ESWN has translated a number of articles describing a heated Phoenix TV debate concerning the pseudoscience question. Guests question each other’s credentials, the audience nearly erupts into physical violence, and everyone leaves frustrated.
Well, almost everyone. Outsider mathematician Jiang Chunxuan was satisfied with his appearance on the program:
For a person like Jiang Chunxuan, there had never been any opportunity to speak out in public. He Zuoxiu, Fang Zhouzi and Sima Nan controlled the opinions, talked rubbish and trashed us. We can now speak out and therefore they are scared and want to divert attention.
This was my first opportunity to participate in this kind of program. I thought that the Phoenix TV program was very good. It provided an opportunity for us and for everyone in the whole world who does not understand this matter to find out about what is going on.
It’s interesting that Jiang Chunxuan feels that his voice is being stifled. True, he’s not part of the establishment, like He Zuoxiu (with CAS) or Sima Nan (a journalist and CAST collaborator), but people within the establishment have been championing his cause for years. Song Zhenghai, the CAS science historian who is attempting to eliminate the term ‘pseudoscience’, has held Jiang up as an example of the sort of Chinese scientist who is internationally recognized but domestically ignored. In a defense of Jiang and other outsider scientists written in 2003, Song blamed the Chinese science world itself for this willful oversight – established scientists are afraid that if Jiang’s conclusions were to be accepted, the whole system would be up-ended. Hence their decision to ignore him completely.
However, today’s wired world gives scholars more opportunities for expression. Much of Fang Zhouzi’s influence, for example, comes from his New Threads website, which he has leveraged into columnist spots in the mainstream media. Song Zhenghai’s petition gained its traction online as well.
Outsider scientists ought to be able to do the same thing – New Media was supposed to be an equalizing platform, one where anyone could start a webpage or a blog to communicate their ideas to a wider audience. Why is it that Jiang Chunxuan felt voiceless until his opinions were aired on a television program?
- ESWN: Phoenix TV pseudoscience articles
- Committee for Skeptical Inquiry: Sima Nan bio (1999) (note: this a skeptics’ website, so don’t expect an unbiased account)
- China Daily: Plea to raise profile of ‘grassroots scientists’ (2005)
- Southern Weekly (Chinese): The perplexing “Jiang Chunxuan phenomenon” (2003)