Actually there is very little fraud (intentional deception) in evolutionary science. As in other fields, fraud in science tends to occur where the most money is. Unsurprisingly a large proportion of scientific fraud occurs in the biomedical fields as this is where a large proportion of research dollars are spent.
There are probably some others, but only two or three examples of fraud in evolutionary biology or paleontology come to mind.
One is the famous Piltdown Hoax. It is the most exceptional in that there seems to have been no financial motivation involved, nor even any motivation of personal glory or reputation (in that the hoaxer never revealed himself, and was almost certainly not among those who published substantial scientific results based on the fossils). Another was the recent Archaeoraptor liaoningensis hoax, which was more typical in apparently involving a Chinese fossil merchant trying to turn a buck. In neither of these cases was the fraud perpetrated by the scientists publicizing the finds; in both cases they were the "dupes".
The only case that comes to mind where the perpetrator and promter of the fraud were one in the same person would be the misleading drawings of vertebrate embryos by Haekel in the 19th century. Even in this case it should be borne in mind that Haekel's drawings were slanted on behalf of a particular theory (embryonic recapitulation) which was widely disputed by other evolutionists even in his own time, and has no currency today.
Do you know of any other examples of evolutionary fraud (intentional deception)?
Don't you realize that scientists don't lie or distort?
Nature's Editors Conceal Fraud
case report D.K.Yuryev, d.yuryev@mtu-net.ru Apparently, most editors of sci. journals publicly agree that to some extent they are responsible for publishing fraudulent papers (as well as erroneous, plagiarized etc.). So did Nature's editor P.Campbell, declaring in a recent big "briefing on science and fraud" that: Yet, of course, officials may lie (I have informed Mr. Campbell about this suggestion) and actual behaviour of editorial boards may significantly differ from announced principles. My remarkable experience of submitting a whistle blow to Nature clearly shows that its actual editorial practice is to use every possible bureaucratic trick NOT to publish any information about papers that have proved suspect or false. |
Well maybe some people don't think that everything is okey-dokey. You might wish to check the Hewitt link.