Hoax Museum Blog: Science

The Hoaxing of Margaret Mead — Thanks to Derek Freeman's work, a lot of people know that the anthropologist Margaret Mead was hoaxed into believing that young Samoan girls were far more sexually active than they actually were. But Mead made influential claims about other cultures as well, about which she apparently was just as wrong, according to this article in Front Page Magazine. For instance, she claimed that the Mountain Arapesh, a tribe of New Guinea yam gardeners, had no knowledge of the concept of war. Not quite. Other researchers later found that about half the adult male Arapesh had killed people in battle.

Is Peter Lynds a Hoax? — Recently a 27-year-old New Zealander named Peter Lynds has been getting a lot of attention. He's been hailed as the next Einstein because he's come up with an entirely new theory of time. And he's done this without having any formal qualifications as a physicist. But suggestions that Peter Lynds may be nothing more than a hoax have been cropping up. Some have even doubted the guy's existence. The Guardian investigated and found that Lynds was real enough, but that his work hasn't exactly wowed everyone in the Physics community. And that thing about him being the next Einstein... that may trace back to an offhand remark by Lynds himself.

Update 8/17/03: A visitor has posted an interesting theory that Peter Lynds is really a 17-year-old radio student who's been sending out press releases about himself under the pseudonym of Brooke Jones. I guess Peter Lynds could resolve this whole issue by just making a public appearance somewhere. Of course, it could be that he's waiting for an invitation.

Tasaday Revisited — There's a very good review of the Tasaday controversy by James Hamilton-Paterson in the Guardian. Like many, Hamilton-Paterson concludes that the Tasaday were not quite the hoax that everyone has assumed for the past two decades.

Lie Detectors — New, more accurate lie detectors being developed based on brain analysis.

Stone Age Tasaday — Newsday has a review of a new book by Robin Hemley titled Invented Eden analyzing the controversy about the Tasaday tribe. Were they really a 'hoax' tribe, directed to act and dress like a primitive tribe? Or were they in some sense authentic? Hemley's answer is that both versions are partially correct.

More on the Reverse Sokal Hoax — Regarding the Reverse Sokal Hoax described below: apparently the two brothers supposedly involved in it have denied that it was a hoax (see their statement pasted below). So the mystery continues.



TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN It was with the greatest astonishment that we have discovered that 2 members of the Ecole Polytechnique and 2 members of the University of Tours were the sources of an incredible rumor meant to validate the idea>that our papers were purposly written in serious journals as a hoax. Such an assertion is so outrageous that it discredits its authors. The published papers are the result of 6 years of intense and original work induced by our 2 PHD thesis in mathematics (1999, for Grichka) and in Theoretical Physics for myself (2002). We have always done our best to bring the highest quality to our work and papers. Thank you for your kind attention, Igor BOGDANOFF, Grichka BOGDANO

Reverse Sokal Hoax — There is an e-mail going around detailing a so-called 'reverse Sokal hoax.' I'm not sure if the circumstances it describes are real or not. But here's the text of the e-mail verbatim:

Sometime ago Alan Sokol et al wrote a completely meaningless article on quantum gravity which was accepted by a leading, refereed "deconstructionist journal". Physicists laughed because the hoax was at the deconstructionists' expense. But now there is is an inverse Sokol hoax in which, apparently, two reporters interviewed a lot of string theorists, wrote meaningless but "right sounding" papers and even got a Ph.D. Details below. What is particularly sad is that a key paper appeared in CQG: Class. Quantum Grav. 18 (7 November 2001) 4341-4372 Topological field theory of the initial singularity of spacetime* Grichka Bogdanov and Igor Bogdanov, Mathematical Physics Laboratory, CNRS UPRES A 5029, Bourgogne University, France

The trouble is that the abstract seems indistinguishable from standard stringy papers. I understand that the CQG Editorial Board already discussed this hoax but found that the paper had been refereed by two reputable string theorists.

More details: From Max Niedemayer to Ted Newman #1. I always thought Sokal's hoax would also work in theoretical high energy physics. Now there is experimental proof. Two brothers, Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff, journalists and science fiction writers, both in their late 40's, decided it is high time to earn a PhD, and that this should be just as easy in `stringy' high energy physics as it alledgedly is in sociology. First they interviewed a number of prominent French string theorists in order to accquire the lingo, then (apparently without help from a trained physicist) spoofed two theses. To prepare the ground for their defense they spread rumors of them being geniuses and their theses being a milestone in theoretical physics. Although the official PhD awarding institution is only the (so far not too renowned) Universite de Bourgogne the members of the thesis committee certainly make up for it: R. Jackiw (MIT), J. Morava (John Hopkins), S. Majid (Cambridge), C. Kounnas (ENS), I. Antoniadis (CERN and Ecole Polytechnique), and others. For the actual defense they rented a hall in the prestigeous Ecole Polytechnique, arranged a big dinner with the president, invited the TV, ... and passed gloriously. The thesis can be found on the offical CNRS server (http://www.ccsd.cnrs.fr/). Already the abstract is a delightfully meaningless combination of buzzwords, that almost beats Sokal's, but which apparently has been taken seriously by the committee! The bad side of the joke is, that it might hurt theoretical physics in general. The CNRS apparently even contemplates to split the present theoretical physics division into a pure mathematics and an experimental physics branch. Theoretical physics, being now more fiction than science, is meant to be entertained by professionals in that area. Hopefully the Bogdanoff "singularity invariant'' for the "topological expansion phase'' of the universe will provide a way out ... I'll keep you informed. Best regards, -- Max



#2. Dear Ted, sure you can show the letter to others. Let me stress however (and maybe you should too) that this is not first hand information. A person who has first hand information is J. Magnen, from the Ecole Polytechnique. He works on constructive QFT and was not personally involved. The issue was apparently discussed in the French National Research Council, where Peter Forgacs is a member, and he is my source. A small correction. In the last minute it seems the theses were not accepted at the Ecole Polytechnique, but only later by the University of Bourgogne. The TV was also not permitted to the actual defense, but several people here saw reports on the Bogdanoff brothers decribing them as outstanding geniuses. The theses and the committee members can be looked up on the web at http://www.ccsd.cnrs.fr/ All the best, -- Max



HOAX THESIS: Abstract in english: We propose in this research a new solution regarding the existence and the content of the initial spacetime singularity. In the context of topological field theory we consider that the initial singularity of space-time corresponds to a zero size singular gravitational instanton characterized by a Riemannian metric configuration (++++) in dimension D = 4. Connected with some unexpected topological data corresponding to the zero scale of space-time, the initial singularity is thus not considered in terms of divergences of physical fields but can be resolved in the frame of topological field theory. We get this result from the physical observation that the pre-spacetime is in a thermal equilibrium at the Planck scale. Therefore it should be subject to the KMS condition. We consequently consider that this KMS state might correspond to a unification between "physical state" (Planck scale) and "topological state" (zero scale). Then it is suggested that the "zero scale singularity" can be understood in terms of topological invariants, in particular the first Donaldson invariant. Therefore, we here introduce a new topological index, connected with 0>> scale, of the form Z = Tr (-1)s, which we call "singularity invariant". Interestingly, this invariant corresponds also to the invariant topological current yield by the hyperfinite II* von Neumann algebra describing the zero scale of space-time. In such a context we conjecture that the problem of inertial interaction might be explained in terms of topological amplitude connected with the singular zero size gravitational instanton corresponding to the initial singularity of spacetime.
Keywords : KMS State, topological field theory, singularity invariant, initial singularity, zero size instanton PACS : 0420D, 04.65.+e, 02.40.Xx, 04.60.-m, 05.45.-a

Update (11/05/02): The Chronicle of Higher Education has a good piece on the 'Reverse-Sokal Hoax' that's been rocking the world of theoretical physics. Unfortunately, you need to be a subscriber to gain access to the article. But the jist of it is that the Bogdanov brothers did not appear to have intentionally been hoaxing the physics community. Instead, they were honestly trying to get PhDs, but did very sloppy work that should never have been accepted.

WHO Blonde Report — The greatest blonde joke ever!!! The media had been enamored of the story that the World Health Organization had predicted the eventual disappearance of the gene for blond hair because there are so many artificial blondes that they're diluting the gene selection for true blondes. But the WHO had never issued a report saying this. It was all a joke.

Scientific Fraud at Bell Labs — Scientific Fraud at Bell Labs. Jan Hendrik Schon, a nanotechnology hotshot, gets caught falsifying data.

What separates skeptics from believers — Fascinating article in New Scientist reports on research that posits that what really separates skeptics from believers (when it comes to matters such as paranormal activity) is brain chemistry. Those with high levels of dopamine in their brains seem to be more prone to see patterns and meaning in random pieces of information. When the drug L-dopa was given to skeptics, they likewise became more prone to see patterns in randomness as well. Of course, the researchers seem to be assuming that the patterns weren't really there. But maybe they actually really WERE there, but the researchers themselves weren't able to see them because their own levels of dopamine weren't high enough. I wonder if the researchers noted their own dopamine levels as part of the study.

Dino Bird — The Natural History Museum in London is opening an exhibit on "Dino-Birds: The Feathered Dinosaurs of China." It will include the archaeopteryx, the oldest known fossil of a bird, which was accused of being a fake back in the 1980s. I wonder if it will also include the Piltdown Chicken fossil which fooled National Geographic two years ago?

Fake Elements — Faking the periodic table: How a scientist forged data to invent two new elements.

Ancient Skull — Dispute continues over the ancient skull whose discovery was announced Wednesday. Now critics are saying it's the skull of a gorilla, not a man.

Piltdown Man Redux — Ancient skull found in Africa. Let's hope that it doesn't turn out to be another Piltdown Man. This time they should check the jawbone (if there is one) really carefully.