Are cases like the Piltdown hoax rare in science?
If by rare you mean the frequency by which deliberate hoaxes are perpetrated in order to promote a scientific theory then yes, cases like the Piltdown hoax are relatively rare, though they do happen occasionally. Archaeoraptor is a more recent example of another case in which fossils were doctored to promote Darwinian evolution. If you are referring to the frequency by which conclusions are falsely drawn from information (whether the information is deliberately falsified or not) then the answer is no, it is not rare at all. It happens fairly often. Scientists are constantly revising the facts as they see them, thereby affirming that the previous conclusions drawn from the evidence were false. The Nebraska Man is a classic example of this. Though not a deliberate hoax like the Piltdown Man, whereby someone deliberately falsified evidence, Nebraska Man was simply a case of mistaken identity. An extinct pigs tooth was found and misinterpreted to belong to some kind of ape-man. This miscla
