Friday, December 07, 2012

Scientific Fraud

It seems to be endemic these days.  Of course, the amount of scientific fraud has risen ten fold in the last ten years, but to be fair, the submission of scientific papers has risen much more than that.  But along with fraudulent and bad science is a backlash...the "sceptic movement" if you will, which is holding more and more of the fraudster's feet to the flames. 
    






There is so much, and so much of it sells so well.  The Da Vinci Code was the best selling work of fiction of all time, exceeding JK Rowlings derivative Harry Potter by half again. (though as of this writing, "fifty shades of grey" may have proven that you can titilate even the distaff side with careful pornography and superb marketing enough for them to exercise their purchasing power)  Even the author of the Da Vinci code claimed that it was all phoney baloney hype, but people are still going to France and Scotland, disturbing graves and breaking into monuments searching for "something". 
       Some stunning blogs and web sites....Bad Archaeology, (no doubt a nod to my favorite sceptic site Bad Astronomy) and Engineering Evil are happy to point out the fallacies in these oh so attractive pseudo sciences. 

        Two links, each of which will keep you busy for five or six hours EACH!  You can thank me later.

Oh, the picture....thats a picture of the skull of Dawson's "Piltdown Man".