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Chow Chung-yan

Never before have we faced such rampant information manipulation in our daily lives – and with the rise of artificial intelligence, this may only be the beginning.
To navigate this relentless onslaught of misinformation, we should take a lesson from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the immortal Sherlock Holmes.
Since his debut in 1887, Holmes has become one of history’s most beloved fictional characters; the epitome of logical reasoning, sharp observation, and scientific deduction.
Doyle, a qualified doctor, gained international fame through the series. Yet his reputation suffered when he fell victim to one of the earliest celebrity misinformation scandals – orchestrated by two young girls.
In 1917, nine-year-old Frances Griffiths and her sixteen-year-old cousin Elsie Wright from Cottingley, England, claimed to have seen fairies by a stream. To “prove” their story, they borrowed Elsie’s father’s camera and produced five photographs featuring themselves with tiny, dancing figures.
Elsie’s father dismissed the images as fakes, but the girls insisted they were real. Doyle, grieving his son’s death in World War I, had become deeply invested in spiritualism. He saw the photos as validation of his beliefs.
Despite warnings from friends and even Kodak technicians, Doyle published the images in 1920, declaring them genuine. Two years later, he doubled down with a book, The Coming of the Fairies, presenting the photos as irrefutable evidence.
His endorsement, backed by his fame as a thinker, sparked global fascination. Many believed the photos – despite obvious flaws – simply because they trusted Doyle.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that Frances and Elsie admitted the truth: the “fairies” were cardboard cut-outs from a children’s book, propped up with hatpins. The crudest form of photo manipulation had fooled the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
Doyle was among the first high-profile victims of image fraud, but he was far from the last. History is littered with examples of brilliant minds deceived by hoaxes.
Charles Robert Richet, a Nobel Prize-winning physiologist, endorsed a fraudulent medium who claimed to be capable of producing “ectoplasm” (ghosts) – later exposed as cheesecloth. In 2023, researchers demonstrated that AI-generated papers with nonsensical claims could slip past peer review.
These cases are alarming because the victims were celebrated for their critical thinking. Contrary to the myth that only the gullible fall for scams, many victims are highly intelligent – proof that no one is immune to deception.
Doyle’s story exemplifies confirmation bias: our tendency to embrace information that aligns with our beliefs while dismissing contradictions. Even the most rational minds are swayed by emotion. As Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in Beyond Good and Evil: “The will to overcome an emotion is ultimately only the will of another, or several other, emotions.”
Notably, even after exposure, perpetrators often cling to fragments of their claims. Frances Griffiths insisted the fifth photo was genuine despite admitting the hoax. Misinformation outlives its debunking because of emotional investment.
The deeper lesson is humility. It is easy to scrutinise opposing views; the real challenge is questioning evidence that supports our beliefs. The greatest risk lies in overconfidence – drawing quick conclusions and refusing to consider other arguments.
Sherlock Holmes’ genius was seductive, but I was also troubled when I first read the book: How could he deduce Watson’s military service in Afghanistan from a tan and a stiff posture? How did he know Helen Stoner arrived by dogcart from mud splatters on her coat? The stories provide tidy explanations, but life is messier. Reality is nonlinear, and evidence is often ambiguous. There could be other possibilities to explain the mud stains or tanned skin.
Holmes occasionally admitted mistakes, yet readers remember his supernatural intuition. Modern audiences, drowning in misinformation, crave such clarity – but imitating Holmes is a fool’s errand. As Bertrand Russell warned, the modern world suffers not from a lack of answers, but from a scarcity of doubt.
Social media exacerbates this problem. Viral voices thrive on conviction, sweeping statements, and radicalism. Nuance is punished; hesitation is “fence-sitting”. We are pressured to pick sides within hours of any major event and defend our stance like soldiers in a trench.
This dynamic is especially pronounced in the coverage of China. I have been in the business for over 26 years, and I still grapple with the country’s complexity and rapidly shifting socio-economic landscape. Over the years, my predictions about China have been wrong more often than right – a humbling reminder of how little any outsider truly understands.

That’s why I find it so unsettling when commentators deliver definitive pronouncements on China’s future. One day, it’s “on the brink of collapse”; the next, it’s “marching toward global domination.” The discourse is so polarised, so schizophrenically binary, that it resembles religious dogma more than reasoned analysis.
In an increasingly chaotic information environment, the real wisdom lies in resisting the allure of Holmesian certainty. We must cultivate doubt, question our biases, and remain open to revision. The greatest defense against misinformation isn’t genius – it is humility.


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The creator of the great detective was fooled by a hoax; we should avoid certainty about the future too


The creator of the great detective was fooled by a hoax; we should avoid certainty about the future too.


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China’s collapse or domination? Avoid the mistakes of Sherlock Holmes’ creator

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The creator of the great detective was fooled by a hoax; we should avoid certainty about the future too

The creator of the great detective was fooled by a hoax; we should avoid certainty about the future too