Dimensions
146 x 222 x 25mm
In the 1940s, a distinguished professor of botany J. W. Heslop Harrison announced the discovery of rare plants on the Isle of Rum in the Hebrides. For the professor's botanical colleagues it was the last straw. It was the latest in a series of discoveries by the professor that had generated increasing suspicion over the years, with many botanists believing that the professor faked his discoveries.
A young Cambridge don managed to infiltrate one of the professor's expeditions to the island. The report he wrote after that visit was stark and shocking - the don accused the professor of systematic and persistent faking of his result. After nearly fifty years, Karl Sabbagh has unearthed the report, and used it as a starting point in unravelling a story that has been called the 'Piltdown man of Botany'. In a study that is set to become a classic, Sabbagh uses the 'Rum Affair' to explore the roots of scientific fraud in general and the pressures that can drive an eminent scientist to believe that faking the data is sometimes justified in the interest of scientific truth.
