Refine Search

Misdeeds in the Scientific Past

Great scientists of the past were not all as pure and dedicated as we are made to believe. Besides Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727; see page 6), here is a list of some others whose misdeeds have also come to light.

● Claudius Ptolemy, of the second century C.E., whose geocentric view of the universe held sway for 1,400 years, was considered “the greatest astronomer of antiquity.” Today scholars believe that he obtained his data, not by observations, but by copying the work of an early Greek astronomer, Hipparchus of Rhodes. He was also suspected of having obtained some data by working backward from the results he expected.

● Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), Italian mathematician and astronomer, noted for the testing of falling weights at the leaning tower of Pisa, was regarded as the founder of modern experimental science for his reliance on observable facts rather than the writings of Aristotle for answers. Yet contemporaries had difficulty reproducing his results, and he was known for his “thought experiments,” imagining rather than observing the outcome.

● Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), Austrian monk and botanist, was credited with the discovery of the laws of heredity. His experiments with garden peas pioneered the science of genetics. His theory and data agreed so precisely that some investigators thought “he made occasional subconscious errors in favor of expectation,” while others felt he was guilty of data selection, using only those that agreed with his theory.

● Robert Millikan (1868-1953), eminent American physicist, won the 1923 Nobel prize for determining the electric charge of the electron. In recent years, scholars studying Millikan’s lab notebooks detected data selection​—discarding the half that did not suit his theory—​even though his paper specifically stated that this was all the data obtained “during 60 consecutive days.”

● Sir Cyril Burt (1883-1971), leading figure in British psychology, helped shape England’s educational policy by his work on the IQ of children and his theory that intelligence is largely inherited. Another psychologist, in preparing Burt’s biography, discovered fraud in nearly everything Burt published in the last 30 years of his life. “His work often had the appearance of science, but not always the substance,” said the biographer.

“If the luminaries of scientific history would on occasion misrepresent their data for the personal vindication of seeing their ideas prevail, the temptations must be all the greater for contemporary scientists,” says the book Betrayers of the Truth. Whether this is true or not, science and scientists are no exception when it comes to fraud and deception.