4 ms·
Conan Doyle was fascinating, I highly recommend the biography Teller of Tales, he was prescient about a lot of things (submarine warfare, other military issues
by GatorD42 8y ago
Conan Doyle was fascinating, I highly recommend the biography Teller of Tales, he was prescient about a lot of things (submarine warfare, other military issues during WWI) but also fooled by the rampant fraud in the spiritualist movement, like the Cottingley photographs.
This article makes it seem like he personally investigated the cases, he didn’t. What he did was help publicize them and write long book length summaries of the evidence to convince people. He also published a “pamphlet” on Belgian colonial exploitation of the Congo. He worked directly with the lawyers / investigators to get the facts and used his fame and writing ability to get public attention.
- anthonybsd 8y agoHe was also one of the prime suspects behind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piltdown_Man fraud which set back scientific community in general, and anthropology in particular quite a bit.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoI thought Doyle was fairly quickly ruled out. Charles Dawson seems most likely, has been connected with other frauds and half his collection was fake.
- anthonybsd 8y agoRight you are. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/08/10/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-cleared-of-piltdown-man-hoax/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/08/10/sir-arthur-co... I remember reading this in the 90s in SciAm which was supposedly linked to his deep resentment of scientific community in general.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoMemory is a funny thing - that's much more recent than I thought!