"Stress, task fixation, and unconscious distortion of data may have played a major role in this incident," it said.

Rosenberg's perspective on German prehistory led mainly to racist distortion of data which did not directly apply to the Germanic people.

The board of inquiry's report said that "stress, task fixation and unconcscious distortion of data may have played a major role" in the decision for the downing, but the board rejected such factors as the main cause.

In 2010, more than 500 French researchers asked Science Minister Valérie Pécresse to dismiss Allègre's book L'imposture climatique, claiming the book is "full of factual mistakes, distortions of data, and plain lies".