Nihil novi sub sole.
In 1996, a physicist, Alan Sokal did a similar social experiment in the scientific world, but submitting a hoax (scientifically-sounding text) for publication in a scientific (albeit not peer-reviewed at that point) journal. Many scientists (in social sciences) "swallowed" the bait. This story is well summarized on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair (and if you are interested in more detail, look at the articles and other related materials: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/ ) Actually, scientists have been thinking for long time about how to detect "flawed science". Irving Langmuir is known for his "Colloquium on Pathological Science" (1953), and those symptoms are summarized here: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-3.4/turro.sb1.html More recently, two colleagues of mine, Ivan Schuller and Yvan Bryunseraede, formulated "13 rules" (2005) [see the linke below]. All those checks allow scientific community to detect variety of scientific fraud. [For those interested in more details, see the links from the section on scientific ethics on the page from the course I taught last Fall: http://people.physics.tamu.edu/roshchin/444/#flawed_science ] Someone should sit down and formulate similar rules for journalists. And a short answer to your question, Larry: yes, the same type of hoaxes is possible (and do happen) with cameras. Igor On Jan 23, 2013, at 3:50 PM, Larry Colen wrote: > Someone does an experiment to see how easy it is to spread false > rumors: > > http://x-surface.tumblr.com/post/41282771026/x-surface-dont-believe-everything-you-read > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
