10 Academic Frauds Who Had Everyone Fooled

Admit it. We’ve all had that moment, deep into a school research project, where the realization hits that the neat hypothesis we had when we started working is not going to be borne out by the data. At that point, we are faced with two options: a) start over, instantly making all those hours already spent a complete waste of time; or, b) fudge the data and transform that stinker into a sexy little piece of academia. For a student, the consequences of such fakery could be as severe as expulsion from school. But for professional academics, the stakes are much higher. Millions of dollars and professional and personal reputations hang in the balance.

Here are ten of the worst frauds, fakers, and phonies ever to pull the wool over the bespectacled eyes of the academic world: >>>