http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=HOGG095489548622 October 2004
Location: London, UK
An exciting programme of talks is now scheduled for this anniversary meeting, the date of which celebrates 6,000 years since the world was ‘created’, and 10 years since the founding of the History of Geology Group. We are delighted to have John Talent as our Keynote speaker, who is coming all the way from Australia to tell us how he uncovered the fraudulent VJ Gupta. Chris Stringer will reveal yet another candidate for the Piltdown mystery, and many other speakers will disclose fascinating fakes, frauds and hoaxes, several of which have never before seen the light of day.
The talks will finish with a toast to Archbishop Ussher, given by Hugh Torrens, and John Fuller will explain just how we come to be celebrating that famous date in 4004 BC.
MEETING PROGRAMME
KEYNOTE ADDRESS: VJ Gupta's life of academic fraud
Professor John Talent
For twenty five years Professor Gupta was regarded as a world leader in his field, until John Talent of Macquarie University established that Gupta's research was "fictitious and based on spurious fossils". Professor Gupta took fossils he might have bought in a flea market or else where, and claimed he found them at a remote site in the Himalayas. Why?
The contrasting treatment of the Piltdown Fraud of 1912 and that of Moulin Quignon, 1863. Dr Patrick Boylan
There are alarmingly close parallels between the Piltdown ‘discoveries’ of 1912 to 1914 and the 1863 'discovery' of a human jaw associated with the Middle Pleistocene extinct mammal fossils found at Moulin Quignon near Abbeville, northern France …
Piltdown and Sussex: an uneasy relationship. Dr Tony Brook
In a recent General Index of the Sussex Archaeological Society occurs the intriguing entry ‘Piltdown hoax, possible explanation of’
Fishy business. Dr Peter Forey
The 'art' of faking fossil fishes is old and has adopted many guises
The unlikely story of Miocene Man. Mr Mike Howgate
In 1806 a fossilised human skeleton was excavated by the French on the West Indian island of Guadeloupe …
The scientific work of J.B. Hannay (1855-1931). Mr Julian Jocelyn
J.B Hannay (1855-1931), Glasgow chemist, inventor and author is best known for a discredited synthesis of diamond. When his career is examined with respect to honesty, it is hard to draw the line between fact and fiction.
The fraud of Château-Thierry (1627): How Martine de Bertereau really prospected for water. Dr Martina Kölbl-Ebert
Martine de Bertereau was all too successful in hiding geological knowledge behind the occult.
The mystique of cold groundwater Dr John Mather
The mystical powers of cold groundwater owe more to the efforts of local entrepreneurs than to any intrinsic properties of the waters themselves, but patrons continued to be duped – as they have been for five centuries.
The Orgueil Meteorite Fraud turns full circle. Dr Joe McCall
The Orgueil Meteorite fraud remained undetected for 100 years, until Claus and Nagy found quite different 'organised elements' in other specimens of the same meteorite. These bodies are microscopic, unlike the fraudulent seed implants, and could represent bacteria …
Forever amber? Dr Andrew Ross
Large inclusions such as lizards, are extremely rare in amber and have a high market price …
Geologists and fossilists: trust and mistrust in fossil specimens in geology's heroic age. Professor Martin Rudwick
In the decades around 1800 there was a necessary symbiosis between savants interested in the sciences of the Earth and the "fossilists" who made a living by supplying them with some of their best specimens …
Stimulating the speculators Dr Adrian Rushton
At the end of the 19th century the need for coal in London drove speculators to invest in a drilling programme encouraged by "seeding" a borehole core, which resulted only in some good specimens of Tremadoc graptolites …
Piltdown – the final answers? Professor Chris Stringer
At least 25 men have been accused of being involved in the forgery, and Dawson has always been the prime candidate, but an alternative has recently come to the fore …
Beringer’s iconoliths or ‘lying stones’: fossil fraud in the early 18th century. Dr Paul Taylor and Dr Ann Lum
While Beringer has become a figure of ridicule and his iconoliths dubbed ‘lying stones’, the fraud must be viewed in its historical context – a time when the definition and origin of fossils had not been entirely settled.
Originals, replicas, models and fakes. Dr Dave Williams
“Is it real?†is the question most frequently asked about a fossil.
A toast to Archbishop Ussher Professor Hugh Torrens
James Ussher – Neither Fake Nor Fraud Dr John Fuller
So who placed the words ‘Before Christ 4004’ at the opening of the Book of Genesis in the King James Bible, published in 1701, fifty years after Ussher died?
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