Re:'Dead Sea Scrolls' at museum turn out to be forgeries
by wpietri on Friday March 13, 2020 @09:01PM
(#22572224)
I don't think you're correct about the 2008 crisis. But even if you're right, my point is broader than that. Plenty of executives play a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose game, with plausible deniability as part of that. Look at almost any industry with significant negative externalities.
And of course the museum can give itself credibility. Just by opening as a museum, for a start. But also by striving to appear credible to the million or so visitors who pay $20/head to tour it each year. And museums always perform respectableness for donors.
Events like this do somewhat subtract from that, of course. But only if they get caught. That could be an incentive toward better scholarship. But it also could be an incentive toward higher-quality, more difficult to discover fakes.
And of course the museum can give itself credibility. Just by opening as a museum, for a start. But also by striving to appear credible to the million or so visitors who pay $20/head to tour it each year. And museums always perform respectableness for donors.
Events like this do somewhat subtract from that, of course. But only if they get caught. That could be an incentive toward better scholarship. But it also could be an incentive toward higher-quality, more difficult to discover fakes.