Piltdown Hoax

  1. In 1913 a man by the name Charles Dawson who was an amateur archeologist, thought he had found the “missing link” between man and ape when he had found a human like skull in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown village in Sussex, England. Dawson then started working with a man named Smith Woodward and they started making many discoveries together. In the same area they found pieces of a skull, jawbone, teeth, and primitive tools to which they said belonged to the same individual. When they placed everything together they had come to the conclusion that this was from a human ancestor from over 500,000 years prior. They had announced this discovery in 1912 at the Geological Society meeting, and their story was believed by the people. In 1949 things began to look a little different, new technology allowed them to see that the remains were actually only from 50,000 years prior which eliminated the possibility that it was the missing link between human and ape because at this point in times humans had already developed into homosapiens. Later on more people got involved and they tested the skull fragments and found that the findings were from two different species, one from a human and one from an ape. There was also evidence that there were scratches on the teeth in order to make them look more human like. Another odd finding was that most of the findings from Piltdown had been artificially stained to match the local gravels. The conclusion of this hoax was that this was scientific fraud and it was all fake and made to look real. Before it was found to be fake people really thought they were getting somewhere in finding how exactly apes made the transitions to humans. This would’ve taught us exactly how and why apes started to evolve and when they did. It is significant because if it wasn’t seen as fraud then today we could think something that was completely wrong.
  2. The human faults that I see with this situation is not Dawson wanting to truly find how apes evolved, but he was so worried about being recognized and accredited for the findings that he would literally do anything to get the fame he desired even if it meant lie and potentially change science forever. His faults negatively impacted the scientific process because scientists were convinced that he found the missing link and so all they were focusing on was what he found instead of actually finding the true way we had evolved.
  3. Dr. Kenneth Oakley was able to use fluoride tests to find out that the remains Dawson found were actually 50,000 years old instead of 500,000 years old. The good thing about the hoax was that people were suspicious and it caused them to branch out and create new technology in order to find the truth on these remains. The technology they used is used today and without it we probably wouldn’t have what we have now.
  4. I don’t think what happened was an error and removing the human factor would not reduce the chances of this happening again. Dawson knee that the remains were not the missing link so he altered them to look like it. If we removed the human factor from science then people wouldn’t work so hard to make sure the truth is the actually truth they would just believe what they did. They would not work so incredibly hard and create new inventions just to make sure everything was correct.
  5. The life lesson I can take from this is do not believe what everyone says just because they seem like they know what they are talking about. Always make sure you have all the facts and data and have tried everything before you just accept what someone has to say. Make sure YOU know what they are talking about not just hear what they know they are talking about.

Comments

  1. L RodriguezMarch 6, 2019 at 3:08 PM

    Good points in your synopsis, but I need to address the issue of "significance". I understand what you are trying to say about the "missing link" point, but this was *never* the scientific significance of this fossil. Never. It was what the public focused on, but the average Joe's understanding of science is not what we are looking for here.

    So the issue of significance remains. Yes, this was significant because it was the first hominid found on English soil, but there was also *scientific* significance. Had Piltdown been valid, it would have helped us better understand *how* humans (not *if*) evolved from that common ancestor with non-human apes. Piltdown was characterized by large cranium combined with other more primitive, non-human traits, suggesting that the larger brains evolved relatively early in hominid evolutionary process. We now know this to be incorrect, that bipedalism evolved much earlier with larger brains evolving later, but Piltdown suggested that the "larger brains" theory, supported by Arthur Keith (one of the Piltdown scientists) was accurate.

    I agree with the faults you list for Dawson (though we must recognize that we still aren't sure who created the hoax), but he could have acted on these faults and still want to actually learn about how humans evolved. It just wasn't his priority.

    Other than the culprit(s), can you find fault with anyone else? How about the scientific community? Why did they accept this find so readily without proper scrutiny? What might have inspired them (particularly the British scientists) to not do their jobs properly when it came to this particular fossil?

    Good discussion on the technology, but why were "people suspicious"? What made them doubt Piltdown? This is an important point and needed to be expanded. Between the time that Piltdown was presented and the hoax uncovered, science continued on, with new fossils being discovered, and they ALL contradicted the conclusions of Piltdown. When that happens in science, it is necessary to re-examine the old evidence. That's what drove Oakley to return and test Piltdown. That is an important aspect of the scientific process.

    There is a difference between "error" and "human error". "Human error" is the factor that human faults introduce into science, such as greed, ambition and pride (as discussed above). Wouldn't we want to get rid of error based upon human bias?

    "If we removed the human factor from science then people wouldn’t work so hard to make sure the truth is the actually truth they would just believe what they did. "

    I don't follow this argument. If you removed the human factor from science, there would be no people involved in science at all. Would that be a good thing? Or do we need humans to do science? Do humans bring anything positive to the process of science? Curiosity? Ingenuity? Intuition?

    Good life lesson.

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