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Biomedicine in museums

Hall of Shame — the most fraudulent, vile, depraved, despicable, base, evil, wretched and slimy scientists of all times

By October 21, 2008No Comments

The next issue of the Vienna science magazine heureka! will feature an overview of the most evil, base, fraudulent and slimy scientists in history — a Hall of Shame — “um das breite Spektrum an ethisch verwerflichen und fragwürdigen Motivationen abzubilden”.

Not only Nazi scientists, but all kinds of “Menschenhasser und skrupellose Experimentatoren, die übelsten Plagiatoren und Betrüger, die größten Neider und die hoffnungslos Verblendeten” (sounds much better in German than in English, especially when you read it out loud!).

The inclusion of “hoffnungslos Verblendeten” is probably a mistake, because if this criterion is taken literally, heureka! will be thicker than Who’s Who in Science. But otherwise, send your suggestions (with short motivations) to the editor, Oliver Hochadel (hochadel@falter.at) before Friday 24 October.

The initiative has already given rise to protests: Stuttgart professor in history of science and technology, Klaus Hentschel, finds it “HÖCHST fragwürdig” because he believes it feeds into a public tendency “zur Schwarz-Weiß-Malerei”, like in “US-Cowboy-Filmen” (from today’s Oldenburg-list).

Thomas Söderqvist

Author Thomas Söderqvist

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