Author: 胡翌霖

From Melamine to Thesis Plagiarism Checks: A Completely Meaningless Detection-and-Evasion Battle

Culture & Public Commentary2019.02.15
From Melamine to Thesis Plagiarism Checks: A Completely Meaningless Detection-and-Evasion Battle
An impromptu submission to Jiemian; I finished writing it at noon and it went up in the afternoon~ The recent Zhai Tianlin incident made “CNKI” and its plagiarism-checking technology quite the sensation. Netizens spontaneously helped run plagiarism checks on Zhai Tianlin’s paper and found the rate of duplication to be as high as 40%, causing his image as a top student to collapse. I’m not particularly interested in Zhai Tianlin’s image crisis; I’m more inclined to hitch a ride on the hot topic and talk about my own views on plagiarism-checking technology for theses. Plagiarism checking has been popular for many years now. I have always taken a critical and…
China technology scholarship commentary
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2019年2月15日
From Deep to Shallow—Summary of the Introduction to Philosophy of Technology Course

Teaching & Courses2019.01.31
From Deep to Shallow—Summary of the Introduction to Philosophy of Technology Course
The second course I taught for undergraduates at Tsinghua, “Introduction to Philosophy of Technology,” has now come to a fairly successful close. I had already posted a summary of comments on the assignments for “Introduction to Philosophy of Technology”. Now let me give a proper summary. Overall Design This course, together with the earlier General History of Technology, is one of the two general-education courses I have been “scheming” to build. Once I have taught these two courses well, I may also try offering courses such as “General History of Science,” or “History of the Industrial Revolution,” “Introduction to Philosophy of Science,” and “History of Science and Philosophy,” but for…
philosophy course Heidegger Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2019年1月31日
A Compilation of Feedback on the Homework for Introduction to Philosophy of Technology

Teaching & Courses2019.01.28
A Compilation of Feedback on the Homework for Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
After grading the final papers, the semester is finally over. This semester’s *Introduction to the Philosophy of Technology* was a brand-new course, and over the next two years it will probably be offered alternately with *A General History of Technology*. I’ll write a separate course summary a bit later. For now, let me first gather together the comments I gave on the assignments. In fact, ever since I started teaching I’ve always insisted on giving students written feedback on their papers, but why did I want to post it this time? On the one hand, I wanted to blow my own horn a bit. Some students said that there really…
philosophy scholarship course Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2019年1月28日
Is Chinese Studies Anti-Science?

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2019.01.25
Is Chinese Studies Anti-Science?
At the request of China Science Daily, this was published in the January 28, 2019, issue of China Science Daily, page 1. Recently, two things within the education system have stirred up heated discussion: one is the “mind-boggling exam paper” from Beihai College of Art in Guangxi, and the other is Sun Nan and his wife sending their child to attend a “Guoxue class.” These incidents are by no means accidental isolated cases. Some commentators have already linked them to “Quan Jian,” seeing in them all the spread of a certain “anti-intellectualism,” or, to put it another way, a lack of public scientific literacy. The college that produced the mind-boggling…
China freedom commentary education
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2019年1月25日
Can a Screen Change the Fate of Education?

Culture & Public Commentary2018.12.14
Can a Screen Change the Fate of Education?
It has also been posted on Jiemian; for reposting, please contact Jiemian~ When it was published, the title was changed somewhat clickbaity, becoming “It Is Hard for a Screen Alone to Change the Fate of Education; Bullet Chat May Be Able To.” In fact, that sentence is not quite accurate. What I meant was that there may be many ways to change the fate of education, and this screen may not be the right direction. But since we’re dealing with mass media, I’m willing to accept a bit of clickbait in the title; the content itself was not changed much. When it was published, I deleted a middle section, “The…
commentary education internet history of technology
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2018年12月14日
How Can Ethics in the Technological Age Welcome the Future? [Fourth Commentary]

Culture & Public Commentary2018.12.09
How Can Ethics in the Technological Age Welcome the Future? [Fourth Commentary]
This one was also published on Jiemian (for reprints, please contact Jiemian), but it was not a commissioned piece. I wrote it casually and sent it to them. The feedback was that the quality was worse than the previous two, which may have had something to do with the rather rambling way I wrote this one, or perhaps with the fact that the issues this article faced were more tangled and its viewpoint correspondingly more moderate. Still, they did publish it, but with very extensive changes: the title was altered (Can Technological Progress Really Tailor Human Value Preferences?), and the He Jiankui theme was also removed (don’t ask why; just…
technology commentary tradition value
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2018年12月9日
Is Eugenics Justifiable? — A Delayed Judgment [Third Review]

Culture & Public Commentary2018.12.07
Is Eugenics Justifiable? — A Delayed Judgment [Third Review]
At the turn from the 19th to the 20th century, as Darwin’s theory of evolution gained popularity, “eugenics” arose one after another in several countries in Europe and America. Various countries adopted all kinds of compulsory or incentivizing birth-control policies, encouraging some people (the healthy, the highly intelligent) to have more children, while suppressing the reproduction of others (the sick or the “low-end population”). It was not until eugenics became linked with genocide in Nazi hands that it finally fell into disrepute. So after World War II, in addition to trying the Nazis for their crimes, the international community also abolished eugenic policies one after another. With the rise of…
philosophy technology commentary modernity
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2018年12月7日
The Abdication of Royal Power and the Reform of the International System of Units

History of Science & Scholarship2018.12.07
The Abdication of Royal Power and the Reform of the International System of Units
Published in the *Chang’e* supplement of *Science and Technology Daily*; it has now also been turned into a WeChat public account article, with only minor changes made at publication. In fact, the piece had been commissioned back then, but I caught a cold and it was delayed for a while; only now have I remembered to make it up. On November 13, the 26th General Conference on Weights and Measures, held in Versailles, France, passed a resolution revising the International System of Units and redefined four units, including the kilogram, in terms of physical constants. With that, all seven base units of the International System of Units will have been…
science history of science history decentralization
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2018年12月7日
The Disappearance of “Grace” — A Second Discussion of the He Jiankui Affair

Culture & Public Commentary2018.12.05
The Disappearance of “Grace” — A Second Discussion of the He Jiankui Affair
The commission came from Jiemian (for reprints, please contact Jiemian); when it was published, the title was changed to “Gene Technology and the Disappearance of Human Gratitude and Awe,” and the content was hardly altered. It is said that when my mother was pregnant with me, she heard some folk remedy from somewhere, saying that if she wanted my skin to be a bit fairer, she should eat watermelon every day. The result was that this remedy clearly had no effect; after eating dozens of watermelons, she still gave birth to me dark and sturdy… Wanting one’s child to be smart, beautiful, and healthy is every parent’s wish. In order…
technology commentary Heidegger modernity
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2018年12月5日
“Passing the Buck” Is the Greatest Danger Exposed by the He Jiankui Incident

Culture & Public Commentary2018.12.04
“Passing the Buck” Is the Greatest Danger Exposed by the He Jiankui Incident
The Chinese Science News commissioned this piece, which was published on December 4, 2018, on page 1, “Top News”. At the time of publication, the title was changed to “Who Should Bear Responsibility for the He Jiankui Incident,” and the content was also somewhat polished. I am posting the original draft here. Recently, the birth of two gene-edited babies has shocked the world and brought the issue of science-and-technology ethics into the public eye. In recent years, China’s scientific and technological development has been rapid, and in many fields it has already caught up with the international standard, even reaching world-class levels. But as the He Jiankui incident has exposed,…
China technology commentary tech ethics
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2018年12月4日