible to unravel the problems in these scientific articles. In South Korea, Licklider's vision for the Internet is being realized.
An article in OhmyNews proposes that the scientists who have posted on BRIC, Scieng and related Web sites concerning the problems with Hwang's scientific papers, are a hope for the future for science in Korea and states they have been selected "Netizens of the Year."
A comment on the article [by id: dongilone] sums up this situation (5):"I have firmly believed that truth prevails in the long run. I am choked with overflowing emotions of relief and joy, when I am aware that the future of Korean science will not be withered, with your brilliant performance, suffering frequent slandering and other physical and mental threats to you, young scientists, from blind followers of the God Lie...Momentary bitterness of setback is to be welcomed when lasting longer sweet fruit is to be savored." As the article and comments about the achievements of young scientists in Korea demonstrate, the online discussion process involving a broader community of netizens concerned about an issue, who discuss it and share their thoughts with others in the Internet community, is a powerful new model for the evaluation of scientific work, and for the process of the scientific work itself.
Too often, in South Korea and other countries, the graduate school and laboratory culture in science is a hierarchical structure. Science, however, needs a Brownian motion (.PPT) form of communication among all who are in the scientific world, rather than a hierarchy which limits who can contribute to those at the top. The netizens of BRIC, Scieng and the online media have shown that there is something to be very proud of in South Korea.
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1) Ronda Hauben, "Korean Cloning Hero Deconstructed Online: Online Scientific Community in South Korea Uncovers Fabrication of Data in Acclaimed Stem Cell Research Papers", "Telepolis", Dec. 24, 2005.
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21647/1.html
2) NICHOLAS WADE, "Scientist Faked Stem Cell Study, Associate Says," New York Times Dec. 15, 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/science/15cnd-clone.html
3) In the 1990s, posts on the Internet forced Intel to withdraw a defective pentium chip, see Michael Hauben, "The Effect of the Net on the Professional News Media," in Hauben and Hauben, "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet", Los Alamitos, IEEE Computer Society, 1997, p. 229-230.
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x13
4) Ronda Hauben, "Dawn of the Internet and Netizen", OhmyNews, Aug. 15, 2005.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=4&no=242311&rel_no=1
5) See article in Korean edition, [id: dagun76], OhmyNews, Dec. 21, 2005.
http://www.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=299945 |
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©2005 OhmyNews
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