Biology is a huge field. Some parts of it are rigorous hard science, like a good chunk of cellular biology. Other parts of it are pure speculation, like the ori

Biology is a huge field. Some parts of it are rigorous hard science, like a good chunk of cellular biology. Other parts of it are pure speculation, like the origin of life. And some are obscure and confused, like what exactly is life anyhow? As an example for that last one biologists appear to have settled for begging the question and saying well a thing is alive if it has life processes. I don't know that anyone else does, but I like to draw a distinction between experimental scientific inquiry and rigorously observed phenomenology. Properly speaking I say a great deal of what's called science is really a species of phenomenology. For example cosmology is pure phenomenology. We can't actually run experiments on what happens when you smash two black holes together. However we can rigorously observe the phenomenon and abduce a descriptive model that can potentially even make predictions. But the word "science" has become a totem, so there's a lot of cargo culting[1] and punishing blasphemers. However, I don't really think that whether a field is science, phenomenology, or some blend of both has much effect on the rate of fraud. Rather, I hypothesize the dominant factor in the incidence of fraud is the perceived magnitude of the potential benefit to be obtained. The Alzheimer's fraud is a good example of that. There are hundreds of billions and maybe even trillions of dollars in play in that space. Drug companies have already poured billions down the drain chasing dead ends so anyone who can sell them hope can potentially get a substantial payday. An amusing corollary of this is that given the relatively small stakes social science fraudsters are playing for, we can conclude that they are small-minded in the sense that they aren't thinking nearly as big as the drug company fraudsters. [1] https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm