摘要

中国在前进，美国也在前进。如果中国的科技要跟上美国，中国科研人员的水平和效率要比美国的更高。而如果美国科研人员的水平和效率要比中国的更高，那末中美的距离会继续拉大；或者乐观的看，距离维持现状。

http://www.infzm.com/content/trs/raw/31908

发表于： WangYX. Will the science and technology gap between China and USA becomes narrow, wider, or stay in the same in fifty years’ time? Quant Imaging Med Surg 2016;6(2):233-237.

Will the science and technology gap between China and USA becomes narrower, wider, or stay in the same in fifty years’ time?

                               Yì Xiáng Wáng, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

“The man who speaks about the future lies even when he tells the truth .”

Arab proverb

It is acknowledged that currently USA overall takes a wide lead in science and technology ahead of China. Will the science and technology gap between China and USA becomes narrower, wider, or stay in the same in fifty years’ time? This question recently occurred to me when a few reports in media claimed that China has become the ‘globally second player’ in research and development [R&D, 1, 2, 3]. Unfortunately, the data presented in these media were quantitative, mostly concerning the number of papers published, the number of graduate students trained, the amount of funds spent on R&D. The qualitative aspects of R&D in China have not been well studied. Back in 2011 Wadhwa noted that the engineer graduates in China were less skilled compared their USA counterparts (4). Wadhwa commented that ‘our (U.S.) engineers can think outside the box… U.S.-educated engineers learn a broad variety of skills…The graduates of U.S. engineering programs are productive from the day they graduate… Our engineering education system… gives us a big advantage in productivity, innovation and entrepreneurship’ . Wadhwa argues that there was no shortage of engineers in USA overall. In a free economy such as USA, supply responds to demand. Using salaries as the indicator, in most engineering professions salaries have not increased more than inflation over the past two decades, and graduating more of the wrong types of engineers is likely to increase unemployment rather than create jobs (4).

Wadhwa 在2011年表示，美国不缺乏工程师。美国是个自由经济体，能反映供求关系，过去的20年来工程师的工资基本没有涨。过多培养工程师可能只会造成失业。Wadhwa还表示，美国培养的工程师素质更高，更富有创造性。

Recently, the following three news headlines caught the author’s attention.The first news was brought about by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX, www.spacex.com), headed by Mr. Elon Musk with the ambitious goal of creating the technologies to reduce space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars. It is headquartered in Hawthorne, California, USA.On 22 December 2015 SpaceX launched an upgraded Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station into low Earth orbit.After completing its primary burn, the first stage of the multistage rocket detached from the second stage as usual. The first stage then fired some of its engines to send it back to Cape Canaveral, where it achieved the world's first successful landing of a rocket that was used for an orbital launch (4). Stage two successfully deployed eleven communication satellites for Orbcomm (satellite, www.orbcomm.com). This approach dramatically improves the cost for access to space (5).

2015年12月22日，SpaceX卫星回收成功。

The second news came from London. Google DeepMind (www.deepmind.com) is a British artificial intelligence company founded in 2010 as DeepMind Technologies (renamed when acquired by Google in 2014). In October 2015, a computer Go program called AlphaGo, powered by DeepMind, beat the European Go champion Fan Hui, five to zero. The announcement of the news was delayed until 27 January 2016 to coincide with the publication of a paper in the journal Nature describing the algorithms used (6,7).  As opposed to other artificial intelligences, which were developed for a pre-defined purpose and only function within its scope, according to Demis Hassabis, the founder of DeepMind, DeepMind has the aim that their system is not pre-programmed and it learns from experience. In addition, on 24 Feb 2016 DeepMind Health was launched, to work in partnership with NHS (National Health Service of UK) nurses and doctors to build and scale technologies to provide the better patient treatment (8).

2015年10月，DeepMind 人工智能围棋。

While the above two news were from the industry, the third new hailed from academia.  Gravitational waves are ripples in the curvature of space-time which propagate as waves, travelling outward from the source. Predicted in 1916 by Albert Einstein on the basis of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation. Various gravitational-wave observatories have been in operation. On February 11, 2016, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (www.ligo.org/)and Virgo Collaboration (www.ego-gw.it/) teams announced that they had first observation of gravitational waves from a pair of merging black holes using the Advanced LIGO detectors (9-11). That was 100 years after Einstein's prediction!

2016年2月11 日，观察到引力波

Why as the second player of R&D, China could not involve in similar exciting studies at  all?  I made a simplistic projection of science and technology gap between China and USA in the next 50 years, which shows unless there is a major improvement in R&D skills of Chinese scientists and management efficiency, the most likelihood is that the science and technology gap between China and USA will become even wider, or at best stay the same (Fig 1).

因为中国在前进，美国也在前进 (如前面的例子)。如果中国的科技要跟上美国，中国科研人员的水平和效率要比美国的更高。而如果美国科研人员的水平和效率要比中国的更高，那末中美的距离会继续拉大；或者乐观的看，距离维持现状。

The most worrying sign is that 40 years after the ending of culture revolution in 1976 and with the massive governmental investment in research and the return of overseas Chinese scientists (Figure 2), it looks major improvement in R&D skills andmanagement efficiency is not happening in China (Figure 3). Actually the university and research institution’s academic posts have been mostly filled recently, and unless scientists in China will make significant contribution to the Chinese society, the year-by-year increase of R&D spending is not sustainable. According to the observation by Murray, ‘history has worked out, the ages rich in giants have also been rich in near-giants and the rest of the significant figures…’ (12, page 249). This giants spring-up phenomenon is not happening in China yet.  In fact, it has been reported that the academic atmosphere is becoming more bureaucratic(13), and the institutional structures have become more centralized. Scientists and technologists are being attracted to utilitism, while there is less idealism and romanticism. Even the validity of state first class prizes for natural science has been highly disputed in recent years (14, 15).

令人担忧的是，中国文革结束已经40年了，除被世界科技进步带动外，中国本身原创科技并没有飞速发展。而且没有原创科技并较大规模飞速发展的苗头。近来的国家科技进步一等奖也颇有争议。

Figure 2The top 20 countries with R&D spending in year 2012. The corporation R&D spending is shown in the insert. Available online:http://data.worldbank.org/; http://stats.oecd.org/. R&D, research and development. Note the comparative small share of corporate R&D spending by Chinese companies. (from reference 16)

Figure 3. Concentration of major medical achievements toward later 1960s and early 1907s coincided with some technological successes in China.Y-axis is in artificial units. Blue-lines: top seven medical achievements inChina mainland since Xinhai Revolution (1). (I) Wu’s mask for plague prevention [1910]; (II) culture of chlamydia trachomatis in the yolk sac[1957]; (III) limb re-plantation [1963]; (IV) chemical of insulin [1965]; (V) Artemisine[1972]; (VI) arsenic trioxide (As2O3) [1974]; (VII) all-trans retinoic acid [1988]. Red-lines: (I) first successful test of nuclear bomb in China[1964]; (II) first successful test of nuclear-bomb carrying earth-to-earthmissile in China [1966]; (III) first successful test of hydrogen bomb in China[1967]; (IV) first successful launching of satellite in China [1970].Green-line: Longping Yuan’s hybrid rice culture [1974].  (from reference 17)

Of note, the technology break through from SpaceX and DeepMind are both from industry, however, the R&D spending in Chinese corporations remains low (Figure 2). Another example promoted my pessimistic prediction is the relative development track record of two industrial giants in USA and China, i.e. Google (www.google.com)and Baidu (www.baidu.com)respectively. Incorporated on September 4, 1998, Google Inc. is an American company specializing in internet-related services and products, with the headquarter in Mountain View, California, USA. Sixteen months later, Baidu, Inc. a Chinese internet-related services company, was incorporated on January 18, 2000, with the headquarter at Beijing.While Google has since then developed into a multinational technology company, developed (and acquired) Gmail, Googlemap, Google translate, Android, YouTube etc products which I use a lot. Baidu remains pretty much a domestic company (18). While I use both English and Chinese languages, I rarely use Baidu. Among others, Google is also investing in quantum computing, driverless cars and vehicles. In October 2014, according to the Interbrand ranking,Google was the second most valuable brand in the world (behind Apple)with a valuation of $107.4 billion (19). A Millward Brown report from the same year puts the Google brand ahead of Apple's at #1 (20). The paradox of large mainland Chinese internet companies like Alibaba, Tencent or Baidu is that they may only be successful domestically, since most of them are copies of existing foreign companies and they owe their success to government protection(18).

虽然中国的研发费用占世界第二，但企业研发费用占的比重极小。谷歌和百度两个企业成立时间相差16个月。谷歌的发展世界瞩目，而百度仍然为区域性公司。中国的科技公司的成功主要依靠得到政府的支持，而总体难以参与国际竞争。

Government grants and subsidies are no guarantee of success, and may eventually be counterproductive (page 265, 21). Silicon Valley’s leading technologists are developing businesses that are so profoundly innovative that they create entirely new industries which change the way humans live and work. Radical ambitions require a certain defiance, disregard for authority and conventional thinking (18, 22). And that is crucible for the irrefutable confirmation of Euro-America’s leadership and domination of every major innovation in technology (18). It is the kind of success that every government has sought but cannot mandate (18). Naubahar Sharif at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology recently noted: "All economies want to become a Silicon Valley. Very few are able to do it." (23). In the end, China cannot claim being one of the leaders in R&D unless China has vibrant and innovative industries(24).

基本上所有的经济体都希望成为硅谷，但真正能够做到的很少, 大部分都缺乏<硅谷精神>。

Historically China did not have strong track record in doing high quality sciences. Using as tatistical data base Dong et al. (25) concluded that the European area has been active in various scientific activities since 500 BC, and its scientific and technological achievements have always been outperforming China, and this is also reflected by the ancient architectural monuments scattered in the Eurasian Land. Similar accounts have been well illustrated by Charles Murray in his book ‘Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950’ (11). As discussed above, there is no apparent sign yet that the scientific activities significantly deviated from the historical norm. In the foreseeable future, China is more likely to remain a learner (and therefore adapting herself) and participant, instead of a leader in science and technology innovation. The traffic between China and USA will likely to remain mainly one-sided. One the other hand, the author expects the relative strength of USA vs. Western Europe in science and technology will remains more or less the same, due to the fluidly flow of human resources, capital, and the cultural and structural integration.

中国的历史2000多年来一直没有很好的科学精神及很高的科学成就，迄今没有迹象显示这个历史轨迹得到很好修正。作者预测欧洲与美国的相对科技水平50年后基本与现在相似。欧洲与美国间有资金和人才的自由流通，及文化和政治的整合。

However, as one famous Arab proverb says, “The man who speaks about the future lies even when he tells the truth.” It was said the truest rule of stock market it its unpredictability (page 31, 26).  I hope I will be able to live long enough to see I was wrong this time.

作者承认预测未来是很困难的，并希望这次预测错误。

Acknowledgement:

During the course of preparation of this manuscript, on this topic I interacted with colleagues from a number institutions, including, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University,China; Yonsei University, National Cancer Center, S. Korea;  Kyoto University, Japan; Sheffield University; UK; Guerbet Group, France; Harvard University, USA; and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR. I thank these colleagues for their inspiring comments. Some agreed with my pessimistic view while others were more up-beating. Interestingly, those of Chinese heritage were more likely to agree with me.

References:

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availableon-line <http://scitech.people.com.cn/n1/2016/0223/c1007-28142816.html>  

Science andTechnology Daily No.10548, 23 Feb 2016. In Chinese

2. Yu XJ,Zhang LX. Detailed data from USA show China is the second major research anddevelopment country which cannot be ignored.

availableon-line <http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2016-02/23/c_1118130517.htm>

XinhuaNet 23Feb 2016.  In Chinese

3. Xie Y, Zhang C, Lai Q. China’s rise as a major contributor to science and technology Proc. Natl.Acad. Sci., 2014; 111: 9437–9442

4.Wadhwa V ‘PresidentObama, there is no engineer shortage’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/national/on-innovations/president-obama-there-is-no-engineer-shortage/2011/09/01/gIQADpmpuJ_story.html TheWashington post. September 1, 2011

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<https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/679114269485436928> 22 December 2015.

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9. LIGO Scientific Collaboration andVirgo Collaboration. Observation of Gravitational Waves froma Binary Black Hole Merger. Phys Rev Lett.2016;116:061102.

10.Castelvecchi, Davide; Witze, Witze (February 11, 2016)."Einstein'sgravitational waves found at last". Nature News.doi:10.1038/nature.2016.19361.

11.  "Gravitational waves detected 100 years afterEinstein's prediction” <http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=137628> 11 February, 2016

12. Murray C. Human Accomplishment:The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950. New York:HarperCollins, 2003.

13. Chen ZZ.  Today’s science andtechnology atmosphere is becoming less democratic. Comments by ProfessorGuang-Zhao Zhou  Available online: <http://www.infzm.com/content/trs/raw/31908>.In Chinese.

Nanfang Zhoumo December 18, 2007

14. The president ofCentral South University denies plagiarism on state first prize for classnatural science project.  <http://news.ifeng.com/a/20150204/43091508_0.shtml>In Chinese.

Phenix News Feb 4, 2015

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Jan 15, 2016 (accessed onMarch 5, 2016)

16. Wáng YX. Why China iscurrently underperforming in medical innovation and what China can do aboutit?—Part II. Quant Imaging Med Surg 2015;5:335-339.

17. Wáng YX, Xiao F. WhyChina is currently underperforming in medical innovation and what China can doabout it?—Part I. Quant Imaging Med Surg 2015;5:332-334.

18. Guy P. HK must introduceinnovative technology model <http://www.scmp.com/business/global-economy/article/1814349/hk-must-introduce-innovative-technology-model>South China Morning Post. 31 May, 2015,

19. Elliott S. "Technologytitans lead ranking of most valuable brands". The New YorkTimes. October 8, 2014.

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<http://www.millwardbrown.com/docs/default-source/global-brandz-downloads/global/2014_BrandZ_Top100_Chart.pdf>

21. Mahbubani K. Can Asians Think? Singapore: MarshallCavendish Editions, 2009

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23. Lee E. Hong Kong must embraceinnovation or die. <http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/1890123/hong-kong-must-embrace-innovation-or-die-warn-experts-scmp>   South ChinaMorning Post. 12 December, 2015,

24. Wáng YX, Li T. A longway ahead to improve the cost-effectiveness of biomedical research in China. JThorac Dis 2015;7:E62-E64.

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26. Malkiel BG, EllisCD.  The elements of Investing, NewJersey, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010

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移过来保留的

汤飞凡教授的衣原体贡献 在中国 有没有夸大？

已有 981 次阅读 2016-8-29 21:39 |系统分类:教学心得   推荐到群组

缘起http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-2966991-999414.html

我专业不是微生物：
但我的理解是沙眼衣原体的治疗其实比较容易简单，以前的流行主要是卫生条件不好。

MacCallum和Findlay在1938年发现淋巴肉芽肿的致病体 (衣原体)对磺胺类药物敏感[94/1938年]。

Thygeson报道了磺胺类药物成功治疗成人及新生儿的(沙眼)结膜炎[95/ 1940年]。

学者之后发现四环素类药物治疗衣原体比其他抗生素更敏感[96/1956年]。

94. MacCallum FO,Findlay GM. Chemotherapeutic experiments onthe virus of lymphogranulomainguinale. Lancet 1938;232:136-9.

95. Thygeson P. TheTreatment of Inclusion Conjunctivitis withSulfanilamide. Trans Am OphthalmolSoc 1940;38:111-24.

96. Bedson SP. The modeof virus multiplication and the susceptibility of these agents to theantibiotics. J Clin Pathol 1956;9:83-93.

目前多西环素是治疗衣原体最有效的广谱抗生素之一[74]。

----

[11]王毅翔 2016-8-29 17:54

Budai I. Chlamydiatrachomatis:milestones in clinical and microbiological diagnostics in the lasthundredyears: a review. Acta Microbiol Immunol Hung 2007;54:5-22  一篇很好的历史综述，可以纠正国内许多人对于这段历史的误解。

[10]王毅翔 2016-8-29 17:18

6. 卵黄囊培育沙眼衣原体
1904年Waelsch描述了一种症状轻微的非淋球菌感染尿道炎。膀胱尿道镜检查发现这种尿道炎症所致的粘膜结节样改变与沙眼十分相似[74,75]。在1907年，将一位男性沙眼患者眼刮片感染给猩猩后，LudwigHalberstaedter和StanislausvonProwazek在猩猩眼结膜刮片上发现一种细胞内包涵体[76]。1909年Halberstaedter和vonProwazek首次描述了在新生儿发现类似沙眼致病体的病原体[77]。第二年Frietsch和Heyman发表了个案报道了新生儿结膜炎患者的结膜刮片及其母亲的宫颈刮片中发现这种类似沙眼致病体的包涵体。
1957年北京生物制品研究所的汤飞凡等人使用卵黄囊成功培育沙眼衣原体[90，91]。最后1959年Jones等人成功分离出了沙眼结膜炎包涵体，即沙眼衣原体[93]。
MacCallum和Findlay在1938年发现淋巴肉芽肿的致病体 (衣原体)对磺胺类药物敏感[94]。Thygeson报道了磺胺类药物成功治疗成人及新生儿的(沙眼)结膜炎[95]。学者之后发现四环素类药物治疗衣原体比其他抗生素更敏感[96]。目前多西环素是治疗衣原体最有效的广谱抗生素之一[74]。

[9]王毅翔 2016-8-29 17:16

参考文献请参见英文原版。
Wáng YX, Xiao F. Top fivemedicalinnovations in China mainland since Xinhairevolution (1911):results of AMEsurvey-002. Quant Imaging Med Surg 2015.;5:453-66.
链接地址：http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-2649160-949631.html

[8]王毅翔 2016-8-29 17:14

我有个评论，汤老的贡献在中国被夸大了。

王毅翔  2016-8-3023:48

Burnet and Rountree cultivated successfully the causative agentof psittacosis in the chorio-allantoic membrane of developing chick embryo thefirst time in 1935 (87). In the same year, Miyagawa et al. cultivated first thecausative agent of lymphogranuloma inguinale using the same method of egginoculation (88). Rake et al. managed to reproduce this experiment in the yolksac of the developing chick embryo in 1940 (89).
For long time, the attempts to cultivate trachoma virus in embryonated eggsfailed. In 1957 Dr. TANG Feifan et al. at National Vaccine and Serum Institutein Beijing succeeded to cultivate trachoma virus in the yolk sac (90,91). Thisexperiment was reproduced by Collier and Sowa in 1958 (92). Finally in 1959 theagent of inclusion conjuctivitis was successfully isolated by Jones et al. (93)

汤敏骞  2016-8-3022:14

最好不夸大不缩小，但受国人思维“高大全上”（网传视频刘道玉在武汉大学最后一场演讲评论山东某大学大门花费巨资时用语）思维定势的大环境影响，似乎在今天中国很难做到，但是还是要经过努力，争取不断缩短差距，最终做到。

博主回复(2016-8-30 23:44)：Burnet and Rountree cultivated successfullythe causative agent of psittacosis in the chorio-allantoic membrane ofdeveloping chick embryo the first time in
1935 (87). In the same year, Miyagawa et al. cultivated first the causativeagent of lymphogranuloma inguinale using the same method of egg inoculation(88). Rake et al. managed to reproduce this experiment in the yolk sac of thedeveloping chick embryo in 1940 (89).
For long time, the attempts to cultivate trachoma virus in embryonated eggsfailed. In 1957 Dr. TANG Feifan et al. at National Vaccine and Serum Institutein Beijing succeeded to cultivate trachoma virus in the yolk sac (90,91). This
experiment was reproduced by Collier and Sowa in 1958 (92). Finally in 1959 theagent of inclusion conjuctivitis was successfully isolated by Jones et al. (93)

博主回复(2016-8-30 22:18)：最好不夸大不缩小。
我一直写汤老对于中国的贡献是巨大的。

王毅翔  2016-8-3021:37

国内宣传的是沙眼衣原体是汤老发现的，实际上当然不是。

王毅翔  2016-8-3021:32

日本野口英世 1896年，20歲便取得醫生證書。之後，在1898年改名英世，並在高山齒科醫學院擔任講師。同一年，開始在北里柴三郎的北里傳染病研究所服務。但是，由於研究所內的工作人員都是東京帝國大學醫學部出身的，他因為學歷的理由而受到同事的冷漠對待。

1915年9月、回國。在橫濱港、許多人跑出來迎接野口英世。他在日本各地舉行演講會許多人都邀情他去演講，讓他在日本的時候忙得不可開交。另一方面日本的醫學界就連一場演講會也不請他出席，可見他們對野口英世的態度相當冷漠。因此之後，野口英世就此再也沒有回母國。

野口英世曾被三度提名諾貝爾醫學獎，而最後一次有機會獲獎，卻因為第一次世界大戰發生，而宣佈取消頒獎。野口英世是日本享譽國際的醫學家，不僅在日本被視為國民英雄，國際社會也認可他對於醫學的貢獻。

博主回复(2016-8-30 22:22)：日本的门户之见到现在还是非常厉

王毅翔  2016-8-2921:45

约半年以前与一位网友讨论过，讨论后他基本同意了我的观点。
另外是国际沙眼组织，我查了一下，感觉是小型的民间组织（？我看了他们文件后的体会）。
汤教授对于中国国产抗生素的发展还是贡献巨大的。

博主回复(2016-8-30 22:20)：http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-2966991-999414.html
缘起