Horner fudges data--and I'm sorry, but even the small things matter

Some of you may have heard this story on NPR:

Advertisers are finding new and creative ways to sell their films. Sometimes a movie will be mentioned in the middle of a sitcom, or a star of a film will narrate a documentary, which is paid for by the studio. One studio has even manipulated a scientific discovery to coincide with the opening of a film. A look at some of the tactics studios use to seduce moviegoers to their films.

Specifically, the manipulated discovery was by Jack Horner, who fudged the date of discovery of a T. rex fossil to better accommodate the release date of a Jurassic Park movie. My jaw dropped at that news—that is thoroughly deplorable, and as far as I'm concerned, does serious damage to Horner's reputation, as well as making life more difficult for more ethical scientists.

I'm spared a reason to work up a good rant, though, since you can find a good, thoughtful dissection of the issues at Adventures in Ethics and Science (which seems to be a very fine place to consider the subject of the title, by the way).