Europe 1 with AFP 4:35 p.m., August 4, 2022
French scientist Etienne Klein has apologized on Twitter for a hoax that passed off a slice of chorizo as a snapshot of the star Proxima Centauri.
This tweet "simply wanted to encourage caution with images that seem eloquent by themselves", he defended himself.
French scientist Etienne Klein has apologized on Twitter for a hoax passing off a slice of chorizo as a snapshot of the star Proxima Centauri, a move that was meant to 'encourage caution' over the fake images circulating on social networks.
"I come to apologize to those whom my hoax, which had nothing original, may have offended. It simply wanted to urge caution with regard to images that seem eloquent on their own," tweeted Wednesday Etienne Klein, physicist and philosopher of science.
I come to present my apologies to those whom my hoax, which had nothing original about it, may have shocked.
He simply wanted to urge caution with images that seem eloquent on their own.
A scientist's joke https://t.co/wHiJWxscxq#Astronomy via @LePoint
— Etienne KLEIN (@EtienneKlein) August 3, 2022
Some success on social networks
On Sunday, the scientist posted a photo of a slice of chorizo against a black background, claiming it was an image of the closest star to the Sun, taken with the brand new James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST).
"Photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years away from us. It was taken by the JWST. This level of detail... A new world is unfolding day by day “, commented Etienne Klein above the photo in a tweet.
Photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years from us.
She was taken by the JWST.
This level of detail… A new world is revealed day after day.
pic.twitter.com/88UBbHDQ7Z
— Etienne KLEIN (@EtienneKlein) July 31, 2022
His publication, revealed by the online media HuffPost, has had some success on social networks, with 1,334 retweets, 10,000 "likes".
And deceived many people.
"I was surprised by the magnitude it took: I thought that the image was going to be immediately detected as being false. And when I saw that a great journalist from BFMTV was ecstatic, and that he risked spreading it, I told him it was a joke. He took it with a lot of humor," Etienne Klein told AFP.
A recurring hoax
"I then apologized because obviously some people have the impression of having been taken for chitterlings, which is not the case at all", pleaded the researcher, also producer of the program
Science in question.
on France Culture.
The image of the slice of chorizo is a recurring hoax, used in particular a few years ago to make people believe in the dark side of the Moon.
"The hoax is an old tradition among physicists," said the 64-year-old scientist, research director at the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).
As he explained on Twitter, his gesture echoes the Sokal affair, named after an American physicist who published a hoax article in a peer-reviewed journal in 1996.
"A hoax has an educational virtue. It says our ability to be fooled, questions our relationship to sources... We saw during the Covid that certain isolated scientists could publish untruths without being contradicted", added Etienne Klein.
And wondering that his fake image was "much more 'liked'" than the real photos of James Webb he had previously shared on Twitter.