12 Eminent Scientists Who Shamelessly Faked Their Research
![12 Eminent Scientists Who Shamelessly Faked Their Research](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/1/2/0/895120_320x180.jpg)
Ah, science. The pursuit of knowledge, the uncovering of mysteries, the promise of progress. But with great power comes great responsibility, as a wise man on his deathbed once said, and sometimes, that responsibility is not taken as seriously as it should be. This list of shame is a testament to the scientists who have done just that and treated their research like a game in which anything goes, and have instead chosen to deceive and manipulate research results for their own gain.
From Jan Hendrik Schön to Anil Potti, these are the stories of the scientists who have made promises that could not be fulfilled, who have lied and cheated their way to fame and fortune and/or to poverty and disgrace, and who have caused lasting damage to their fields of research. Read on, and be amazed at the lengths some scientists will go to in order to get ahead.
Faking it since 1974.
![FAKE DERMATOLOGY William Summerlin, a dermatologist at a cancer center, was caught in 1974 faking his research results. Не had taken white mice and painted them with a black marker to make it look like they had fur from a black mouse. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/3/894423.jpg)
Data manipulation: Brian Wansink resigns.
![EAT FAKE FOOD SCIENCE Brian Wansink, the leader of a food lab at Cornell, had to quit after six of his studies were taken back because of data manipulation and other research misconduct. In four papers alone, 150 problems were found. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/7/894427.jpg)
Faked it ’til he made it (almost).
![FAKE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Diederik Stapel pulled off one of the biggest academic frauds ever when he straight-up faked data for a bunch of his research papers. Thankfully, he was eventually found out. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/4/894424.jpg)
Promises unfulfilled.
![+ 902E 35.38 FAKE SEMICONDUCTORS Jan Hendrik Schön, a Bell Labs physicist, was accused in 2002 of making up his research when people noticed that the same graphs were being used to show the results of different experiments. And yep-turned out he was a fraud. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/5/894425.jpg)
Cancer researcher cheats, gets caught.
![FAKE CANCER RESEARCH Anil Potti, a cancer researcher at Duke University, was caught cheating in 2015. Не lied in a grant application, a paper he wrote, and nine other research papers. just to top it all off, he'd padded his résumé too. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/9/894429.jpg)
CI Photos/Shutterstock,
Duke University
Celebrated star, fraudulent research.
![FAKE STEM CELLS Haruko Obokata published two groundbreaking papers about stem cells in the prestigious journal Nature. But then people noticed some of her pictures seemed to have been edited, and parts of her writing were copied from other papers. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/0/894430.jpg)
"Fake news" before its time.
![FAKE HUMAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS Hwang Woo-Suk caused a huge uproar in 2005, when it was revealed that he had faked data in his research on human embryonic stem cells. His human embryonic stem cells turned out to, um, not exist at all. He'd faked everything. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/6/894426.jpg)
Cheating, lying, and data fabrication.
![FAKE PSYCHOLOGY Marc Hauser, a former Harvard professor of psychology, was accused of cheating in research funded by the government. This included making up data, changing the results, and lying about how he did the research. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/8/894428.jpg)
Lidiia/Shutterstock,
Harvard News Office
Vaccinating rabbits with lies.
![FAKE HIV VACCINE Dong-Pyou Han went to prison for almost five years for making up and changing data in HIV vaccine research. Occasionally, he added human HIV antibodies to rabbit blood samples, to make it look like the vaccine had given the rabbits immunity to the virus. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/3/1/894431.jpg)
Famous scientist, famous fraud.
![FAKE MEDICAL RESEARCH John Darsee, who worked at Harvard Medical School, simply faked the majority of his 100 published works. At one point, he even claimed to have gotten at least twelve human hearts for testing, hours after they died-which would be impossible. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/1/894421.jpg)
Cyril Burt: Fraudulent data, lasting damage.
![FAKE IQ RESEARCH Cyril Burt, a famous psychologist, was found to have just made up data on twins that suggested that IQ was mainly inherited. This caused a lot of damage to the reputation of psychologists. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/0/894420.jpg)
False alarm: MMR not linked to autism.
![3. 0.2 L'O 4X XE FAKE VACCINE/AUTISM LINK Andrew Wakefield wrote in 1998 an article in The Lancet which suggested that the MMR vaccine could be linked to autism. One guy-who wasn't a doctor or scientist - worked hard to prove that it was fake, and the journal retracted it... in 2010. CRACKED](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/2/2/894422.jpg)