Modern Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities | ISSN 2795-4846 | Volume 18 | Jul-2023 106 Lies, Forgeries and Integrity in Scientific Research Juan Sebastián Gómez-Jeria PhD in Molecular Physical Chemistry Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile Abstract: Some thoughts are presented on fraud in sciences and on the need for it to be punished in an exemplary way since the academic delinquent infects the body of scientific knowledge with a parasitic behavior. Keywords: Forgeries, plagiarism, Ptolemy, Newton, Library of Alexandria, public University, social parasites, research misconduct. Definitions. We have adopted the definitions used by the Office of Research Integrity 1 . From its website we have copied the following concepts. Research misconduct means fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results. (a) Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them. (b) Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record. (c) Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit. (d) Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion. The astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (second century) was the last relevant representative of Greek astronomy. He developed his observational activity in the temple of Serapis in Canopus, near Alexandria (Ptolemy was working and researching in the famous Library of Alexandria). There was a time when it was admitted that his proposal for a geocentric system predicting the position of the planets was entirely his doing. However, the difference in latitude between Alexandria and the island of Rhodes allowed us to discover that Ptolemy's observations corresponded to those obtained at the latitude of the Greek island and not at that of Alexandria, so it is now accepted that he used the data obtained by Hipparchus of Nicaea (Hipparchus of Rhodes). Hipparchus would have in turn copied from some Babylonian manuscripts he had obtained. Apparently copying works without citing the author and without attributing the work was seen as a form of recognition. Today that is not the case, and copying other works without citing the author or authors is labelled plagiarism as defined by ORI. The brilliant German philosopher, polymath, theologian, logician, and mathematician Wilhelm von Leibniz discovered calculus independently of Newton and published his discoveries in due form. By modern standards, von Leibniz would have had all the credit for that invention and Newton none (Newton is the greatest physicist of all time: he is a handful of Einstein put together). The problem arose when Leibniz petitioned the Royal Society of London for the Advancement of Natural Science (the Royal Society, the oldest scientific society in the United Kingdom was formally founded in 1662) to form a committee to prepare an impartial report on its involvement in the invention of calculus. Modern Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities ISSN: 2795-4846 Volume 18 (Jul-2023) Available online: https://mjssh.academicjournal.io