Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Directions for perpetrating a science hoax

Denyse O'Leary
April 29, 2011
Intelligent Design, Popular culture, Science
Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
arroba Email

Here, Adam Ruben, – “Experimental Error: Forging a Head” Science (April 22, 2011), reflects on how to construct a science hoax and have free publicity coming out of your ears:

Attach the bones of something to the bones of something else. You have just created the missing link between those two species. “It’s amazing!” you can announce. “I’ve discovered the skeleton of the mythical half-chimp, half-sturgeon!” (Do not, however, attach the bones of something to nothing. It’s really not that impressive to declare, “I’ve discovered the skeleton of the mythical half-chimp!” Gross.)

– Claim that your unique object has some impressive attribute, such as size, age, or incompatibility with accepted chronology. A 12-foot-tall, 9000-year-old Sony PlayStation, for example.

– Make your hoax scary. People should resist the urge to investigate fully because, well, they don’t know that the Manitoba Cypress of Demise inflicts syphilis on all who dare speak its name, but do they really want to take that chance? [further directions follow]

Curious how many famous science hoaxes* centred on evolution or environment issues. Comments?

(*Terminology note: Many sources would call the glued-together fossils “fraud” rather than “hoax.” – UD News)

Comments
My wife's great great grandfather found a marble man in Orange NSW Australia. What he didn't tell anyone at the time was that he was a sculptor and he worked in a marble quarry. It became quite well known and was debate in the NSW parliament at the time. Of course when he found the marble dog and the marble wife even the most ardent believers must have realised they were being taken. TV
The McGregor fraud/hoax, which was a bunch of clay models of ape-men based on nothing. It was sold to the public by Osborn. They appeared in encyclopedias for decades. Haeckel's frauds and hoaxes were numerous, far more than just the embryos. Nebraska man, which was a fraud intended to discredit William Jennings Bryan. Bryan was from Nebraska. The Bathybius fraud, a cooperative effort between Haeckel and Huxley. Eugenics was a massive fraud/hoax. Neanderthal Man, insofar as he was sold to the public as an ape-man, was a fraud and hoax. 'Ape-men among us', the indigenous peoples who are supposedly closer to apes and monkeys -- that was a fraud and a hoax on the part of evolutionists. The story of Darwin vs Lamarck, (which is taught in schools) and how Darwin didn't believe in the inheritance of acquired characters... that's a hoax. Or maybe deliberate fraud. There's so much of it. What isn't a fraud or hoax in evolution? Maybe that's a better question. Vladimir Krondan
kairosfocus: And? Mung: No paragwinn
I would be more concerned about those hoaxes centered on smoking, alcohol, homeopathic remedies,and vaccines.
Is that because you believe these are pragmatic issues and thus far more important than what people believe about life, the universe, and oh, everything? Mung
Start with Piltdown Man, mix in Haeckel's embryo drawings, and go on from there . . . kairosfocus
Exactly how many famous science hoaxes have centered on evolution or environment issues? I would be more concerned about those hoaxes centered on smoking, alcohol, homeopathic remedies,and vaccines. paragwinn

Leave a Reply