Buzz
Scientists who make extraordinary or groundbreaking discoveries can gain substantial fame and wealth. While this often motivates good research, it is sometimes exploited. This list highlights 10 cases of scientific fraud that managed to deceive many. Consider this as a reminder that certain so-called scientific 'findings' should be approached with a pinch of skeptically warmed salt.
10. Jan Hendrik Schön
Jan Henrik Schön (shown on the left), a researcher at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, had five papers published in Nature and seven in Science between 1998 and 2001, all focusing on advanced topics in electronics. Although his work was complex, he was regarded by many as a rising star in the field.
In 2002, a committee concluded that he had fabricated his results on at least 16 occasions, causing significant public embarrassment for his colleagues, his employer, and the editorial boards of both journals that had published his findings.
By that time, Schön, still only 32 years old, acknowledged: 'I must admit that I made several mistakes in my scientific research, which I deeply regret.' According to Nature, he also remarked, 'I genuinely believe that the reported scientific effects are real, exciting, and worth pursuing.' He refused to elaborate further.
9. The Cardiff Giant
The Cardiff Giant is one of the most notorious hoaxes in American history. It was a 3-meter (10-foot) petrified human figure, discovered in 1869 by a team of workers digging a well behind William Newell's home in Cardiff, New York. However, the giant was actually the creation of George Hull, a New Yorker and atheist, who made it as a prank on the fundamentalist minister Mr. Turk, who believed that the Bible described literal giants who roamed the Earth.
The giant became so famous that P.T. Barnum offered $60,000 for a three-month lease of it. When his offer was rejected, he had a replica made and put it on display. The replica became even more popular than the original, leading the owner of the 'authentic' fake to try and sue Barnum. The judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that unless the original could be proven real, there was no issue with Barnum creating his own version of the fake.
8. The Perpetual Motion Machine
Vehicles that run on water and fusion machines that produce more energy than they consume are common fantasies among inventors. They keep appearing time and again. In 1813, Charles Redheffer raised substantial funds in Philadelphia with his perpetual motion machine, which he then took to New York, where hundreds paid a dollar each to witness it.
The machine appeared to continue turning on its own. Eventually, skeptics offered a large sum of money to 'prove' it was a fraud. Redheffer accepted the money, and the skeptics removed some wooden strips from the wall near the machine. Behind them, they discovered a cat-gut belt drive that ran through a wall to an attic, where an elderly man was turning a crank with one hand while eating a loaf of bread with the other.
7. The Lying Stones
In 1726, Johann Beringer from Würzburg published descriptions of fossils discovered near the Bavarian town. These fossils included 'lizards in their skin, birds with beaks and eyes, spiders with their webs, and frogs copulating.' Some stones he found also featured Hebrew letters YHVH, representing Jehovah or God. He believed these were natural products of the 'plastic power' of the inorganic world, and he wrote about it in a book.
In reality, these fossils had been deliberately planted by jealous colleagues. According to the legend, Beringer went bankrupt trying to buy back every copy of his book, and the fossils came to be known as lügensteine, or 'lying stones.' The colleagues behind the hoax lost their jobs and their reputations due to the scandal.
6. The Tasaday Tribe
In 1971, Philippine government minister Manuel Elizalde claimed to have discovered a small Stone Age tribe living in isolation on the island of Mindanao. Known as the Tasaday, this tribe spoke a unique language, used stone tools, and displayed other Stone Age characteristics. Their discovery made headlines on television, appeared on the cover of National Geographic, and inspired a bestselling book. When anthropologists sought to study the tribe further, President Marcos declared the land a reserve, prohibiting access to all outsiders.
However, when Marcos was ousted in 1986, two journalists visited the area and found that the Tasaday actually lived in houses, traded with local farmers, wore jeans and t-shirts, and spoke a modern local dialect. The Tasaday explained that they had been pressured by Elizalde to live in caves and adopt a Stone Age lifestyle. Elizalde had fled the country in 1983, taking millions of dollars that he had embezzled from a foundation set up to protect the Tasaday people.
5. Discoveries of Shinichi Fujimura
Shinichi Fujimura was regarded as one of Japan’s leading archaeologists, despite being self-taught. His career began in 1981 with the discovery of stoneware dating back 40,000 years, marking it as the oldest stoneware ever found in Japan. This discovery catapulted his career. In the years that followed, he unearthed increasingly older artifacts, pushing the boundaries of Japan's known pre-history.
In October 2000, Fujimura uncovered a cluster of stone tools that he believed had been made by early humans, along with several holes that he claimed were intended for supporting primitive dwellings. The find was thought to be over 600,000 years old, making it the oldest evidence of human habitation ever discovered. This breakthrough attracted worldwide attention.
However, on November 5, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper published three photographs on its front page showing Fujimura digging holes at the site and burying the artifacts he later 'discovered' (see image above). During a press conference that day, Fujimura confessed to planting the stones and faking most of his finds. With his head bowed in disgrace, he admitted, 'I was tempted by the Devil.'
4. The Great Moon Hoax
In August of 1835, the New York Sun published a series of articles that detailed an extraordinary series of astronomical discoveries supposedly made by the British astronomer Sir John Herschel using a unique, large telescope and special methods. The articles claimed that Herschel had developed a 'new theory of cometary phenomena,' discovered planets in other star systems, and 'solved or corrected nearly every leading problem of mathematical astronomy.' The most astonishing claim was that Herschel had found intelligent life on the moon.
The article described vast forests, seas, and lilac-colored pyramids on the moon's surface. It also mentioned herds of bison roaming the plains and blue unicorns living atop the hills.
Of course, the article was a highly elaborate hoax. Herschel had not actually observed life on the moon, nor had he made any of the astronomical breakthroughs attributed to him in the article. In fact, it was revealed that Herschel wasn't even aware of many of the discoveries claimed to be his. Nevertheless, the Sun continued to print the article until the public finally realized it was a hoax.
3. Piltdown Man
The Piltdown Man is one of the most infamous hoaxes in history, where fragments of a skull and jawbone discovered in 1912 were initially believed to be the remains of an early human ancestor. The specimen was given the scientific name 'Eoanthropus Dawsoni' in honor of its discoverer, Charles Dawson. However, in 1953, it was revealed to be a fraud, consisting of an orangutan's jawbone and a fully mature human skull.
The Piltdown hoax remains one of the most renowned frauds in the history of science. Its notoriety is due to two factors: the significant attention it drew to the topic of evolution, and the fact that it remained undiscovered as a fraud for over 40 years.
Sources: The Guardian, Wikipedia, The Museum of Hoaxes
2. The Sokal Affair
The Sokal affair was a hoax orchestrated by Alan Sokal, a physicist, aimed at the postmodern cultural studies journal Social Text, which was published by Duke University. In 1996, Sokal submitted a paper filled with nonsense disguised in complex jargon to test if the journal would publish an article that (a) sounded credible and (b) aligned with the editors' ideological biases.
The paper, titled 'Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity', was published in the journal's 'Science Wars' edition that year. Upon publication, Sokal revealed in another paper that the article was a hoax. He criticized Social Text, calling it 'a pastiche of left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense.' This revelation sparked a heated debate, especially regarding the ethics of academic publishing.
A more recent example of a similar situation is the 2005 'Rooter Paper', which was a paper generated by a computer and then submitted – and mistakenly accepted – as legitimate for a scientific conference.
1. Lamarckian Inheritance
In the 1920s, Austrian scientist Paul Kammerer conducted an experiment to demonstrate that Lamarckian inheritance – the idea that organisms could acquire traits and pass them on to their offspring – was possible. He used the Midwife Toad, a species that typically mates on land and lacks the scaly black bumps on its hind limbs found in other toads that mate in water. Kammerer claimed that by forcing midwife toads to mate in water, he could make them develop the same bumps.
Kammerer continued mating generations of the toads in a water-filled fish tank. After some time, he proclaimed success and presented a group of midwife toads with black bumps on their hind limbs as proof.
However, in 1926, Dr. G.K. Noble examined the toads and discovered that the black bumps were actually ink injected into the toads' hind legs. When the hoax was revealed, Kammerer denied injecting the ink himself and suggested one of his lab assistants might have been responsible. Kammerer tragically took his own life just days after the scandal broke.
