Summary The occurrence of scientific fraud damages the credibility of science. An instrument to discover deceit was proposed with Benford’s law, a distribution which describes the probability of significant digits in many empirical observations. If Benford-distributed digits are expected and...

The occurrence of scientific fraud damages the credibility of science. An instrument to discover deceit was proposed with Benford’s law, a distribution which describes the probability of significant digits in many empirical observations. If Benford-distributed digits are expected and empirical...

Digits in statistical data produced by natural or social processes are often distributed in a manner described by 'Benford's law'. Recently, a test against this distribution was used to identify fraudulent accounting data. This test is based on the supposition that first, second, third, and...