Big Think: Scientific Hoaxes

In honor of the day after April Fool's day, I'm going to be analyzing this article on some little-known hoaxes.

http://bigthink.com/mind-memes/5-scientific-hoaxes
(Contrary to what the link says, there are no internet memes here.)

1) "Aristotle's Masterpiece"
Just click on the link, read the description, and you'll be surprised that nobody caught on to this sooner.
"Aristotle's Masterpiece" was written during the seventeenth century, which remained popular until the middle of the nineteenth century, at which point it was discovered that Aristotle had absolutely nothing to do with the writing of this book. Shocking, isn't it? Aristotle didn't spend his time giving people sex tips! I never would have guessed! My goodness, only in Britain...

2) The Archaeoraptor
Here's where the title is a little bit of a misnomer: this isn't a hoax so much. At a site in northern China, National Geographic explorers uncovered fossils from different species that seemed to have come from the same animal. They believed it was a new species, and christened the animal Archaeoraptor liaoningensis. Or at least that's their story - I would say that there was a bit of paleontological foul play involved here. At any rate, it was discovered that A. liaoningensis was composed mostly of ancient bird bones, and the careers of those involved changed dramatically after that.

3) The Fake Research Paper
This one just goes to show how gullible people are at times. A bunch of leading scientists and science writers got together and assembled a fictional research paper about the growth of cancer cells. They sent the fake paper to over three hundred journals, and it was accepted by more than half that number. The writers were surprised - the experiments were scientifically bogus, and the "results" less than invalid.

4) The Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer
Apparently, Discover magazine photoshopped a brain onto the head of a naked mole rat and told people that it was a new species as an April Fool's joke back in the nineties. And people thought it was real. I don't think I need to elaborate much on this one.

5) The Abominable Snowman
All right, this one I take issue with. Since one sample of purported Yeti hair belonged to a bear, the Yeti obviously doesn't exist. Tell me, Big Think Editors, can you spell "Logical Fallacy"? That would be like saying I didn't exist if you found a hair you thought was mine, had it tested, and realized it was somebody else's. But who am I to judge? I'm sure people who sit around staring at a computer all the time knows much more about the natural world than a kid who spends most of his weekends in the forests of upstate New York. Tell me about how much more experience you have with this sort of thing than I do, Big Think Editors, when you spend over half an hour out in the middle of the woods after sundown. Twenty times a year.