I have written BBC the following email about the fact that their story
about the "Fresh blow for S Korea clone work" leaves out the important
role played by the online community. Ronda  ronda(at)panix.com

-----

Dear BBC's "Have Your Say"

You are leaving out the most important aspect of the story about the
revelation of fraud in the Science articles by Professor Hwang.

This fraud was first discovered and the understanding of it was spread by
the online scientific community in South Korea.

The news organizations uncovered some problems, but they couldn't understand
the science and thus could not clarify and help to focus on the problem.

It was the online scientific community, as I indicate in my article about
this below which was able to understand the problem and spread an understanding 
of it.

I explain this in the article below. The url is:

http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=266352&r
el_no=1&back_url
=

An earlier article which also explains about the role of the online 
community of scientists in uncovering the fraud is

 Korean Cloning Hero Deconstructed Online

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21647/1.html
I hope you will make a correction to your coverage of this important issue.

with best wishes

Ronda

South Korean 'Netizens of the Year'
<http://www.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=266352&rel_
no=1>

Following is an article about this that appears on OhmyNews
-----------------

The online scientific community and Internet media challenge old hierarchies  

Two contending sets of events have shaken the scientific community in South
Korea in the past few months. One is the fabrication of data and the ethical
violations that have come to light in research papers by the celebrated
scientist, Professor Hwang Woo Suk.(1)

The other is the role played by the online scientific community in South
Korea to support honest and collaborative scientific research. These two
contending events have significance not only to the development of science
in Korea, but also to the worldwide scientific community.

Much of the media coverage around the world has raised the specter of
scientific fraud in Hwang's scientific papers as a major indication of what
is happening in South Korea. Some media, however, both within Korea and
elsewhere, have noted that it was the online scientific community in Korea
that made it possible to understand the problems in those papers, by
functioning in the way that scientists are supposed to function.

An article that appeared in the *New York Times* in mid December noted (2):

"Although the new disclosures are being presented as a blow for South Korean
science, they can also be seen as a triumph for a cadre of well-trained
young Koreans for whom it became almost a pastime to turn up one flaw after
another in his work. All or almost all the criticisms that eventually
brought him down were first posted on Web sites used by young Korean
scientists."

While broad-ranging access to the Internet in South Korea has helped to make
possible this scientific discussion and commentary, it is the netizens of
the scientific community who have demonstrated a new form of scientific
review appropriate for the 21st century. (3) Netizens of the scientific
community in South Korea are posting on Web sites like BRIC the site of the 
Biological Research Information Center, and Scieng the site of the 
Association of Korean Scientists and Engineers, about the scientific problems 
in Hwang's articles.

Online newspapers and other Internet discussion forums and blogs not only
helped to amplify and spread knowledge of these critiques, but also
contributed with online discussion and commentary.

In the 1960s, the computer networking pioneer, J.C.R. Licklider proposed a 
vision for computer networking that would make it possible for scientists 
to collaborate and communicate in their endeavor to solve difficult problems. 
In an article he wrote with Robert Taylor titled, Licklicker envisions a 
future where computer networks will provide the scientific community with 
an environment that is "a common medium that can be contributed to and 
experimented with by all." (4)

The respected journal *Science* accepted and published Hwang's articles, but
failed to identify any problems. The netizens of BRIC and Scieng and other
online sites, demonstrated that their online communication and collaboration
was a powerful scientific force making it possible to unravel the problems
in these scientific articles. In South Korea, Licklider's vision for the
Internet is being realized.

OhmyNews proposes that the scientists who have posted on BRIC, Scieng and
related Web sites concerning the problems with Hwang's scientific papers,
are a hope for the future for science in Korea and states they have been
selected "Netizens of the Year."

A comment on the article [by id: dongilone] sums up this situation (5):

"I have firmly believed that truth prevails in the long run. I am choked
with overflowing emotions of relief and joy, when I am aware that the future
of Korean science will not be withered, with your brilliant performance,
suffering frequent slandering and other physical and mental threats to you,
young scientists, from blind followers of the God Lie...Momentary bitterness
of setback is to be welcomed when lasting longer sweet fruit is to be
savored."

As the article and comments about the achievements of young scientists in
Korea demonstrate, the online discussion process involving a broader
community of netizens concerned about an issue, who discuss it and share
their thoughts with others in the Internet community, is a powerful new
model for the evaluation of scientific work, and for the process of the
scientific work itself.

Too often, in South Korea and other countries, the graduate school and
laboratory culture in science is a hierarchical structure. Science, however,
needs a Brownian motion form of communication among all who are in the 
scientific world, rather than a hierarchy which limits who can contribute 
to those at the top.  The netizens of BRIC, Scieng and the online media have 
shown that there is something to be very proud of in South Korea.

---
Notes

1) Ronda Hauben, "Korean Cloning Hero Deconstructed Online: Online
Scientific Community in South Korea Uncovers Fabrication of Data in
Acclaimed Stem Cell Research Papers", "Telepolis", Dec. 24, 2005.
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21647/1.html

2) NICHOLAS WADE, "Scientist Faked Stem Cell Study, Associate Says," New
York Times Dec. 15, 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/science/15cnd-clone.html

3) In the 1990s, posts on the Internet forced Intel to withdraw a defective
pentium chip, see Michael Hauben, "The Effect of the Net on the Professional
News Media," in Hauben and Hauben, "Netizens: On the History and Impact of
Usenet and the Internet", Los Alamitos, IEEE Computer Society, 1997, p.
229-230.
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x13

4) Ronda Hauben, "Dawn of the Internet and Netizen", OhmyNews, Aug. 15,
2005.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=4&no=2423
11&rel_no=1


5) See article in Korean edition, [id: dagun76], OhmyNews, Dec. 21, 2005.
http://www.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=299945
2005/12/29 a.m 12:58  *(c) *2005 OhmyNews      copyright 1999-2005 OhmyNews -
mail to ohmynews 

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