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16

modify some figure that doesn't agree or they delete it entirely: From then on, the decline proceeds in easy stages. They are alone in their falsehood, since even a repeat will not inculpate them. You can see that it would really take a monumental character to hew to the line where challenge or detection is unlikely or impossible and the wishful thought is so persuasive. And these qualities are not very much in vogue these days.

For all these reasons, the idea struck me that day at the meeting of the Central Society for Clinical Research, that the conclusions reached about that aldosterous-secreting tumor, might not be true, and I waited with considerable tension to hear the discussion following the close of the paper. In this I was disappointed, however, because the only comment was a modest word of measured praise from the Michigan man who had obliged by performing certain of the animal assays. I wondered if anybody else in the audience would admit to any doubts of the authenticity of the report or whether skepticism not to say, cynicism, was limited to myself. I wondered if I was jealous and unwilling to accept an interesting and commendable piece of work simply because it wasn't I who had done it. But I couldn't surprise the taint of envy in myself because I was greatly excited about my own field and didn't feel in the least threatened by an original work in an adjacent area. And I went on to reflect that, whether my suspicions were well founded or not, with relation to the aldosterone-secreting tumor, the possibility of a situation developing in which it would be impossible to screen the wheat from the chaff, research from error or imposture - seemed not only likely but probably already present and inevitable. Every year at that time, the same ballroom or even larger ones, would fill up with prominent research cigars reports would be presented becomingly by one of the junior members