The road to hell is paved with good intentions – micro incentive and macro behavior

Each year I return to China I learn something new about Chinese academia and her myriad problems from the obvious to the subtle.  This visit past summer is no exception.  While many problems and their remedies are clear, some systemic problems have very subtle causes. A very good book by the Nobel prize winning author, Thomas Schelling, entitled “Micro-motives and Macro-behavior” (W. W. Norton and Company, 1978. ) discusses in general and in detail the problem of individual motives that result in unintended or unexpected societal results.

Let us start by be accepting the fact that under current condition, academia will be under the control of the government and the party.  True academic freedom will not happen in the foreseeable future in China. We shall also assume that the administrator in charge has the best of intentions to govern fairly and justly.  They will try to establish rules and/or administrative orders to prevent abuse and bad behavior.  But as the saying in the title of this article “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. There are often unintended bad consequences for every act despite the good intentions. 

Example 1. Because the reward associated with quantitative count of one’s publications, a practice has developed among scholars to add each other’s name to one’s own publications even though the co-author has not done any of the work in the paper . This “quid pro quo” act benefit both parties. In order to stop this practice, some university administration has decreed that a publication will not count unless the author happens to be the PI of the project on which the paper is based.  But this ruling also discourages any genuine collaboration among scholars which often are the motivating engines behind progress.

Example 2. Young scholars in university often has to help supervise students of senior professors whose project supports the work of the student.  Under the current practice, the student and the senior professor have their name as first and second author.  The young scholar at best becomes the third author of any resultant publication for which s/he will get no credit towards future promotion. This is because of the ruling in some universities that being third or fourth author earns no credit towards the quantitative  count of one’s accomplishment in order to fight the problem of “author name padding” similar to the intention of example #1 above. The intention is again good. But multiple authorship in many disciplines are traditional. Arbitrary rules cannot cover all situations. And it is grossly unfair to young scholars who have yet to have their own project and are not certified to supervise ph.d students (in all top ranked universities in the US, every faculty member including assistant professors can supervise ph.d thesis).

Example 3.  Joint work wipth foreign authors are not counted. I don’t know the origin of this rule whether it is from insecurity or genuine inability to evaluate foreign journals publications. But if Chinese science wishes to be world class and world renown, why discourage collaboration with foreign authors? After all, publications in “Science”  and  “Nature” which tend to favor life and physical  science are prized. “ Impact factor” is influential.  Prizes /Awards given by foreign  institutions are valued. But this puts an impossible burden on young upcoming scholars. Truly worthwhile award and/or membership in every discipline are few and often come much later in life. I have known cases where a well qualified candidate were denied election to academician status for precisely this reasoning (because most of his contributions were published in foreign journals)

If the rules of the above examples were applied to me, I would never have received tenure at Harvard in the Nineteen Sixties.  It is true that PEER REVIEW of quality makes mistakes. But it is the best system the world has.

 

On the other hand, I am still optimistic based on my experience.  Many leaders are basically fair, understanding, and willing to be flexible. These rules were promulgated with good intention and administrative necessity.  Many though not all injustices due to these rules can and have been resolved on a case-by-case basis.

通往地狱的路是好意铺就的——论微观动机与宏观行为

 

每年我回到中国，都会了解到有关中国学术界的一些新事物，其中既有大至显而易见的，也有小到难以察觉的种种问题，过去的这个夏天也不例外。虽然许多问题和它们的解决办法是明显的，但一些体制性问题却有着难以捉摸的原因。获得诺贝尔奖的作家Thomas Schelling曾写过一本非常好的书，叫做《微观动机与宏观行为》（“Micro-motives and Macro-behavior”, W. W. Norton and Company, 1978.）。这本书概括并详细地讨论了个体动机的问题，这些动机造成了无意的或者意料之外的社会结果。

 

让我们先接受一个事实吧，那就是在当前的情况下，学术界被政府和党掌控。在可见的未来里，中国不会出现真正的学术自由。同时，我们也要假定管理者拥有最好的意图，公平公正地进行管理。他们设法确立规则和（或）行政秩序，来防止各种弊端和不良行为。但正如这篇博文标题中的谚语所说的，“通往地狱的路是好意铺就的”。尽管每项举措的意图都是好的，但常常也会酿成无心之过。

 

例1.            由于发表的论文数量与奖励挂钩，学者中流行一种做法，即相互挂名，尽管这些所谓的共同作者并没有实际为论文做出任何贡献。这种“等价交换”（quid pro quo）的做法让双方互惠互利。为了遏制这种做法，一些大学的管理部门规定，除非作者正好是该科研项目的PI，否则这篇论文不算数。不过，这一规定同样妨碍了那些学者间真正的合作，而这种合作往往是科学进步背后的推动力。

 

例2.            大学里的青年学者通常不得不辅助更有资历的年长的教授指导学生，这些教授的项目支持着学生的研究工作。按照当前的惯例，学生和年长教授分别署名第一和第二作者，对于任何有结果的论文而言，青年学者充其量不过是第三作者，正因如此，他／她没有得到可以用来晋升的资本。造成这种情况的原因是，一些大学为了打击类似例１中的“作者姓名泛滥”行为，特别规定第三或者第四作者不计入个人成就的定量统计。这个规定的意图也是很不错的，但多位作者共同署名在许多学科中是一种传统惯例。武断的规定不能涵盖所有的情况。而且这对那些暂时还没有自己的科研项目、也不具备博导资格的青年学者极不公平（在所有美国的一流大学里，只要是教授，助理教授都可以带博士的）。

 

例3.            与国外科学家合作的研究工作不算数。我不知道这一规定的起源，是出于不安全感，抑或是真的没有能力评价国外期刊发表的论文。但如果中国科学希望达到世界水平，享誉全球，为何要阻止与国外科学家的合作？其实偏爱生命科学和数理科学的《科学》和《自然》杂志上发表的论文在国内是很受追捧的，“影响因子”也很被看重，国外研究机构颁发的奖励或给予的头衔也很管用，但这些对正在成长中的年轻学者来说是难以承受的重压。每个领域中，真正有意义的奖励或者头衔少之又少，而且往往在人生的后半期才会姗姗来迟。我曾知道一些例子，就是因为这个原因（大部分的工作都发表在国外期刊上），相当优秀的候选人没有选上院士。

 

如果上述的这些规定施加在我身上，那么我绝不可能在20世纪60年代就获得哈佛的终身职位。同行评审确实会出错，但它是目前世界上最好的评价系统。

 

另一方面，从我的经历来看，我依然很乐观。许多领导人本质上上还是公平的、善解人意的，并且愿意做出改变。人们制定这些规定的时候意图是好的，也是为了满足管理上的需求。这些规定带来的许多但非所有的不公平的案例可以并且已经得到了妥善解决。（科学网 任霄鹏/译 何姣/校）

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