简单update下我们的抗议活动吧# Biology - 生物学
p*m
1 楼
目前两天内收集到1100多签名，远远出乎我最早的预料（本来就是个人行动，后来有
Mitbbs网友愿意支持，我想有几十个支持就很好了）。计划明天伦敦工作日内发出。
抗议信也吸收了许多许多支持者的建议，尽量避免情绪化。但是我们还是不会拘泥于文章
的事实/逻辑问题，而会明白说出文章隐含的偏见色彩。我现在认为抗议本身也许能够
延伸出如何定义我们这个群体的public image,以及如何消除西方媒体民众对我们群体
image的stereotype的问题。当然这个不是小小一个抗议能起效的，明天我会写一个长
贴和大家讨论讨论
下面是抗议正式版:) 很多人的意见非常好，但是我没能力找出名字一一感谢了。。这
三天收了至少2000封email，回了1000封，还得给女儿喂奶哄睡，手快要断了:)
Dear Philip Campbell, Ph.D. and Editor-in-Chief of Nature,
We are a group of contributors, subscribers, and readers of Nature residing
in more than 20 countries and territories around the world. Many of us work
in academic and industrial research organizations. We have noticed a news
article that was published in Nature a few days ago, titled “Why great
Olympic feats raise suspicions”. We are very offended to see such an
article with serious scientific flaws and thinly veiled racial and political
bias to appear in Nature, one of the most respected scientific journals in
the world. With all due respect, we now launch a formal protest against
Nature, until Nature retracts this article and apologizes to Ye Shiwen and
all athletes who may have been offended.
At its reputation, we expect Nature to not only conduct the most stringent
scientific standard on its research papers, but also set a high bar for its
news reports. Unfortunately, this news article, authored by Mr. Ewen
Callaway, did not even come close to the basic news standard and ethics
expected for common mass media, not to mention the scientific merit expected
from Nature. With carefully chosen inappropriate wording in this article,
Callaway questioned China’s 16-year-old swimmer Ye Shiwen, who recently won
gold medals in both women’s 200-meter and 400-meter individual medley (200
and 400 IM) in London Olympics. Callaway concluded that Ye’s record-
breaking performance was “anomalous”, a statement that was only based on
selected/biased and even falsified fact.
To support his theory, Callaway questioned the recent “incredible”
improvement in Ye’s performance. In doing so, he conveniently overlooked
the fact that it is not uncommon for an elite and very young swimmer to
increase his/her performance in a relatively short time window. An
Australian swimmer and Olympics gold medalist, Ian Thorpe, said in defense
of Ye that he improved his 400-meter performance by 5 seconds around the
same age as Ye. UK’s Adrian Moorhouse, a Seoul Olympics gold medalist, also
testified openly that he “improved four seconds” at the age of 17. Both
examples only take a few clicks of the mouse to find out on the Internet.
Evidently, Callaway was using cherry-picked evidence to support his
suggestion, that Ye’s rapid improvement was never seen hence questionable.
Meanwhile we would also like to point out that Callaway also made factual
mistakes that exaggerated the misleading effect of this article: Ye’s
performance was in fact 7 seconds faster than her performance in Shanghai
World Championships more than a year ago, in July 2011 (NOT a few weeks ago,
in July 2012), and only 5 seconds faster than her personal best record (in
2010).
The other piece of evidence that Callaway cited to support his statement,
that Ye swam faster than US swimmer Ryan Lochte in the last 50 meters of the
men’s 400 IM in London, is unfortunately also without merit. Winning the
400 IM gold medal, Lochte did not (and didn’t have to) perform the best in
the final 50 meters. In fact, he only ranked 5th among 8 swimmers for the
last 50 meters only, at 29”10, which was significantly slower than Japan’s
Yuya Horihata (27”87) and three other swimmers competing in the same event
(Ye’s was 28”93). It could be that Lochte was way ahead of his
competitors in the first three splits so he did not have to strike too hard
in the final 50 meters, or that he had used up all his energy and had to
slow down. Nevertheless, one cannot only look at the final 50 meters of Ye’
s and Lochte’s games and conclude that Ye swam faster than a men’s
champion (and thus “anomalous”). In fact, Ye’s record-breaking
performance in women’s 400 IM (4’28”43) was a lot slower than Lochte’s
in men’s 400 IM (4’5”18). In addition, even if one only looks at the
final 50 meters, women have indeed outperformed men in the past. For example
, in last year’s World Championships in Shanghai, British swimmer Rebecca
Adlington won a gold medal in women’s 800-meter freestyle. In that event
her performance in the final 50 meters (28”91) was faster than that of both
Ye and Lochte in London. Again, Callaway was making a reckless conclusion
based on inappropriately selected fact.
Furthermore, we would like to point out that Callaway failed the basic moral
standard for media workers. To question the recent “anomalous”
performance of Ye, he strategically put the suggestion that “some swimming
experts wondered whether Ye’s win was aided by performance-enhancing drugs
”, a negative comment, in front of “she has never tested positive for a
banned substance and the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday declared
that her post-race test was clean”, without quoting the reply from the
player herself, or testimonies from other parties we have listed above. Such
careful phrasing made a good impression for the general readers that this
player was likely to be doping and did not face to the charge. Biased,
directed propaganda as such is found all over the article. For example, the
original subtitle of this article, “Performance profiling could help to
catch cheaters in sports”, put side-by-side with Ye’s picture, implicitly
linked Ye with the image of “cheaters”. Callaway further implied that Ye
might have doped “during training” and escaped the more rigorous tests
during Olympics. Neglecting the fact that Ye (and many other Olympic
medalists) were regularly spot-checked by unannounced flight inspection year
-round, such a statement is purely speculative and disrespectful to Ye and
all innocent professional athletes. Following this logic, any athlete can be
accused for “doping” without evidence presented. And ironically, those
being accused can hardly prove themselves innocent: even if they pass all
rigorous drug tests, they may (according to Callaway) still have doped at a
different time, or doped drugs that cannot be detected by current tests.
Although Callaway claimed that he was attempting to discuss “science”,
instead of “racial and political undertones”, readers readily detect the
innuendo of racism and political bias. Yes, as scientists we may all agree
that there are caveats in the current drug testing methods, and better
methodologies are always needed to promote the anti-doping effort. But why
did such a proposal emerge to single out the stunning performance from this
16-year-old gifted swimmer “from China”? Was it appropriate to imply that
Ye was found drug-clean only because the drug detection method was not
advanced enough? We are forced to seriously doubt the real motive and the “
racial and political undertones” that Callaway tried to disclaim in the
opening of the article. Backed up by the advancement of training and
supporting systems, athletes worldwide are continuously improving their
performance. World records constantly fade, including in London Olympics.
Shall we call these athletes “anomalous” and link them with doping and
cheating every time they go beyond their limits and become “Citius, Altius,
Fortius”?
For more than a century Nature has published numerous major breakthroughs
that greatly moved forward the knowledge of human society. Reading Nature
has helped us to keep updated with the rapid advancement of science and
technology. And many of us have chosen Nature to publish our best work.
However, Callaway’s article, scientifically flawed, racially directed, and
politically biased, was more suitable for tabloids than Nature. It has
tainted Nature’s reputation in the scientific community, and among the
general audience.
Lately Nature has made a few changes in this news article, including
replacing the offending subtitle of “catch cheater” and correcting a few
factual errors. We appreciate the self-correction from Nature, and encourage
Nature to take further actions to set the record straight. We urge Nature
to retract this article and publicly apologize to Ye and all athletes who
may have been offended immediately. Until appropriate actions are taken by
Nature, we will not:
1> submit papers to Nature;
2> review papers for Nature;
3> advertise in Nature for job openings and products;
4> purchase products and services advertised in Nature, when possible;
5> subscribe to Nature for individual or lab uses
Sincerely,
Mitbbs网友愿意支持，我想有几十个支持就很好了）。计划明天伦敦工作日内发出。
抗议信也吸收了许多许多支持者的建议，尽量避免情绪化。但是我们还是不会拘泥于文章
的事实/逻辑问题，而会明白说出文章隐含的偏见色彩。我现在认为抗议本身也许能够
延伸出如何定义我们这个群体的public image,以及如何消除西方媒体民众对我们群体
image的stereotype的问题。当然这个不是小小一个抗议能起效的，明天我会写一个长
贴和大家讨论讨论
下面是抗议正式版:) 很多人的意见非常好，但是我没能力找出名字一一感谢了。。这
三天收了至少2000封email，回了1000封，还得给女儿喂奶哄睡，手快要断了:)
Dear Philip Campbell, Ph.D. and Editor-in-Chief of Nature,
We are a group of contributors, subscribers, and readers of Nature residing
in more than 20 countries and territories around the world. Many of us work
in academic and industrial research organizations. We have noticed a news
article that was published in Nature a few days ago, titled “Why great
Olympic feats raise suspicions”. We are very offended to see such an
article with serious scientific flaws and thinly veiled racial and political
bias to appear in Nature, one of the most respected scientific journals in
the world. With all due respect, we now launch a formal protest against
Nature, until Nature retracts this article and apologizes to Ye Shiwen and
all athletes who may have been offended.
At its reputation, we expect Nature to not only conduct the most stringent
scientific standard on its research papers, but also set a high bar for its
news reports. Unfortunately, this news article, authored by Mr. Ewen
Callaway, did not even come close to the basic news standard and ethics
expected for common mass media, not to mention the scientific merit expected
from Nature. With carefully chosen inappropriate wording in this article,
Callaway questioned China’s 16-year-old swimmer Ye Shiwen, who recently won
gold medals in both women’s 200-meter and 400-meter individual medley (200
and 400 IM) in London Olympics. Callaway concluded that Ye’s record-
breaking performance was “anomalous”, a statement that was only based on
selected/biased and even falsified fact.
To support his theory, Callaway questioned the recent “incredible”
improvement in Ye’s performance. In doing so, he conveniently overlooked
the fact that it is not uncommon for an elite and very young swimmer to
increase his/her performance in a relatively short time window. An
Australian swimmer and Olympics gold medalist, Ian Thorpe, said in defense
of Ye that he improved his 400-meter performance by 5 seconds around the
same age as Ye. UK’s Adrian Moorhouse, a Seoul Olympics gold medalist, also
testified openly that he “improved four seconds” at the age of 17. Both
examples only take a few clicks of the mouse to find out on the Internet.
Evidently, Callaway was using cherry-picked evidence to support his
suggestion, that Ye’s rapid improvement was never seen hence questionable.
Meanwhile we would also like to point out that Callaway also made factual
mistakes that exaggerated the misleading effect of this article: Ye’s
performance was in fact 7 seconds faster than her performance in Shanghai
World Championships more than a year ago, in July 2011 (NOT a few weeks ago,
in July 2012), and only 5 seconds faster than her personal best record (in
2010).
The other piece of evidence that Callaway cited to support his statement,
that Ye swam faster than US swimmer Ryan Lochte in the last 50 meters of the
men’s 400 IM in London, is unfortunately also without merit. Winning the
400 IM gold medal, Lochte did not (and didn’t have to) perform the best in
the final 50 meters. In fact, he only ranked 5th among 8 swimmers for the
last 50 meters only, at 29”10, which was significantly slower than Japan’s
Yuya Horihata (27”87) and three other swimmers competing in the same event
(Ye’s was 28”93). It could be that Lochte was way ahead of his
competitors in the first three splits so he did not have to strike too hard
in the final 50 meters, or that he had used up all his energy and had to
slow down. Nevertheless, one cannot only look at the final 50 meters of Ye’
s and Lochte’s games and conclude that Ye swam faster than a men’s
champion (and thus “anomalous”). In fact, Ye’s record-breaking
performance in women’s 400 IM (4’28”43) was a lot slower than Lochte’s
in men’s 400 IM (4’5”18). In addition, even if one only looks at the
final 50 meters, women have indeed outperformed men in the past. For example
, in last year’s World Championships in Shanghai, British swimmer Rebecca
Adlington won a gold medal in women’s 800-meter freestyle. In that event
her performance in the final 50 meters (28”91) was faster than that of both
Ye and Lochte in London. Again, Callaway was making a reckless conclusion
based on inappropriately selected fact.
Furthermore, we would like to point out that Callaway failed the basic moral
standard for media workers. To question the recent “anomalous”
performance of Ye, he strategically put the suggestion that “some swimming
experts wondered whether Ye’s win was aided by performance-enhancing drugs
”, a negative comment, in front of “she has never tested positive for a
banned substance and the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday declared
that her post-race test was clean”, without quoting the reply from the
player herself, or testimonies from other parties we have listed above. Such
careful phrasing made a good impression for the general readers that this
player was likely to be doping and did not face to the charge. Biased,
directed propaganda as such is found all over the article. For example, the
original subtitle of this article, “Performance profiling could help to
catch cheaters in sports”, put side-by-side with Ye’s picture, implicitly
linked Ye with the image of “cheaters”. Callaway further implied that Ye
might have doped “during training” and escaped the more rigorous tests
during Olympics. Neglecting the fact that Ye (and many other Olympic
medalists) were regularly spot-checked by unannounced flight inspection year
-round, such a statement is purely speculative and disrespectful to Ye and
all innocent professional athletes. Following this logic, any athlete can be
accused for “doping” without evidence presented. And ironically, those
being accused can hardly prove themselves innocent: even if they pass all
rigorous drug tests, they may (according to Callaway) still have doped at a
different time, or doped drugs that cannot be detected by current tests.
Although Callaway claimed that he was attempting to discuss “science”,
instead of “racial and political undertones”, readers readily detect the
innuendo of racism and political bias. Yes, as scientists we may all agree
that there are caveats in the current drug testing methods, and better
methodologies are always needed to promote the anti-doping effort. But why
did such a proposal emerge to single out the stunning performance from this
16-year-old gifted swimmer “from China”? Was it appropriate to imply that
Ye was found drug-clean only because the drug detection method was not
advanced enough? We are forced to seriously doubt the real motive and the “
racial and political undertones” that Callaway tried to disclaim in the
opening of the article. Backed up by the advancement of training and
supporting systems, athletes worldwide are continuously improving their
performance. World records constantly fade, including in London Olympics.
Shall we call these athletes “anomalous” and link them with doping and
cheating every time they go beyond their limits and become “Citius, Altius,
Fortius”?
For more than a century Nature has published numerous major breakthroughs
that greatly moved forward the knowledge of human society. Reading Nature
has helped us to keep updated with the rapid advancement of science and
technology. And many of us have chosen Nature to publish our best work.
However, Callaway’s article, scientifically flawed, racially directed, and
politically biased, was more suitable for tabloids than Nature. It has
tainted Nature’s reputation in the scientific community, and among the
general audience.
Lately Nature has made a few changes in this news article, including
replacing the offending subtitle of “catch cheater” and correcting a few
factual errors. We appreciate the self-correction from Nature, and encourage
Nature to take further actions to set the record straight. We urge Nature
to retract this article and publicly apologize to Ye and all athletes who
may have been offended immediately. Until appropriate actions are taken by
Nature, we will not:
1> submit papers to Nature;
2> review papers for Nature;
3> advertise in Nature for job openings and products;
4> purchase products and services advertised in Nature, when possible;
5> subscribe to Nature for individual or lab uses
Sincerely,
