b*****d
发帖数: 61690 | 1 http://www.cbisociety.org/
Nature should adhere to fact-based and unbiased reporting
Philip Campbell, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief, Nature
Dear Dr. Campbell:
We write on behalf of the Chinese Biological Investigators Society (CBIS) to
express our deep concern regarding a recent news article, titled "Why great
Olympic feats raise suspicions" (www.nature.com/news/why-great-olympic-
feats-raise-suspicions-1.11109, August 1, 2012), in which Ewen Callaway
discussed the performance of Ye Shiwen, a 16-year old Chinese swimmer who
won the gold medal in both 200m and 400m medley (IM) during the London
Olympics. We respectfully request that the article be retracted, as its
entire premise is based on manufactured "facts". We do not intend to defend
the innocence or guilt of a particular athlete, but feel that Nature, a
prestigious scientific journal, should stick to fact-based reporting and
minimize bias.
The premise of Callaway's article is that Ye's performance is anomalous,
implying that no one else has accomplished such a feat without the aid of
performance-enhancing drugs. This premise is based on two pieces of so
called "anomalies", which are completely manufactured by cherry picking data
to support an accusation that does not have a shred of evidence.
First, Callaway stated that Ye's 400m IM improved by 7 seconds over a period
of one year. This is misleading because Ye's personal best was not set in
July of 2011 but in 2010 when she was 14. She improved her performance at
the Olympics final by 5 seconds over her prior personal best. Most
importantly, such an improvement is not anomalous but instead is EXPECTED
for elite swimmers of Ye's age, as they grow bigger and stronger. There are
many cases in which elite swimmers experienced a significant improvement at
a young age. For example, Ian Thorpe, a great Australian swimmer, took 5
seconds off his 400m freestyle between the age of 15 and 16, and Adrian
Moorhouse, a great UK swimmer and a Seoul Olympics gold medalist, stated
that he improved by four seconds at the age of 17. The same happened to
other elite swimmers, including the other seven swimmers in the 400m IM
final (Fig. 1). Furthermore, if one looks at improvements as a percentage
among the gold medalists in swimming in the London Olympics, Ye improved her
personal best by 2% in 400m IM, whereas, R¨±ta Meilutyt?, a 15-year old
Lithuanian swimmer, improved hers by over 4% in 100m breaststroke.
Second, Callaway stated that Ye really raised eyebrows by her showing in the
last 50 metres, in which she swam faster than American swimmer Ryan Lochte
did when he won gold in the men's 400m IM, with the second-fastest time ever
for that event. What Callaway failed to mention is that Ye actually was
over 23 seconds slower than Lochte, an eternity for elite swimmers at this
distance. More importantly, Lochte's last 50-metre swim is no where near the
second-fastest time ever for that event, and several other swimmers in the
same final were faster than him and faster than Ye. Lochte only ranked 5th
in the last 50 meters, at 29"10, which was significantly slower than Japan's
Yuya Horihata (27"87) and three other swimmers competing in the same event.
Ye's time was 28"93.
What really troubled us is how Callaway could have made such mistakes, as
the information described above has been widely reported in the media and
could be found on the internet with only a few clicks. We find it really
unfortunate that, with manipulated facts, the article leaves readers with an
unmistakable impression that Nature is putting a stamp of scientific
approval for the unsubstantiated speculation in Western media - namely, Ye's
feat is humanly impossible without the aid of performance enhancing drugs.
We would like to further emphasize that while our data provide a more
complete backdrop to Ye's achievement, they do not and should not negate the
spectacular performance of Ye in winning the gold medal and shattering the
world record.
Many of our members have published research articles in Nature, which we
hold at high regard as a top-quality scientific journal, and have been
helping Nature to review manuscripts. Thus, we are deeply disappointed that
your editorial process allows such a news article, in which data were cherry
picked to support, consciously or not, suspicion of doping on an athlete
with clean test results. This type of journalism should have no place in pop
media, let alone a journal like Nature. We hope you are not abandoning fact
-based and unbiased reporting, as is required for a scientific journal, and
will take appropriate action to correct this unfortunate mistake. This
includes publishing a rebuttal article countering Callaway's article and/or
retracting Callaway's unsubstantiated article.
Weimin Zhong¹*;, Hao Wu²*;, & Linheng Li³*;
¹*;Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale
University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA, w**********[email protected], 1-203-
432-9233
²*;Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Children's Hospital
Boston, Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology,
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA, hao.wu@childrens.
harvard.edu, 1-617-713-8160
³*;Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, Missouri 64110,
USA, L*[email protected], 1-816-926-4081
*The authors are, respectively, Vice President, Board Member and President
of the Chinese Biological Investigators Society
Figure legend
Figure 1. Substantial improvement of performance within one year is not "
anomalous". a, The 2005-2012 timing record of the eight finalists in women's
400 IM, 2012 Olympics, pulled from the website of the official organization
of aquatic sports, F¨¦d¨¦ration Internationale de Natation (
FINA). All data points represent the best performance of each athlete in
each calendar year, with 80% of them ranked top 20 worldwide at the time on
the event. b, Recorded performance leap of the same athletes early during
their career, with ages marked above the bars. LZR swimming suits and their
counterparts, which reportedly could enhance performance by around 2% (
roughly 6 seconds in this event), were launched in February of 2008, and
later banned by FINA in January of 2010. Of note, at age 16 and as the
youngest of the eight, Ye's improvement from her top-level performance in
2010-11 is indeed a remarkable achievement. However, fast improvement at an
early age is not isolated in this field. This figure is courtesy of Guangbo
Chen, Stowers Institute for Medical Research. |
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