Eugenics, the pseudo-science of racial pecking orders, was so much the rage in academiccircles from the late 19th century through the 1930s that even a towering liberal figure like Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes believed in it.
The two well-respected economists created a minor stir in academiccircles a few years back when they published "A Theory of Prostitution" in the Journal of Political Economy.
Yet its rapid uptake since 1994, when access to the Internet first spread beyond China's elite academic and scientific circles, suggests demand will be huge.
He is structuring programs that are relevant beyond academiccircles and promote a kind of research that serves the human person in his or her community.
The news of Mr Shi's recognition triggered a heated debate in academiccircles, China Youth Daily notes in an article republished by Xinhua news agency.
The man behind the technology is Immerz CEO and president Shahriar Afshar, a physics researcher infamous in academiccircles for a controversial experiment he conducted on Harvard in quantum mechanics.