title: The story of a largely unknown evolution - Germ theory hoax.
abstract: The Piltdown Man debacle provides us with the most infamous forgery in science. However, another equally intriguing story exists concerning a document by a Bostonian called George Sleeper, which purported to be a pre-Darwin-Wallace anticipation of evolution and an equally convincing account of the germ theory published before Louis Pasteur's famous studies on this subject. The story involves two giants in the world of evolutionary theory, Alfred Russel Wallace and E.B. Poulton. While Wallace was convinced that the Sleeper document was genuine, Poulton's detailed investigations showed that it was a fake and a hoax. Despite this conclusion, doubts still exist about the authenticity of the Sleeper document.
authors: Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK.
authors: Milton
authors: M
authors: Wainwright
authors: Sulaiman Ali
authors: SA
authors: Alharbi
keywords: Alfred Russell Wallace; History of evolution; History of the germ theory; Piltdown Man; Scientific forgery
references: Adv Appl Microbiol. 2003;52:333-55
references: 12964250