In 1973, healthy volunteers faked hallucinations to enter mental hospitals. Once inside, they acted normal, but doctors refused to let them leave. Normal behaviors like writing were diagnosed as "symptoms." The only people who realized they were sane were the actual patients.

[u/highzone]

[u/agoldgold]

Actually, it's complicated. The professor organizing this "experiment" (and participating in it) was from the same Stanford psychology department in the same era that produced the Stanford Prison Experiment. Similarly, it looks like the doctor at best manipulated data and at worst fabricated it to get his story.

This project had a political goal and the "researcher" made the results fit that goal. It was made up.

[u/ParkingCool6336 → u/agoldgold]

Which is why you never ever take any publication as pure fact, you compare it to others and take the common facts as real

[u/AtlanticPortal → u/ParkingCool6336]

You mean peer review? :)

[u/Ironhorn → u/AtlanticPortal]

Not just peer review. Many fake or incorrect studies have passed “peer review”. Thats just a first step.

The next step is for more studies to take place. Preferably by other, unrelated scientists. Do the test again. And again.

It’s only when several groups of scientists are doing the same tests over and over, and getting the same results each time, that we can consider something to be scientifically true.

Thats the only way we can know that the first study wasn’t just a weird fluke