Reproducibility is a big problem in biology right now. He probably thought he could delay people finding out until he can produce good legitimate research that might distract attention away from the faked data.

I was thinking, "please don't be Chinese" when I read the title. Fuck.

I was under the impression that the name Dong-Pyou Han was of Korean origin?

Han is a valid Chinese and Korean last name.

However, this researcher appears to be Chinese based on his previous publication history (he was affiliated with a university in Shanghai prior to coming to the states which is unlikely occurrence for a Korean)

I think you've got it wrong: http://www.nature.com/emm/journal/v32/n1/abs/emm20002a.html

He was previously affiliated with Yonsei University, located in Seoul.

Not to nitpick on the race here but Pyou is not a valid phonetic in any Chinese name.

Looking at his publications, he seems to be Korean. You can breathe easy. ;-)

Ugh.

> "I was thinking, "please don't be Chinese" when I read the title. Fuck."

Why, is this "a thing"? The closest thing I can think off the top of my head as another example is Hwang Woo-suk, but he was Korean.

This wiki page doesn't seem to have many Chinese names: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_misconduct

google: asian pressure to succeed

yeilds 7.660 million results

Its a generic and terrible stereotype, but then again | data

http://www.realclearscience.com/2013/09/30/china039s_black_m...

http://www.economist.com/news/china/21586845-flawed-system-j...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/world/asia/07fraud.html?pa...

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-12/02/china-academi...

Again, not any excuse for an overzealous association but the data are out there.

Perhaps he did not have a career to speak of. He was a assistant professor, so perhaps he needed something big to get tenure, or leave anyhow.

Edit This is a comment about the state of the educational system, not an excuse for forging data.

Smart people do dumb or evil things all the time. There was a submission to HN a while ago about someone who went to jail for fraud. But to get to that point he needed a lot of other people to help him or to turn away. He didn't need any clever manipulation. He just asked them. And each of them complied, knowing that what they were doing was wrong.

Maybe he's not that smart. He's an assistant professor, and who knows how many times he had cheated or plagiarized to even get to that position.

This. And what about the honest guy whose career was trampled so this guy could get the professorship?

Why is that obvious? We are all totally unaware of what percentage of the time that lie succeeds.

perhaps he thought that there might be a kernel of truth there that, even if his first data set didn't work, could be turned into something real.