Chinese Universities Surge in Global Rankings as U.S. Schools Slip

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work in engineering R&D. Whenever I see a scientific paper published by US/Europe/Japanese organizations that give a promising result, I'm able to reproduce the results. For the Chinese organizations, for the vast majority of time, I'm either unable to reproduce the results or once I invest time on the paper, I realize that the authors did not present the full picture that would unveil the cons of their solution.

I'm a STEM academic and can confidently say that you are lying or at least exaggerating. It is often very difficult to reproduce experimental results not because they are wrong, but because it can be extremely costly to create the test conditions under which the results are obtained. For example, you cannot easily generate the physical conditions needed to observe superconductivity, certainly not with the capability of an average lab. You also cannot easily conduct clinical trials involving thousands of human/animal subjects that last several years before a conclusion can be drawn, for obvious reasons. Thus, it is likely that you are at least exaggerating.

Moreover, I don't care about China but reproducibility of scientific results is not so clear cut as to "US/Europe/Japanese = yes" and "China = often no." There are many honest, dedicated Chinese scientists, and there are also some dishonest scientists from US/Europe/Japanese. For instance, German scientists Jan Hendrik Schön who fabricated data about superconductivity (my field) came to mind. It's equal opportunity cheating, depending little on their countries of origin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in engineering R&D. Whenever I see a scientific paper published by US/Europe/Japanese organizations that give a promising result, I'm able to reproduce the results. For the Chinese organizations, for the vast majority of time, I'm either unable to reproduce the results or once I invest time on the paper, I realize that the authors did not present the full picture that would unveil the cons of their solution.

And if you work in engineering R&D, hopefully you have a basic understanding of statistics and know that your narrow experience does not represent the universe of Chinese research.

I've read hundreds, if not thousands, of papers. And believe me. I know how statistics work.

Apparently not if you think that your experience as an internet rando counts as data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in engineering R&D. Whenever I see a scientific paper published by US/Europe/Japanese organizations that give a promising result, I'm able to reproduce the results. For the Chinese organizations, for the vast majority of time, I'm either unable to reproduce the results or once I invest time on the paper, I realize that the authors did not present the full picture that would unveil the cons of their solution.

I'm a STEM academic and can confidently say that you are lying or at least exaggerating. It is often very difficult to reproduce experimental results not because they are wrong, but because it can be extremely costly to create the test conditions under which the results are obtained. For example, you cannot easily generate the physical conditions needed to observe superconductivity, certainly not with the capability of an average lab. You also cannot easily conduct clinical trials involving thousands of human/animal subjects that last several years before a conclusion can be drawn, for obvious reasons. Thus, it is likely that you are at least exaggerating.

Moreover, I don't care about China but reproducibility of scientific results is not so clear cut as to "US/Europe/Japanese = yes" and "China = often no." There are many honest, dedicated Chinese scientists, and there are also some dishonest scientists from US/Europe/Japanese. For instance, German scientists Jan Hendrik Schön who fabricated data about superconductivity (my field) came to mind. It's equal opportunity cheating, depending little on their countries of origin.

Since you’re researchers, what’s your take on the NYTimes article? What does it mean for American high school students? Are American STEM programs still worth attending?

[Anonymous]

Many "STEM" programs in the PRC are really glorified technician training

US engineering programs are very solid, virtually all are rigorous, thanks to ABET.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in engineering R&D. Whenever I see a scientific paper published by US/Europe/Japanese organizations that give a promising result, I'm able to reproduce the results. For the Chinese organizations, for the vast majority of time, I'm either unable to reproduce the results or once I invest time on the paper, I realize that the authors did not present the full picture that would unveil the cons of their solution.

I'm a STEM academic and can confidently say that you are lying or at least exaggerating. It is often very difficult to reproduce experimental results not because they are wrong, but because it can be extremely costly to create the test conditions under which the results are obtained. For example, you cannot easily generate the physical conditions needed to observe superconductivity, certainly not with the capability of an average lab. You also cannot easily conduct clinical trials involving thousands of human/animal subjects that last several years before a conclusion can be drawn, for obvious reasons. Thus, it is likely that you are at least exaggerating.

Moreover, I don't care about China but reproducibility of scientific results is not so clear cut as to "US/Europe/Japanese = yes" and "China = often no." There are many honest, dedicated Chinese scientists, and there are also some dishonest scientists from US/Europe/Japanese. For instance, German scientists Jan Hendrik Schön who fabricated data about superconductivity (my field) came to mind. It's equal opportunity cheating, depending little on their countries of origin.

You erroneously assumed I'm in a wet lab or doing clinical trials. Why do you assume that? In my field, we do computer simulations that model real-world conditions. There are standard ways of doing that. If I spend enough time on a paper and there is sufficient information (most of the time there is), I can write computer simulations to validate the results of the paper. So I'm not lying, nor exaggerating. I'm yet to encounter a useful Chinese paper in my field. They mislead the reader. There is one good researcher I know from Hong Kong, but that's not really China.

[Anonymous]

So before you accuse someone of lying, enlarge your horizon. That's number one requirement for being a scientist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ranking increased the weighting of the rote memorization category.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the rankings they utilized for the article.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/latest/world-ranking

Top 20 US Universities per Times is below for 2026

US Rank World Rank
1.MIT (W) #2
2. Princeton W 3
3. Harvard W5
4. Stanford W 5
5 Cal Tech W 7
6 UC Berkely W9
7 Yale W10
8 Penn W14
9 UChicago W15
10 JHU W16
11 Cornell W18
12 UCLA W18
13 Columbia W20
14 UMichigan W25
15 CMU W24
16 University of Washington W25
17Duke W28
18 Northwestern W30
19 NYU W 31
20 Georgia Tech W41

That is NOT the rankings the article is talking about.

+1 some of you people are not capable of reading a New York Times article.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in engineering R&D. Whenever I see a scientific paper published by US/Europe/Japanese organizations that give a promising result, I'm able to reproduce the results. For the Chinese organizations, for the vast majority of time, I'm either unable to reproduce the results or once I invest time on the paper, I realize that the authors did not present the full picture that would unveil the cons of their solution.

I'm a STEM academic and can confidently say that you are lying or at least exaggerating. It is often very difficult to reproduce experimental results not because they are wrong, but because it can be extremely costly to create the test conditions under which the results are obtained. For example, you cannot easily generate the physical conditions needed to observe superconductivity, certainly not with the capability of an average lab. You also cannot easily conduct clinical trials involving thousands of human/animal subjects that last several years before a conclusion can be drawn, for obvious reasons. Thus, it is likely that you are at least exaggerating.

Moreover, I don't care about China but reproducibility of scientific results is not so clear cut as to "US/Europe/Japanese = yes" and "China = often no." There are many honest, dedicated Chinese scientists, and there are also some dishonest scientists from US/Europe/Japanese. For instance, German scientists Jan Hendrik Schön who fabricated data about superconductivity (my field) came to mind. It's equal opportunity cheating, depending little on their countries of origin.

You erroneously assumed I'm in a wet lab or doing clinical trials. Why do you assume that? In my field, we do computer simulations that model real-world conditions. There are standard ways of doing that. If I spend enough time on a paper and there is sufficient information (most of the time there is), I can write computer simulations to validate the results of the paper. So I'm not lying, nor exaggerating. I'm yet to encounter a useful Chinese paper in my field. They mislead the reader. There is one good researcher I know from Hong Kong, but that's not really China.

Amen to that!

[Anonymous]

Many Chinese American scientists are leaving the US for China after studying here. This is how China will race ahead of the US in AI and other tech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many Chinese American scientists are leaving the US for China after studying here. This is how China will race ahead of the US in AI and other tech.

What complete and utter nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many Chinese American scientists are leaving the US for China after studying here. This is how China will race ahead of the US in AI and other tech.

Doesn’t matter. The U.S. top tech is dominated by Chinese anyways

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many "STEM" programs in the PRC are really glorified technician training

US engineering programs are very solid, virtually all are rigorous, thanks to ABET.

Gotcha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many Chinese American scientists are leaving the US for China after studying here. This is how China will race ahead of the US in AI and other tech.

Doesn’t matter. The U.S. top tech is dominated by Chinese anyways

You meant the Chinese attended those schools in China?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well duh. When you shut down research, that’s what’ll happen.

This has been going on for years, maybe decades. It didn't start this year.
But yeah, defunding research didn't help.
Brain draining was our go to move for maintaining academic superiority. Now China is brain draining us.