The F note, a harmonious accompaniment to the F word

The Bibliolore blog tells some history about the supposed significance of the musical note F: The F note, one could say, has a musing-and-fraudulent aura that makes it a good musical accompaniment to the F word. In The voice of the silence (1889), Helena Blavatsky (above) designated the pitch F as the keynote of nature. Blavatsky’s authority was Benjamin Silliman, a Professor […]

Influential imaginary scientists, in this time of influential imaginary facts

Why Fake Data When You Can Fake a Scientist? Making up names and CVs is one of the latest tricks to game scientific metrics That’s the headline on an article in Nautilus magazine, written by Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky. Here’s part of the article: …The fact is that professional advancement for scientists around the […]

“Nuts!” (of/and goats, and dogs, etc., and people), the film

“In 1922, Brinkley traveled to Los Angeles at the invitation of Harry Chandler, owner of the Los Angeles Times, who challenged Brinkley to transplant goat testicles into one of his editors.” That’s just one nugget from the Wikipedia biography of “Doctor” John R. Brinkley, who lived a colorful life. Implanting goat testicles into strangers was […]

Fraud, by Alias

Alias had something to say about fraud, and wrote it down: “Corporate Fraud: An Analysis of Malaysian Securities Commission Enforcement Releases,” Raziah Bi Mohamed Sadique, Jamal Roudaki, Murray B. Clark and Norhayati Alias [pictured here], World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, 66, 2010.

The MAFFIA mathematicians

Sensing that some things simply don’t add up, certain mathematicians have banded together to alert the public. Their web site explains: Mathematicians Against Fraudulent Financial and Investment Advice (MAFFIA) http://www.m-a-f-f-i-a.org This site was created out of growing concern with the usage of less-than-fully rigorous mathematical and statistical methodologies in the financial/investment world…. We are also […]

Did Stapel frame and ultimately nail himself?

Retraction Watch adds further human interest to the Stapel scandal (in which Professor Stapel is being investigated on several front for fabricating research data): Do fraudsters, like bad pitchers or poker players, have “tells”? Diederik Stapel might. Last week we reported that Stapel, an internationally recognized social psychologist from The Netherlands, had been accused of fabricating his […]

Stapel accused of folding/mutilating data

Professor Diederik Stapel, author of the study “Seeing one thing and doing another: Contrast effects in automatic behavior“, is accused of saying one thing but doing another, according to reports in the Dutch press and elsewhere. DutchNews.nl sums up: Tilburg professor faked data in at least 30 academic publications Tilburg and Groningen universities are to take legal action […]