Every society needs talented people in a variety of fields. As long as every member of a society is able to realize his potential, that society will make progress. The best strategy for accelerating improvement of people's quality of life in Taiwan is to create a knowledge-based society and a knowledge-based economy.
There is hope of reaching this goal by training large numbers of people to develop analytical skills, contemplative ability, good judgement and creativity. Striving for excellence in academic and scientific research, upgrading industry and accumulating intellectual property must also be undertaken.
Over the past decade, many senior academics living abroad have been invited to return to Taiwan and offer their services here to promote scientific research and improve aca-demic standards. In recent years, the number of research papers published in Taiwan has increased greatly, while the impact of the journals publishing them and the number of citations they receive have climbed higher.
Disappointingly, however, Taiwan's international academic ranking has been dropping year after year. What has gone wrong? Academics have been debating this question endlessly, and various emergency measures that have lacked careful consideration -- such as national research projects and plans to integrate various universities -- have emerged from these discussions.
But as long as we haven't found the true reason behind the nation's failure to achieve acade-mic excellence and haven't thoroughly revised our attitudes toward academic research, whatever we do will only be a waste of energy and resources.
The reason why we have slipped is that other countries have advanced rapidly, causing our research work to appear, by contrast, to be lagging behind. We should really be asking why our advancement has been slower than that of other countries.
I believe there are many reasons. First of all, government investment in academic research has been unstable and insuffi-cient. That fact makes it difficult to attract young people to join the ranks of those doing academic research or encourage researchers to focus their attention on their work.
Secondly, the mistaken notions of the media and society in general -- that "a high official must have great learning" and "a high position connotes great wisdom" -- attract outstanding scholars to engage too enthusiastically in administrative work and neglect their important responsibility to serve as model "research academics" for younger students.
Young students today have no opportunity to get to know acade-mics who are truly focused on research. Instead, they take academics who are no longer actively doing research as their role models. To a greater or lesser extent, this will impede academic progress.
However, our most fundamen-tal problems stem from the lack of flexibility in the salary structure for academics, which makes it difficult to throw off the restrictions imposed by outdated cultural notions.
In our society, academics play a lofty role -- they are viewed as being unsullied by material interests and are supposed to have little regard for fame and fortune. But actually, the goal of the majority of people is to seek a comfortable life and a pleasant career. Moreover, people have a responsibility to their families. As long as one's methods are honest, what is there to scorn about fame and fortune?
In our society, scholars must adhere to a higher moral standard than other professionals. Who knows how many young people with the interest and ability to do academic research have elected to take high-income jobs as doctors, lawyers, managers or engineers for this reason.
If we want to attract first-rate people to do academic research, we can't rely solely on lip service. Only a flexible and competitive salary structure will truly attract the young.
Furthermore, Confucius and Mencius taught a message of straight-and-narrow culture and upheld the notion of a strictly ethical society. Individual challenges to authority are seen as inappropriate. Members of our society lack a risk-taking spirit. Moreover, those who march to the beat of their own drummer frequently come under pressure from society. These cultural notions run counter to the quest for academic excellence.
Our intellectuals frequently cite the classics in both their speech and writing. They love to quote famous lines by great historical figures to prove that their own views are correct. Just imagine -- if one's ideas are virtually the same as those of historical figures, what contribution has one made? Even more absurdly, how much and how well one has quoted others often becomes the only index of one's learning.
Being too deeply steeped in history and culture and having inordinate admiration for deep erudition -- as well as the corresponding lack of appreciation and respect for originality and creativity -- are key factors preventing us from achieving academic excellence.
Western scholars also quote ancient literature, but their intent is different. They quote in order to respect the rights and interests of earlier scholars while at the same time showing that their own results differ from those of their predecessors. The point is to prove that one didn't plagiarize and to emphasize one's own contribution.
In Western society, only papers and works that contribute something new are valuable. Rehashing the points made by great historical figures and adding a twist with a few inferences of one's own isn't work an ambitious scholar would do. Nobody who does this will be considered a great scholar.
In 1905, when Albert Einstein was 26 years old and had just received his doctorate, within the space of one year he published three original, theoretical papers that fundamentally influenced 20th century physics. Moreover, the mathematics he used was no deeper than what our high-school students can handle.
From this example, we can easily see that creating new concepts is the most important ingredient in scientific research. Erudition is of secondary importance. This point is radically different from our traditional ideas. If we fail to thoroughly eradicate the mistaken notions that we have unconsciously absorbed by force of habit, then no matter how we struggle, we will never rise above mediocrity.
We have yet another characteristic that runs counter to achieving excellence: the blind worship of authority, which is seen in how people often lack the courage to either challenge or transcend those in power. Whether or not such challenges are feasible is another question, but if we don't even have this kind of courage and resolve, we should save our time and resources and happily accept second place.
We need to train scientists who are confident, filled with ambitious resolve and who are willing to take risks and challenge and surpass themselves as well as those in authority, and who can develop their potential to the limit.
Tsong Tien-tzou is a research fellow at the Institute of Physics at the Academia Sinica.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
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