Drowning in a sea of fakery

Science has been built on trust for centuries. Once upon a time you could know most of your contemporaries in a field and whether their work could be relied upon or not. As the scientific world grew this became impossible – today there are simply far too many researchers to keep track of. However, the idea has remained that scientific treatises could, on the whole, be trusted, despite occasional embarrassments, such as the Schön scandal that featured faked data on single molecule semiconductors. It now seems we’re entering a new era where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to take anything on trust.