People's science reflects doubts about academia

• Source: Global Times
• [23:14 January 07 2010]
• Comments

Experts and journalists attend the press conference on the excavation of the mausoleum believed to belong to Cao Cao in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province, Dec. 31, 2009. Archaeological officials and experts held a press conference on the mausoleum they were excavating in Xigaoxue belonged to Cao Cao(155-220 A.D.), a renowned warlord who built the strongest and most prosperous state during China's Three Kingdom period (208-280 A.D.).

By Yao Le 

The tomb of Cao Cao (155- 220), a warlord of the Three Kingdoms period remembered as an operatic villain, was recently claimed to have been unearthed by archeologists in Anyang, Henan Province.

Photos of some mortuary objects, as key evidence for the claim, were placed online.

A simple statement as to how experts and scholars made the judgment was also publicized.

However, critical voices rose immediately. Among those who expressed doubt were anonymous netizens, popular columnists, collectors and nonarchaeological scholars.

What's disappointing was that no valuable perspectives surfaced in these questioning voices.

Most skeptics were amateurs. Many commented without understanding of basic historical facts or archaeological technique. Some cited a 1,000-year-ago legend to refute physical evidence 1,800 years old.

Smug in their own conceit, some amateur critics started to sneer at or even verbally assaulted professional experts. Many netizens echoed and approved these minke, or "people's scientists," a term used for those who pursue science outside of official academic circles.

The controversial term minke emerged in China some 20 years ago. It was initially used in natural science, and then popularized in the field of social studies. Academic scholars often react emotionally to this word.

If someone outside a special scientific community claims new discoveries with ludicrous perspectives or proofs, he is often called a minke, and rapidly ignored.

Some have protested this view in recent years. They held that amateurs have played an important part in science, and should not be marginalized.

Rather misleadingly, they claimed Chinese peasant inventor Bi Sheng, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers and Albert Einstein as predecessors of people's science.

They contrasted this grassroots work with the official researchers, who they claimed are nothing more than representatives of official will.

Yet this is not true.

China's academia has been gradually separated from the government since the 1980s.