I think the title doesn't really give a good impression of the contents of the article.

The article spends most time on evolution Sacks' homosexual identity and struggle with sexuality and repression.

His uncertainty and melancholical bouts maar him question his own work and make the author conclude him 'putting himself in his work'.

However very little evidence is presented. Most insinuated about is 'awakenings' yet even in that case it's hard to reach conclusions.

The author plays of his perennial self-doubt as aan admission, but there's very scant evidence about him actually making up stories.

I'm not saying his method is our isn't flawed, it's just that the title belies the story. The struggle with his sexuality is the main subject and only small bits are about his uncertainty of his work.

You're leaving out that he made up stories, and admitted it in private. Also that the article looked at primary sources, and saw that things that he said were not true.

You're just making it look like the article is picking on a troubled, vulnerable person for being troubled and vulnerable, and ignoring the elements of the article inconvenient to that, such as the mild-mannered, introverted patient made disruptively ultra-sexual by L-dopa who had actually been an enthusiastic rapist and who no one described as shy and introverted. Or the audio recordings of a woman being told how she felt by him (and denying it), and how she was described that way in the books. Or how he put quotes from his own interests into his patients mouths.

> there's very scant evidence

If you ignore it, there isn't any. Do you think there's some threshold of quotes you're allowed to make up, or abilities you're allowed to give to people that they don't have (like the prime number thing, that even involved a fictional book), or a particular number of lies you get to tell about someone's past before it becomes dishonest?

I have no idea what motivates people to make excuses like this for professional dishonesty. Sometimes I just think it's celebrity worship, but other times I think it's because people are dishonest in their own professional lives, and want to be excused by proxy.