A career in the sciences can be intense and competitive. Depending on the discipline, more than half of doctoral students don’t graduate. For those who do, there can be great pressure to publish and develop innovative research.
Although it’s rare, there have been a few noted instances in which scientists have lied to advance their interests. In other cases, opportunistic individuals or eager entrepreneurs have faked scientific evidence to swindle others. Regardless of the source, those lies can blossom into major hoaxes that shock the scientific community — and the public.
Read more: 3 Historic Hoaxes That Duped The Masses, Scientists Or Media
These hoaxes aren’t from hundreds of years ago, when skeptics didn’t have modern technology to debunk deceit. Here are three relatively-recent scientific cons:
When a farmer in the late 1990s uncovered a dinosaur fossil in China’s Liaoning providence, they knew they had found a money-maker. Many important ...
