this time in Germany. According to the Deutsche Welle site,
A German anthropology professor has resigned after a Frankfurt university panel ruled he made up data and plagiarized works of colleagues. Experts said knowledge about human evolution has to be revisited as a result.
According to the commission’s findings, Reiner Protsch von Zieten lied about the age of human skulls by dating them back thousands of years. He is also accused of trying to sell specimens that belonged to the university and plagiarizing the work of colleagues.
“The commission finds that Prof. Protsch has forged and manipulated scientific facts over the past 30 years,” a university statement read.
The report also said Protsch was unable to properly employ methods to date specimens. He allegedly presented skulls that he said were tens of thousands of years old even though they belonged to people who died just a few hundred years ago. . . .
While Protsch, 66, did not comment on the commission’s findings after they were publicized, he already attacked the investigation in an interview with Frankfurter Neue Presse on Jan. 14. . . .
Trust no-one, folks, not even professors. Oh, except us, of course. Naturally. (Thanks to Don Kates for the pointer.)
UPDATE: David Gerstman notes that I’ve been scooped by Scrappleface. “The inquiry found that one skull, which Mr. Protsch claimed came from a 27,400-year-old human fossil, was actually still attached to the living body of a departmental colleague. ‘He’s much older than he looks,’ said Mr. Protsch. ‘My data shows that he may be the missing link between Piltdown man and today’s homo sapiens.'”
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