Today...

[gnommi]

...I learned that I should probably should read my copy of New Scientist before I read Private Eye.

Ah... The craziness of science. And on that note:

Quote for today:
"Some of the money was spent in contacting the Russian mafia as we tried to clone mammoths. But you can't say that [on an expenses claim form] so we expensed it as money for cows for an experiment"
The legendary bullshitter Woo Suk Hwang. Reuters, 24 Oct; this quote New Scientist 4 Nov

Comments

[squidflakes.livejournal.com]

Bullshitting really should be taught as a skill in University. I've not met a scientist yet who didn't have to bullshit on an almost daily basis to keep their funding/lab/equipment/home/car/body from dying to starvation.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

yep! unfortunately Mr Hwang got well and truly busted!

[squidflakes.livejournal.com]

I should clarify, the one place where I never tolerate bullshit is in the results. You bullshit to get the things you need for the results, not get the results for the things you need.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

I think there's a bit of a difference between bullshit and plain falsification of data. Mr Hwang's pretty much a past master at both. And you're quite correct of course about day-to-day bullshitting... quite often for me this involves pretending not to have heard inveterate idea-stealers when they ask me what I'm working on =S

[squidflakes.livejournal.com]

woah now.. lets have 100% less insulting of invertibrates! ;P