Biggest scientific hoax ever?

FORTY years ago this week, National Geographic screened a documentary entitled The Last Tribes of Mindanao.

It won’t be celebrating the anniversary. It’s an episode which that excellent institution would rather forget.

During the 1940s, Han van Meegeren fooled the luminaries of the art world with his fake canvases. A Vermeer of his had been acquired by Hermann Göring. The Dutchmen, accused of collaboration, showed that he had painted the picture, and several others, himself.