Later that evening at the local tavern.

“So then when it fails for the third time, he drinks a cup of acid, tips his hat to the crowd, and then collapses.”

“Haha! That’s gold!”

The tavern falls silent.

There are a couple great video essays by Bobby Broccoli on YouTube where they dive into the history of people who faked human cloning and discovering a new element

See, replication isn't a problem if your entire field is vibes-based. A lot of economics papers I come across are like that (so much so that I am close to writing off the entire decipline as unscientific). The diff in the level of rigour you would see in e.g. particle physics versus in economics is baffling.

It used to be psychology as well but I am noticing they are more than aware of their replication crisis lately. Whereas economics feels pseudoscience with a maths clothing.

Mercury to silver is an easy transformation. You just take a vial of quicksilver, and make it run laps until it's really tired.

isn't there a problem with lack of replication in the scientific world though? i feel like replication experiments don't get grants easily so people are more likely to pursue one time experiments.

If you want to see a good example of scientific fraud, read about the scientists and doctors who helped the tobacco lobby lie to the public for decades.

Mercury to gold is an easy one, you just hide gold in your stir stick behind a wax cap.

My daughter has just written her bachelor thesis. For that, she had to compare a bunch of papers and studies about a number of sub-topics related to her thesis topic. For one such point, there were only two studies to be found in the world. Both from renowned scientists and universities, both looking sound regarding their methods, both having comparably large data sets, and they both came to completely opposite conclusions. After a talk with her thesis advisor, she dropped this sub-topic and the studies from her thesis.

Patenting my formula for turning mercury into gold, registering it with the state, and filing a series of vexatious lawsuits claiming anyone doing gold plating is actually using my technique.

damn the guy lied himself into a pretty deep hole. it is a shame he felt suicide was his only option. sure his reputation was ruined, but he was young. he could have started a new life elsewhere

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

That's hydrogen cyanide, for those who are wondering wtf prussic acid is.

He was probably suffering from mercury poisoning anyway which made him think he could get away with what he was doing.

Well, this is extreme.

But in all seriousness, it's rare for someone to commit fraud on this scale, and even rarer for someone to expect fame from it.

It's much more common to be in a position where your grant obligations require you to publish 4 articles in a year, and the topic didn't turn out to be as good as you initially expected, so what do you do? Just take the samples that actually worked at least barely, at least once, apply the logic of "well, it did work once, it doesn't matter that two other replication attempts brought the catalysis efficiency twice as low, one sample is enough for a proof of concept, let's write a whole paper based on that", and here we have a manuscript that contains inflated data, maybe because the conditions were successful this time, or maybe because someone had previously polished platinum on the same surface that the electrode for the catalysis was polished on. Who knows? Who cares? At least you won't starve for a year until you have to do it again.

Not trying to justify such behaviour, just providing some sort of explanation of why this happens at least in some cases.

I'll ask Andrew Wakefield what he thinks

Jokes on us, he really did figure out long lost secrets of transitive matter and took it to his grave in spite. /s

In January 1783, Price returned to his laboratory in Guildford, ostensibly to start production of the miraculous powders. In fact, he set about the distillation of laurel water (which contained hydrogen cyanide, commonly known as prussic acid). He wrote his will at the same time, but it was another six months before he returned to London to invite members of the Royal Society to witness the experiment on 3 August in his laboratory in Guildford.

Despite the claimed successes of his initial demonstrations and the furor they had caused, only three members turned up in Guildford on the appointed day. Although clearly disappointed by the poor turnout, Price welcomed the three men and then, stepping to one side, ended his life by drinking the flask of laurel water he had prepared. The three men immediately noticed a change in his appearance, but before they could do anything, Price had died of cyanide poisoning.

Looks like he paid the "Price" for his bullshit 😎

Who wants they prussic drank?

Priceless