Summary of Key Points
Geng, a self-media blogger in his thirties, initially aimed to increase his salary and improve his social status by pursuing a doctoral degree. However, due to the disappointing research environment and the shattering of his dreams, he switched to creating popular science content on self-media platforms. By chance, he began to expose fraud in the academic community, subsequently reporting paper fraud involving academicians and outstanding researchers from universities such as Tongji University and Sun Yat-sen University, which attracted widespread attention. The fame came with pressures including account restrictions and harassment of his family. He longs for a quieter life. Geng also points out the root causes of academic fraud: a flawed evaluation system and a lack of oversight, and proposes solutions such as conducting duplicate experiments and involving multiple people in the supervision process.
I. From Aspiring to Amass a Fortune to Academic Fraud Detection: The Life Transition of Student Geng
Geng’s starting point was quite practical; as a child, he dreamed of becoming a prominent figure like Lei Luo (even dreaming of amassing a fortune of six hundred million yuan), and later pursued a master's and doctoral degree in hopes of a higher salary. But after starting his Ph.D., he realized the poor research conditions—lack of funding for his supervisor and meaningless experiments (for example, spending hundreds of thousands to prove that something meaningless was indeed meaningless), which completely shattered his aspirations.
While creating popular science content, he stumbled upon instances of academic fraud: initially, he just followed debates by Rao Yi and Geng Meiyu, then noticed absurd papers on topics like postpartum care for men, and later discovered high levels of image repetition in the papers of a vice dean at Nanjing University. These experiences led him to systematically fight fraud, gradually becoming a pioneer in exposing academic misconduct.
II. How Common is Academic Fraud? From Nurses to Academicians, Everyone Is Involved
Geng bluntly states that 99% of the papers in the field of life sciences could be discarded without affecting the development of the discipline. Examples are abundant:
- A nurse from a hospital in Shandong published a paper on “uterine fibroids in men” with a formatting error;
- Wang Min, the vice dean of Nanjing University Gulou Hospital (a returnee from Yale), had half of her papers with duplicate images;
- Papers by academicians and outstanding researchers from Tongji, Sun Yat-sen, and other universities in Nature sub-journals showed clearly fabricated data;
- Ordinary doctors and nurses published papers to meet job requirements, sometimes without even a laboratory, yet still managed to produce results (the source of the data remains mysterious).
Ironically, even the data from outstanding research groups are considered relatively clean; fraud is even more rampant in less prestigious groups. Shi Yigong once said that discarding 90% of papers would not affect the field, and Geng believes that 99% of papers are fraudulent—indicating that it is not an isolated issue but a common practice within the industry.
III. Why Is Fraud So Widespread? The Evaluation System Forces People to Take Shortcuts
The core reason is the “paper-first” evaluation system:
- Universities and supervisors: The number of papers and the prestige of the journals directly determine funding and career advancement (for example, publishing in Nature grants more resources);
- Students: They must publish papers to graduate, and supervisors have even higher expectations, with the threat of delayed graduation or failure to graduate if they don’t;
- Journals: To boost their “impact factor” (a measure of journal influence), they prefer “showy” papers with high citation rates, yet the review process is lax; when problems arise, the journals shift the blame onto the authors while maintaining a passive role.
Under this system, everyone rushes to take shortcuts: either fabricating data (e.g., misgendering subjects) or deleting data (e.g., removing experimental results that contradict conclusions), as no one really checks the original data.
IV. The Cost of Fighting Fraud: Fame, Pressure, and the Desire to Disappear
Geng’s efforts to expose fraud gained him fame but also brought trouble:
- His account was permanently restricted by the platform;
- His family faced unnecessary harassment;
- He was confronted by the parties involved in the fraud (for example, a foreign academician from the Russian Academy of Engineering threatened violence and demanded the removal of his videos);
- Faced with numerous media interviews, he felt exhausted: “I wish I had reported anonymously; the pressure is too much; I just want to disappear.”
He initially intended to find fraudulent papers and update videos regularly but found himself at the center of a storm. This highlights the loneliness and risks faced by those who fight academic fraud—challenging established rules inevitably leads to hostility from those with vested interests.
V. How to Address Academic Fraud? Geng’s Solutions
Geng proposes several practical solutions:
1. Multiple People Supervising Experiments: Have 2-3 people participate in an experiment to ensure mutual oversight (e.g., different individuals conduct different parts of the experiment for more accurate data). The downside is that this would reduce the number of published papers, and many are reluctant to do so due to concerns about affecting awards and evaluations;
2. Combining Punishment with Promotion: Not only should fraud be exposed, but also genuine scientific research should be highlighted (e.g., groups that conduct duplicate experiments and produce solid results);
3. AI-Assisted Fraud Detection: Use AI to narrow down the scope of fraud, but professional judgment is still needed (for example, knowing what normal experimental outcomes look like to identify anomalies);
4. Reforming the Evaluation System: Reduce the emphasis on the number of papers and place more value on the practicality of research results—in an era of AI, resources are abundant, so there’s no need for competitive spending on funding, and people will naturally pursue genuine scientific research.
He also mentions that the sense of achievement from doing genuine research is similar to his childhood ambition of amassing a fortune—this might be what motivates him to continue.
Conclusion
Geng’s story is not just about an individual’s journey in fighting fraud but also a reflection of the chaos in the academic community. His experience shows that academic fraud is not a hidden issue; it requires someone to speak out. However, to truly change the situation, a complete transformation of the evaluation system and oversight mechanisms is necessary. Geng’s desire for a quieter life also reflects the dilemma faced by fraud fighters: standing out against established rules comes at a great cost. Nevertheless, his presence has at least brought the true nature of the academic community to light and offers a glimmer of hope for change.