Of Fakes and Frauds: Can Scientific “Hoaxes” Be a Legitimate Tool of Inquiry?

Abstract

The history of science amply demonstrates that science is not immune to honest mistakes, nor to fraud and misconduct. While the former are minimized by discipline-specific methodologies, the latter are supposed to be kept in check by professional ethics guidelines of good scientific practice. But what happens when “fakes” are produced with the best of intentions and the greatest of scientific skill – in other words, when the scientific tools of the trade are turned into a “forger’s workshop”? In the case of hoaxes, the artful faking of scientific results is often combined with the enlightened claim to denounce scientific grievances – e.g. ideological distortions or a lack of critical awareness. In contrast to mere falsifications, hoaxes aim at their own exposure; they necessarily remain selective, yet pretend to be representative and generally valid. Using the so-called “Sokal Squared” hoax as an example, it is argued that the lofty claim of its originators is difficult to vindicate. Scientific hoaxes face a dilemma: The deliberate violation of scientific norms that makes their implementation possible in the first place runs the risk of disqualifying hoaxes as empirical tools of epistemic inquiry.