Chapter 433: Secret Achievements

Not even USB drives or hard disks were allowed in the core area. Data could only be brought in as printed paper documents and then manually entered. This was the work assigned to the researchers’ wives.

All sorts of potential applications for the Nuwa System popped into Zhang Mingquan’s mind. ‘Looks like the Nuwa System’s analytical capabilities are incredibly powerful. The core rules in its analysis model can actually find genetic targets we’ve previously overlooked. This will be extremely useful for selective breeding and targeted therapies.’

Li Xiangyang stood up, retrieved a file from a metal cabinet, and handed it to Zhang Mingquan. “There’s one more thing. These 89 papers on gene therapy contain seriously flawed data. Currently, five classified microbiology research institutes have conducted secondary verifications, and they all suggest either academic fraud or fundamental theoretical errors.”

Hearing this, Zhang Mingquan quickly opened the file and glanced through the list of papers.

He was dumbfounded. The list included numerous papers from top-tier journals, both domestic and international.

One of them was from Zhang Mingquan’s own field of research. A paper by a Da Niu from the field, cited over a thousand times, had actually been flagged as fraudulent.

This was incredibly serious.

When a core paper like this had problems, it meant that any other papers that cited its data or theories were now also compromised.

In truth, this kind of problem was all too common.

Academic fraud was hardly a uniquely domestic phenomenon; it was happening in academic circles all over the world.

This was especially true for some research institutions in Europe and America. Heavily influenced by capital, they were sometimes forced by their financial backers to “embellish” parts of their data, making the papers appear to align with their patrons’ promotional needs.

For example, take tobacco, white sugar, alcohol, avocados, high-fructose corn syrup, and all sorts of bizarre health supplements. If you searched for papers using these as keywords, you would find many with completely contradictory conclusions.

Sometimes, you couldn’t even trust these scientific papers.

This was especially true for those extravagantly hyped health supplements. They’d claim some institution’s research found that a certain food had powerful antioxidant properties, and therefore could extend one’s lifespan.

However, if you looked into the research carefully, you would find that these antioxidant properties were only demonstrated outside of the cells, while a minuscule amount actually entered the cells and chromosomes.

This is what’s known as bioavailability.

No matter how well an antioxidant performs outside the cell, if it can’t get inside, or if only a tiny amount gets in, it’s completely useless.

Many foreign health supplements these days follow this same playbook.

This was another major reason why the domestic review process for foreign health supplements was so slow. The fraud in foreign foods, supplements, drugs, and additives was sometimes a systemic enterprise.

It was impossible to determine the true nature of these products in a short amount of time.

After all, the capital backing these manufacturing companies had been fabricating research from the very beginning, building up an enormous and convoluted body of literature for the entire product.

It was like a piece of software that had been running for a long time, its internal system a mountain of shit. Unless the whole thing completely crashed, you could never see the true state of the system.

This is why many capitalists love getting into the health supplement business, especially with ingredients that have low toxicity. They know people can consume them without major issues, so they frantically promote all sorts of benefits. As long as it doesn’t kill you, it’s not a big deal.

However, the emergence of the Nuwa System would very likely destroy the current health supplement industry.

As the Nuwa System accumulated more and more genetic data, the results of its model analysis would become increasingly comprehensive and accurate. At the same time, any conclusions that starkly conflicted with the Nuwa System’s findings would be re-examined by researchers.

The file in Zhang Mingquan’s hands listed problematic papers on topics including vitamins, cancer cells, antibiotics, probiotics, and enzymes.

After carefully reading through the flagged issues in these papers, he had to admit the massive boost the Nuwa System provided for genetic research. “This is a good thing, too.”

“It certainly is. At least it can expose some of these fraudulent papers and stop us from going further down the wrong path,” Li Xiangyang agreed wholeheartedly.

However, considering the base’s confidentiality requirements, they figured these exposed fraudulent papers could only be gradually revealed under some other pretext.

But the two of them were wrong. At that very moment, the base commander was on the phone, ordering all participating research institutions not to expose the fraudulent foreign papers.

It wasn’t that they were kowtowing to the West. Rather, while exposing the truth might seem like a slap in the face to Western academia, it would actually be helping them correct their mistakes and get back on the right track.

Therefore, the base commander ordered that they should only expose the fraudulent domestic papers, while simultaneously dealing strictly with the researchers who fabricated them to curb this dishonest trend.

As for foreign academia, it was better for the nation to let them sink deeper and deeper into their errors.

As for whether domestic academia might be led astray, that was unavoidable.

But it didn’t matter. As long as the core, non-classified research institutions knew which papers were problematic, other institutions wouldn’t necessarily rely on them for reference.

This was a strategy of “killing one thousand of the enemy at the cost of eight hundred of your own.”