← Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Loading summary
Transcript53 lines
- [00:00]
Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Commercial Narrator (T-Mobile Ad)
Guaranteed Human in today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster and level up every tool in their arsenal. T Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the Experts@ookla Speedtest. And they're using that network to launch Super Mobile. The first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built in security and seamless satellite coverage. That's your business Supercharged. Learn more@supermobile.com seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. Best business plan based on a combination of advanced network performance coverage layers and security features. Best network based on analysis by OOKLA of speed test intelligence data 1H 2025.
- [00:55]
Commercial Narrator (Chase Ad)
When you own your own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business is a pay in full card that elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits that will take your business to the next level. Sapphire, Reserved for business, offers 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising, airport lounge access and more. With over $2,500 in annual value, it's the current card that gives you back all you put in. Learn more@chase.com ReserveBusiness Chase for Business make more of what's yours Accounts subject to credit approval restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank, NA member FDIC it's 1972.
- [01:38]
Narrator (Adrift Podcast Promo)
A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds.
- [01:48]
Commercial Narrator (Chase Ad)
All they have left is a life.
- [01:50]
Narrator (Adrift Podcast Promo)
Raft and each other. How will they survive? The true story of a family's fight for survival. Hosted by Becky Milligan. This is Adrift, an Apple Original podcast produced by Blanchard House.
- [02:04]
Commercial Narrator (Chase Ad)
Apple TV subscribers get special early access.
- [02:08]
Narrator (Adrift Podcast Promo)
To the entire season. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.
- [02:19]
Tim Harford (Cautionary Tales Host)
Pushkin. In his office under the great Gothic vaults of London's Natural History Museum, Arthur Woodward was opening the mail and found a note from his friend Charles Dawson, postmarked The previous day, Valentine's Day, 1912, Woodward was the keeper of the museum's geology department and a notable figure in British science. Dawson, a country lawyer, was an amateur geologist with a growing reputation of his own. His letter began with small talk the latest news on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's new book idea. Dawson knew Conan Doyle personally. But then Dawson turned to more significant matters. Some workmen had been digging in the soils of Piltdown a few miles away from Dawson's home on the south coast. And they'd found a fossilised fragment of a human skull. It might be something pretty special. So would Arthur Woodward care to visit the site and take a look? He would. Over the months that followed, Dawson and Woodward would supervise digs in the flint beds of Piltdown, piecing together bone fragments that would change our understanding of the world and how humans took their place in it. The discovery became known as Piltdown man, the most famous, most earth shaking missing link in the evolutionary chain connecting modern humans and their ape like ancestors. Piltdown man had a thick but otherwise human seeming skull, big cranium, steep forehead. The lower jaw was more like that of an ape. A tooth was found too, halfway between ape and human. It was truly an astonishing discovery. There were some doubters at the time. Were these fragments really from the same primate? Or might there somehow be a human skull and an ape jaw in the same flinty gravel? Because apart from that tooth, it did look a bit like a human skull and an ape jaw. But a few years later, Dawson found similar fossils a couple of miles away. They became known as Piltdown 2. Their discovery surely proved that Piltdown 1 couldn't possibly be an accidental jumble of ape and human. Because how could the same accidental jumble occur twice on two different sites? Although the amateur paleontologist Charles Dawson had been the one to find the fossils at Piltdown 2, he died before he had a chance to join Arthur Woodward in announcing that discovery. So Woodward was left to carry the scientific torch and receive the glory and glory there was. Woodward would become Sir Arthur Woodward, a Knight Commander of the British Empire, a recipient of the Royal Society's Gold Medal, the Lyell Medal, the Linnean Medal, the Thompson Medal and many other honours beside. All just rewards for his skill, dedication and prodigious scientific output. But also surely rewards for his role in discovering evolution's first true missing link, Piltdown Man. After he retired, Sir Arthur Woodward mused that the discovery at Piltdown had been the most important thing that ever happened in my life. A lovely thought. But it wasn't a discovery. And it didn't just happen. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. It was July 1953 when Joseph Weiner first had a chance to handle the Piltdown man relics deep inside London's Natural History Museum. It was a breathtaking moment. Weiner was a young high flier, professor of Physical anthropology at Oxford at The age of just 38. Which meant that when the discovery of Piltdown man had been announced 41 years earlier, Weiner hadn't even been born. But of course he knew all about Piltdown Man. Everybody did. This was the most famous human fossil ever found, even if it was proving ever more of a headache to scientists. The problem was this. Dawson and Woodward had pieced together the fragments from the Piltdown flints to reveal a creature with a primitive jaw, but a modern skull, and therefore an advanced brain. This supported the so called brain first hypothesis that our primate ancestors had evolved into humans by developing large brains. Other changes, such as a smaller jaw, had come later. Why was that a problem? Because every time a subsequent fossil was discovered, it suggested the opposite pattern. That proto humans had first developed a human jaw and a human diet, and only later had developed a human skull and a human brain. Piltdown man didn't fit. Young anthropologists, palaeontologists and biologists had devoted their careers to trying to figure it out. Later that day, at a grand summer banquet near the museum, Weiner had the chance to sit next to Kenneth Oakley, the man who was now the guardian of the Piltdown bones at the museum. It was such a mystery, mused Weiner, and such a shame that the Piltdown bones were an isolated discovery. In year upon year of looking, researchers had never found another bone of interest at the Piltdown site. Then Weiner wandered out loud to Oakley. What about Piltdown 2? Why hadn't that site been more fully explored? Funny thing, replied Oakley. Nobody actually knows exactly where the Piltdown 2 site is. It was common enough to keep such matters confidential so that tourists and scavengers didn't descend on the site and ruin it. But in this case, the details were more than confidential. They were lost to history. Well, how could that be? Asked Weiner. Above the hubbub of conversation and the clinking of cutlery, Oakley explained that Woodward had presented the Piltdown two discoveries after Dawson was dead. The precise location was never mentioned in correspondence between them. Maybe Dawson had died without telling him. Woodward had certainly never recorded the site's location. Strange, yes, thought Wyner, very strange. The Piltdown discovery had been viewed with some skepticism until Piltdown 2 seemed to provide confirmation. Now it turns out that the Piltdown 2 fossils simply appeared at the Natural History Museum from. Well, from out of nowhere. Convenient that that hot summer night, Weiner drove back to Oxford. It was after midnight when he got home, but he couldn't sleep. His Mind just kept turning and turning over and over. The next morning, Weiner was examining casts of Piltdown man in his lab. Freed from preconceptions, he tried to look directly at what was in front of him. It looked like a human skull and an ape jaw and these strange molar teeth. Part ape and part human. In fact, it was really only the teeth that suggested any link between the jaw and skull. Under a powerful magnifying lens, Weiner examined a tooth. The pattern of where was a bit odd. Before long, he'd obtained an ape tooth from Oxford's anatomy department, grabbed a file and a clamp and began experimenting. It was astonishing how easy it was to file the ape tooth down to look exactly like the Piltdown fossil. He discussed his doubts with a colleague. There's another funny thing. The bones were the deep rich colour of dark chocolate, stained with rust from the iron rich flints. But a few years before, Oakley himself had drilled into the bones to get a chemical sample and had noted in his write up that the brown stain was completely superficial. The bones were bright white underneath. To an already suspicious whiner, that was odd too. No, they decided to pick up the phone and call Kenneth Oakley. In his office under the great gothic vaults of London's Natural History Museum, Kenneth Oakley picked up the telephone. He was sitting not far from where his predecessor, Arthur Woodward, had opened the letter from Charles Dawson. Dawson's letter to Woodward had begun the remarkable story of Piltdown Man. The phone call from Oxford to Oakleigh would end that story as we know it. Weiner and his colleague told Oakley that Piltdown man was nothing more than than a fake. Oakley was stunned. Then Weiner's colleague asked him to drop everything, go down to the museum storerooms with a microscope and examine the Piltdown molar for signs of artificial abrasion. Had it been filed down? An hour later he called them back. They were right. There was absolutely no doubt about it. Over the following weeks and then months, further tests established unnatural patterns of wear on the fossils. The latest, most accurate chemical dating test was used, demonstrating that the Piltdown skull, the Piltdown jaw fossils from the Piltdown 2 site, all of them were modern, a few hundred years old at best. And the chocolate brown iron staining wasn't iron. It was an artificial stain. Or in the case of the tooth, it was a layer of paint. Van Dyke Brown. Over the following year, a thorough investigation scrutinized every single discovery associated with Piltdown, the fossils, various tools, a total of 40 different specimens from three different sites in the area and concluded that every single one of them was a fake. Each individual forgery had been bold and simple. Collectively, they had been devastatingly convincing, and the deception had been more ambitious and elaborate than Joseph Weiner had dreamed. But who was the fraudster? Weiner's astonishing discovery set off a frenzied cottage industry of speculation. Had it been Dawson, the man who claimed to find the fossils, or Woodward who did so much to promote them and in doing so reaped the glory? Or were they both the victims of a cruel hoax by some third party? Cautionary tales will be back after the break.
- [15:59]
Commercial Narrator (T-Mobile Ad)
In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster and level up every tool in their arsenal. T Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network according to the experts at an OOKLA speed test. And they're using that network and to launch Super Mobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built in security and seamless satellite coverage. With Super Mobile, your performance, security and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand. With built in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients. And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite to mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid. That's your business Supercharged. Learn more@supermobile.com seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. Best Business Plan Based on a combination of advanced network performance, coverage layers and security features. Best Network Based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025, the.
- [17:22]
Commercial Narrator (Chase Ad)
Chase Inc. Business Premier card is made for business owners who make things happen. Designed for high spend and limitless cash back, Inc. Business Premier is a pay in full card with built in flexibility. Get the buying power you need to make large purchases, cover unexpected expenses and help your business grow. Earn a total of 2.5% cashback on every purchase of $5,000 or more plus earn unlimited 2% cashback on every other purchase, giving you unlimited earned potential to invest cashback into your business. From innovation and technology to everyday expenses, Inc. Business Premier is the only business credit card with 2.5% cashback on every purchase of $5,000 or more and is part of a suite of credit cards from Chase for Business designed to meet your needs every step along the way. Learn more@chase.com businesscard Chase for Business make more of what's Yours Accounts subject to credit approval restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank, NA member FDIC it's 1972.
- [18:24]
Narrator (Adrift Podcast Promo)
A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds.
- [18:35]
Commercial Narrator (Chase Ad)
All they have left is a life.
- [18:37]
Narrator (Adrift Podcast Promo)
Raft and each other. How will they survive? The true story of a family's fight for survival hosted by Becky Milligan. This is Adrift, an Apple Original podcast produced by Blanchard House.
- [18:51]
Commercial Narrator (Chase Ad)
Apple TV subscribers get special early access.
- [18:54]
Narrator (Adrift Podcast Promo)
To the entire season. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.
- [19:01]
Tim Harford (Cautionary Tales Host)
Ten years ago I kept bumping into policy wonks discussing an exciting new idea. Exciting to policy wonks anyway. A recent peer reviewed article by five behavioral scientists reporting the results of several different experiments had found that if you want somebody to truthfully fill in a form such as a tax return or an insurance claim, then don't get them to sign the form at the end saying they were honest. Get them to sign at the beginning promising that they will be honest, clever and that could save real money. Imagine collecting more taxes simply by getting people to sign at the top of their tax return, nudging them into telling the truth about their income. The UK's Behavioural Insights Team, better known as the Nudge Unit, leapt into action, designing a controlled experiment on behalf of the Government of Guatemala. 3 million tax returns later, the idea didn't work. Researchers at the Nudge Unit were left scratching their heads, much like the palaeontologists who kept finding fossils that were diet first, not brain first. What had they got wrong? And then came the Joseph Weiner moment. Three psychologists, Joe Simmons, Leif Nelson and Uri Simonson, wrote a website together under the jokey name datacollada. Usually they poked fun at sloppy research methods in social science. For example, using some dubious statistical techniques that were all too common in the field, the Data Colada team demonstrated that listening to the song When I'm 64 by the Beatles makes you a year and a half younger. Unbelievable. Clearly not even the Beatles are quite that brilliant. But the point was well made. If the standard techniques in psychology and marketing research could produce that sort of nonsense, the standard techniques needed to be drastically improved. Sometimes, however, the Data Colada team found themselves dealing not with sloppy practice, but with fraud. When Simmons, Nelson and Simonson looked into that sign at the Top academic paper, they realised that the data behind one of the experimental studies made no sense. The data apparently described the behaviour of insurance company customers reporting their vehicle mileage. On closer inspection, it didn't look anything like real mileage data, and it looked exactly like what you'd get if you used Microsoft Excel's randomization function. But things got weirder than that, because the investigators also found evidence that another study, conducted by different researchers and then published in the same article, also contained manipulated data. The Data Colada team wrote a blog post titled Clusterfake, exclaiming, that's right. Two different people independently faked data for two different studies in a paper about dishonesty. To make matters even more interesting, two of the academics involved, the ones most closely associated with the manipulated data, were superstars of behavioral science, Dan Ariely and Francesca Gino. If they had committed the fraud, this was big news. As with Piltdown man In the 1950s, there was no doubt that somebody had faked the evidence, or in this case, two different people. The question was, who? By 1953, when Joseph Weiner and his colleagues comprehensively demonstrated that Piltdown man was a fake, Sir Arthur Woodward was dead. Charles Dawson had died decades before, before the Piltdown 2 find had even been announced. One or both of those men were the obvious people to blame for the lie. But there were others. Over the years, a variety of books and essays have accused 20 different suspects of the fraud. Some of them were acquaintances of Dawson in Hastings. He'd been feuding with the local antiquarian society, and several knowledgeable locals had good reason to dislike him. Perhaps one of them had faked the bones and planted them at the Piltdown site, where Dawson would find them and embarrass himself. Then there were people from Woodward's world of academic palaeontology. Friends, rivals, subordinates. One of them was a huge champion of Piltdown Man. Had he colluded with Dawson? Perhaps. Another was a zoologist. In 1970, after his death, a trunk he'd left in storage at the Natural History Museum was opened. It contained animal bones stained chocolate brown, like the Piltdown skull and jaw. A fraudster. Or perhaps a skeptic trying to understand a fraud, just as Weiner had filed down an ape tooth to understand the forger's methods. The most spectacular theory about the Piltdown fraudster was published in the Magazine Science in 1983. The forger was none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dawson's neighbour. Doyle might have had the opportunity to plant fakes, and as a doctor, he had the expertise to make them. But the case against Conan Doyle, appropriately enough, for such a Gripping storyteller is nothing more than a good story. Not only is there no evidence that he was involved, there's no plausible motive either. The theory rests on little more than a famous man's proximity to the Piltdown site. No, it's far more likely that the fraud was not perpetrated on the discoverers of Piltdown man, but by one of them. The forgery was masterminded either by Sir Arthur Woodward or by Charles Dawson. Or by them both. Faced with the two fraudulent studies on dishonesty, both published in the same article, the academic community faced a similar question. Some of the fraudulent data was managed by Dan Ariely and definitely not his named co authors. Does that prove he faked the data? He says he didn't. And it must have been faked by the insurance company he collaborated with. But the insurance company had no reason to make up data to support Dan Ariely's theory, and they've also denied Ariely's claim. Or maybe there was some third party involved. An eager, unnamed research assistant, a disgruntled insurance company analyst. It doesn't seem likely, but there's no way to be sure. As for the other study with fake data that was conducted by Francesca Gino, did she fake the data, or was it faked by some other unknown party? She says she did nothing wrong. Data Colada sent a concise dossier of evidence to Gino's employer, Harvard University, knowing that they would have access to detailed data logs that might prove her guilt or her innocence. Harvard spent 18 months investigating, then suspended Gino without pay, stripped her of her named professorship, and began proceedings to revoke her tenure. There had been quiet mutterings about Arielli and Gino long before Data Colada published their forensic exposes. Then again, there were mutterings about Charles Dawson, the discoverer of the first Piltdown bone fragments, long before Joseph Weiner's bombshell. Among the most intriguing was the Maresfield map, an old map showing the area near Piltdown. It was published in a local archaeological journal in 1912, the year of the Piltdown discovery. It's a strange thing. A crude forgery claiming to be from 1724, but full of anachronisms, the wrong spellings, the wrong typefaces, roads that didn't exist until a century later, and many other errors. And make of this what you will. On the map, the word hundred is misspelled as hundred. The O of hundred has a tiny arrow pointing to it, and that o. Now, maybe this is mere coincidence, but the O just happens to be on the spot where the first Piltdown fossils were found. Near the O. On one side are the words Piltdown near the O. On the other side, the map notes the location of forge pits. Strange. The map was published without explanation and with the label made by C. Dawson, fsa. It's a kind of treasure map. Either Dawson was publishing a prank confession, or more likely, it's an anonymous accusation in code by a local antiquarian who disliked Dawson and suspected foul play at Piltdown. Dawson never protested about the map's publication. That was wise. At the time. The veiled accusation in a niche local journal passed unnoticed by the wider world. Complaining would only have drawn attention to it. But why didn't the whistleblower say something more direct about their suspicions? That's unclear, but it's no mystery why they preferred to remain anonymous. Identifying a fraud can be a dangerous business. A few weeks after Data Colada published a detailed four part expose of fraudulent data in work co authored by Francesca Gino. Gino filed a lawsuit against Harvard University and also sued Data Colada for defamation. She asked for damages of $25 million. Cautionary Tales will return after the break.
- [30:47]
Liberty Mutual Ad Narrator
And Doug, here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [31:02]
Commercial Narrator (T-Mobile Ad)
Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us?
- [31:05]
Liberty Mutual Ad Narrator
Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Very unwritten by.
- [31:13]
Tim Harford (Cautionary Tales Host)
Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates Excludes.
- [31:14]
Commercial Narrator (T-Mobile Ad)
Massachusetts in today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster and level up every tool in their arsenal. T Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network according to the experts at OOKLA Speed test. And they're using that network to launch Super Mobile. The first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built in security and seamless satellite coverage. With Super Mobile, your performance, security and coverage are supercharged. With a network that adapts in real time, your business stays operating at peak capacity even in times of high demand. With built in security on the first nationwide 5G advanced network, you keep private data private for you, your team, your clients. And with seamless coverage from the world's largest satellite to mobile constellation, your whole team can text and stay updated even when they're off the grid. That's your business. Supercharged. Learn more@supermobile.com seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the US where you can see the sky. Best Business Plan Based on a combination of advanced network performance, coverage layers and security features. Best Network Based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025 the.
- [32:37]
Commercial Narrator (Chase Ad)
Chase Inc. Business Premier card is made for business owners who make things happen. Designed for high spend and limitless cash back, Inc. Business Premier is a pay in full card with built in flexibility. Get the buying power you need to make large purchases, cover unexpected expenses and help your business grow. Earn a total of 2.5% cashback on every purchase of $5,000 or more, plus earn unlimited 2% cashback on every other purchase, giving you unlimited earned potential to invest cash back into your business. From innovation and technology to everyday expenses, Inc. Business Premier is the only business credit card with 2.5% cashback on every purchase of $5,000 or more and is part of a suite of credit cards from Chase for Business designed to meet your needs every step along the way. Learn more@chase.com businesscard Chase for Business make more of what's yours Accounts subject to credit approval restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JP Morgan Chase Bank NA member FDIC.
- [33:41]
Tim Harford (Cautionary Tales Host)
Dead Men can't sue which may be why so many different authors have accused so many long dead Edwardians of being the Piltdown fraudster. But in truth, it's hard to look past Charles Dawson. In the book the Piltdown Man Hoax Case Closed, the historian Miles Russell sets out an astonishing track record of discoveries by Dawson. In 1891, Dawson sent a large fossil tooth to Woodward at the Natural History Museum, who received it with delight, believing that it was a missing link in the fossil record. A hundred million year old mammal in Europe. It was also a fake. Modern analysis shows that it was filed down from another tooth, just as the Piltdown tooth had been. Dawson had access to fossils he could doctor and now he had the ear of Woodward, a dupe who trusted him that would vouch for whatever Dawson found. In 1893, Dawson sent a rusted little iron statuette to an expert at the British Museum. It was in the Roman style. But the exciting thing, said Dawson, was that it had been found at a known Roman ironworking site in Sussex, yet it was made of cast iron. Experts had thought cast iron wasn't made in Europe until many centuries after the Romans left Britain. So this was another missing link, a piece of evidence that fundamentally reframed our understanding of Roman technology. Where exactly had it been found again and by whom? Not to worry about those details, said Dawson. It was a Workman couldn't remember the chap's name. It was a few years back. More recent chemical analysis confirms that the statue is modern. In 1894, Dawson published a remarkable drawing of a Neolithic flint axe attached to a wooden haft. And it wasn't just a drawing. Dawson had based his drawing on an earlier sketch by a local hobbyist who discovered the axe and the haft when, a few years back, the haft, alas, had crumbled at the touch and all attempts to save it had proved futile. So here was yet another missing link early evidence of hafted prehistoric tools. If you regard a drawing of a drawing of a disintegrated piece of wood as evidence, that is, even the flint axe head has been lost, if indeed it ever existed. Then there was an ancient horseshoe of an unusual design, a spur, possibly Roman. A Neolithic hammer made of deer bone. Very rare. It was carved with precision and we now know that's because it was carved by a modern steel chisel. A Chinese bronze bowl from the Han Dynasty 2000 years ago, found in a medieval structure in the English coastal town of Dover. Remarkable evidence of global trade. Where exactly were these things found, Mr. Dawson, and by whom and when? Ah, it was all a few years back. I could continue. Miles Russell certainly does, detailing a long series of Dawson fakes. Dawson, it seems, was desperate for academic recognition, and especially he yearned to be a Fellow of the Royal Society. Perhaps if he'd lived a little longer, he might have succeeded. After all, he had an astonishing track record of repeatedly finding novel and important discoveries. The sort of things other researchers just couldn't find, not if they tried for a lifetime. What we can say for certain is that many of these Dawson fakes have traits in common. There's a missing link, something new and surprising, yet connected to what's already known. There's often an academic dupe, somebody who's come to trust Dawson and speak up in support of him. And there's a persistent vagueness about the providence of the items, where the exact time, location and finder of the discovery are unclear. Dawson often sat on his treasures for several years before announcing their existence. That gave him deniability if challenged. And it also made life difficult for anyone trying to follow the trail. And what of Piltdown? It's the ultimate missing link, of course. And if Sir Arthur Woodward was innocent of the fraud, as seems likely, he was the ultimate dupe, Then there was the vagueness again. In his fateful letter to Woodward, Dawson provided few details. In fact, Dawson's ambiguous accounts imply that he acquired the first Pilt down bone fragment sometime between one and 13 years before showing it to Woodward. It was, shall we say, all a few years back. As for Piltdown 2, the discovery of another human like skull alongside another ape like jawbone, the discovery which dispelled all the doubts back in 1916. We don't know where it was discovered and we don't know when. The overwhelming probability is that it was never discovered at all. The bones went straight from Dawson's workbench to Arthur Woodward's office without Dawson having bothered to bury them. If Dawson hadn't faded away and died, presumably he would have started to craft one of his characteristically vague stories. But without Dawson to spin his yarns, Piltdown 2 was largely forgotten. It had served its purpose. Francesca Gino's $25 million lawsuit against Data Colada was dismissed in September 2024, 13 months after it was filed. Can't have been a fun 13 months for Joe Simmons, Leif Nielsen and Yuri Simonson. The suit against Harvard continues. In August 2025, Harvard filed a counterclaim against Gino, suing her for defamation and alleging she falsified court evidence. Gino maintains her innocence. As for Dan Ariely, everyone agrees that he published a study containing fabricated data, but nobody can prove that he was the one who fabricated it. He continues to deny wrongdoing. I would never falsify any data on any experiment, he told the New Yorker. He told me the same thing. At no point did I knowingly use unreliable, inaccurate or manipulated data in our research. And there's no solid proof that he did. It's easy to chuckle at some of this stuff. So what if it actually makes no difference whether you sign at the top of a form or at the end? So what if Charles Dawson did fabricate evidence of early humans and Cretaceous mammals and Roman cast iron and Palaeolithic axes and trade between China and Kent? But it would be wrong to categorise Piltdown as merely a prank. It was an astonishing, brazen forgery that had led paleontologists astray for 40 years. Countless hours were wasted. Entire careers were devoted to making sense of the Piltdown discoveries and what they told us about human evolution. All in vain. All because of a lie that was designed to advance the career of the fraudster. The same can be said about fraudulent research in modern science. 3 million Guatemalan taxpayers were enrolled in an experiment to test an idea that now seems to have been built on lies. And if that seems bad, what about medical fraud? A few years ago, A Dutch researcher, Don Poldermans, was found by his own employer, Erasmus Medical School, to have used fictitious and knowingly unreliable data. Haldemans himself has apologised and said that the use of the fake data was an accident. But this wasn't a study about signing forms. It was a study about how to do major surgery. Poldermans had published research recommending the use of beta blocker drugs before some surgery surgical operations to lower blood pressure. After the problems with his research became known, a new analysis of the evidence concluded that beta blockers weren't just useless as a pre surgical treatment, but potentially deadly. They raised the risk of post surgical death by more than a quarter. That's even worse than it sounds. Two researchers estimated that if the confusion about beta blockers had delayed the adoption of best practices by five years, the consequence was 800,000 additional deaths. That's more people than died at the Battle of the Somme. Maybe that's an alarmist number, but it certainly gives a sense of what's at stake. Sometimes it's a matter of life and death. Death, a lot of death. And even if it isn't, it's about truth. And truth matters. One of the Data Colada team, Joe Simmons, has been reflecting about the way bad science, both the fakes and the sloppy stuff, distorts our view of reality and perverts the scientific process. Flawed analysis tends to produce more interesting results than careful stuff. Fake data absolutely guarantees those interesting results. Just as Dawson seemed to be able to dig up something amazing every time he went to a site. An influential portion of our literature is effectively a made up story, Joe Simmons told the New Yorker. A field cannot reward truth if it does not or cannot decipher it, so it rewards other things instead. Interestingness, novelty, speed, impact, Fantasy. Interestingness, novelty, fantasy. Charles Dawson would have been right at home. Key sources were unraveling Piltdown by John Evangelist Walsh and the Piltdown Man Hoax Case Closed by Miles Russell. For a full list of our sources, see the show notes@timharford.com. Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fiennes and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are worked with Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio. Ben Nadaff Haffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents of Melanie Gutteridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jupp, Masaya Munro, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brodie, Christina Sullivan, Keira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference to us. And if you want to hear the show ad free, sign up to Pushkin plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin FM plus.
- [47:01]
Podcast Host
Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first. There the last one. Enjoy a Coca Cola Cola for a pause that refreshes.
- [47:31]
FedEx Ad Narrator
This podcast is brought to you by FedEx. The new power Move hey, you know those people in your office who are always pulling old school corporate power moves? Like the guy who weaponizes eye contact. He's confident, he's engaged, he's often creepy. It's an old school power move. But this alpha dog laser gaze won't keep your supply chain moving across borders. The real power move? Having a smart platform that keeps up with the changing trade landscape. That's why smart businesses partner with FedEx and use the power of digital intelligence to navigate around supply chain issues before they happen. Set your sights on something that will actually improve your business. FedEx the new power move.
- [48:19]
OK Storytime Host
So usually on OK Storytime, our audience will send in their relationship problems and the OK Storytime squad gives some good advice goofily. But today we're not giving out our usual advice. Our producer Riley says we're giving something else. So what are we doing today, Riley?
- [48:32]
Tim Harford (Cautionary Tales Host)
Today we're playing a little game.
- [48:33]
OK Storytime Host
Oh, I love game game, says the man.
- [48:37]
OK Storytime Participant
I bought special gifts for you guys from ebay. Each one picked with one of you in mind. Yeah, Dakota, if you want to guess.
- [48:43]
OK Storytime Host
All right. There is a gift at my feet.
- [48:45]
Narrator (Adrift Podcast Promo)
Feet.
- [48:45]
OK Storytime Host
Open that thing. And now it is in my hands. I feel like it's got to be our resident gamer kiosk. This is the rectangle of childhood.
- [48:53]
OK Storytime Participant
It's a portable game console. I used to have this as a kid, this game console. I used to play all the time. And you know when your mom came into the room when you're a kid and like you're pretending to sleep.
- [49:03]
FedEx Ad Narrator
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [49:04]
OK Storytime Participant
But Riley, what a thoughtful gift.
- [49:05]
Tim Harford (Cautionary Tales Host)
Yeah, right?
- [49:07]
OK Storytime Participant
You're crushing it.
- [49:08]
But we have one more gift.
- [49:09]
OK Storytime Host
Yeah, let's open it.
- [49:11]
Commercial Narrator (T-Mobile Ad)
Boom.
- [49:12]
OK Storytime Host
Oh, camera. Yeah, an old timey camera.
- [49:15]
Tim Harford (Cautionary Tales Host)
That's right.
- [49:16]
OK Storytime Host
Classic. This is awesome. Because you know how I love to take pictures of my travels.
- [49:20]
OK Storytime Participant
Yeah, you're always somewhere, whether it's in.
- [49:22]
OK Storytime Host
Kyrgyzstan with some nomads or just New York, you know, with a nice little piece of trash or a rat taking.
- [49:29]
Tim Harford (Cautionary Tales Host)
Pictures with the birds.
- [49:31]
OK Storytime Host
So, Riley, you got all of this from eBay, dude, eBay.
- [49:34]
OK Storytime Participant
It was really fun finding it with you guys. Like, I had very specific things for each one of you.
- [49:39]
Tim Harford (Cautionary Tales Host)
Yeah, it was all there.
- [49:40]
OK Storytime Host
Thanks, Riley. And thank you. EBay.
- [49:42]
OK Storytime Participant
And guys shop ebay for millions of finds, each with a story. EBay. Things people love.
- [49:47]
Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.