Monday, August 3, 2020

Bizarre story about a neuroscientist who allegedly has been running "a catfishing scam for years"

Gizmodo:
A bizarre saga of events played out on social media over the weekend, embroiling much of the close-knit world of scientists, academics, and researchers on Twitter. It started with accusations that Arizona State University’s actions had exposed one of their faculty members, an Indigenous woman and anthropologist, to an ultimately fatal case of covid-19. But it ended with allegations that the death was a hoax, carried out by someone who also faked the supposed professor’s entire existence.

...

many members of the science Twitter community now suspect that the academic who was the first to report the woman’s death...has pulled off a catfishing scam for years
Buzzfeed describes a Zoom memorial that was held following the apparently imaginary professor's "death."

Related, here's the story of a similar hoax: