Science is one of the rare structure of knowledge which includes self correction by default. But correction and reputation don’t play nicely together. For correction to occur somebody had to be wrong. In some cases a lot of people.
Having a prize like this lets us elevate previously embarrassing findings, take the whole thing less seriously and make room for ideas outside the status quo.
I’m not sure this prize is any less important than the Nobel prize.
For people who don't know, it was about research related to communities around the world that are known to have a high number of centenarians. Lots of researchers have studied those populations to see how their genes/lifestyles are different from ordinary folks and try to take lessons from them.
Then one researcher came along and showed that most/all of those communities have poor record keeping, and it's quite possible they didn't have as many centenarians as claimed. What's more, for the folks in those communities where the records are reliable, the average lifespan is actually average or even below average.
One example: I think it was Okinawa - most of the records were destroyed due to heavy bombing in WW2. So we just had people's own claims of their age.
The main finding was that it was Fraud. People in these villages got addicted to free money for their long dead relatives. So instead of declaring them dead they willfully knowingly illegally buried/cremated them and happily kept cashing checks. In the form of various retirement payments and government social programs.
It unveiled massive wide scale fraud. It was not some silly innocient whoopsie story as you tell it.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/03/worlds-oldest-woman-122-compl...
IIRC, the reasons varied from one blue zone to another. Not all were fraud.
Warning: here lie rabbit holes. Just as well it's Sunday tomorrow.
How safe is it to download and view one of his fonts from a non-https site[1]? I feel like I should create windows VM just to view the fonts.
It’s my dream to publish there someday…