[js1138]

I recall a few years ago a guy from my hometown scammed some major industry bigwigs with a scheme for ultra high speed (read fiber optic speeds) data transfer over ordinary telephone wire. We're talking Cisco kind of industry bigwigs.

He lived rather well for half a dozen years on research grants., pocketing a couple million in investment capital.

Scientists sometimes exhibit a pathetic tendency to take people at their word. It can take years to debunk the simplest sleight of hand tricks.

[PatrickHenry]

Scientists sometimes exhibit a pathetic tendency to take people at their word.

That's because there's usually no fraud in professional science, so they're not alert to scams. And most of them have very little real-world experience. (Yeah, I know, there's a whole bunch of folks who think science is all fraud. They're frequently the ones who promptly buy into the perpetual motion stories.)