A fascinating story Roger.

I can see the motivation for the sort of fraud that Heslop Harrison undertook. Every botanist dreams of making wonderful discoveries, and to some it must seem as though their only real chance for fame is to cheat. It is very easy to plant a plant or two and then pretend to discover them or to collect a specimen and claim that they found it far away in a much more significant locality.

I’ve been living in Townsville for more than a quarter of a century and exploring this region botanically in great detail for all of that time. And yet there are species that I have never encountered for which there are specimens in the Queensland Herbarium that have been collected within that timeframe from prominent and easily accessible localities that I have looked at in detail within this region. I have my suspicions about some of them and the collector(s) thereof.

There are other weird happenings in the wonderful world of botany. The change from the genus Eucalyptus to Corymbia in 1995 for the bloodwoods and ghost gums was one of these.

This was published as a peer-reviewed paper and the changes became accepted, even though the debate was raging and many botanists did not agree with the splitting off of one section of the genus Eucalyptus.

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Then when Australia’s most eminent Eucalyptus botanist, Ian Brooker from the National Herbarium, published the opposite view; that it makes much more sense to just have one genus, he was ignored!

By that time the changes had been accepted and it would have been embarrassing to Herbarium directors, heads of Departments and politicians if they had been reversed.

Politics resulted in the new genus Corymbia being upheld. Good science was overridden.

As a result of this debacle, I worry about the veracity of many new genera, as they tend to be quite narrowly defined and you’ve got to wonder whether the real motivation of the botanists behind them is sometimes just to get a new genus attributed to them rather than it being good taxonomic science.

New genera are being described all the time for Australian plants. This doesn’t mean that new discoveries are being made. It is just an ongoing sorting out process of what we know about. But I have to question many of these new names, and I outrightly disagree quite often. Fifteen years on, I still refuse to accept Corymbia!

Fraud happens. It gets discovered. The perpetrator loses their reputation and most likely career.
What is your point?
If it is trying to show science is untrustworthy then you fail badly. He was exposed easily. His research was unimportant in the scheme of things and no one was hurt by his fraud.
Unlike some other frauds around. Enron anyone? The whole GFC is the result of fraud and double dealing. Madoff. HiH. AMP. Alan Bond. Any number of insider dealings.
Why would you focus on some obscure botanist when there are so much more damaging and evil frauds in this world of which I have only touched the barest surface of?

More misdirection, lies and deceitfulness from the deniers. How much lower can they stoop?

I don't what a genus is. All i know is it should be illegal to import any sort of exotic plant to au in seed or plant. It has caused no end of trouble for farmers to eradicate foreign weeds that have escaped from suberbia garden. Remember this your food chain. If you want to make do with imports this the way to go.

With you Ludwig on this one. Like Desmond, my knowledge of Botany is limited, but I think the article gives an excellent example of why we should maintain a healthy scepticism of all science by being mindful of the politics, vested career interests and egos inherent within any complexly organized system.

Really interesting story too.

Mikk: It seems to me that the fraud was found out because of the focused undertaking of one or two people, not made evident through research methodology or questions raised by peer review. Once uncovered, instead of further investigation, the whole issue was quietly put aside. I wonder how many similar findings that go against the popular trend of the day get shuffled to the bottom of the draw. Or even, how many frauds are never uncovered.

Come to think of it, what happened to the ozone hole ? Is that still something to be worried about ?