The Piltdown Hoax Blog Post
The Piltdown ‘human remains’ hoax was found in South East England in the early 1900’s. This piece of fossil was found by a labor who then gave it to Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist. This piece of fossil was given a thought to be the missing link to Darwin’s theory. Dawson then met a geologist, Sir Arthur Woodward and an anatomist, Arthur Keith and Telihard. In February, 1912 Dawson published his discoveries and his thought about how it have the evidence of human-like teeth and an ape-like jaw bone. Because of this it caused the scientific community in uproar. For England this was a great find, they finally can have a proof that they also have old human-ape-like fossils found in their land. However, in 1949 they tested the fluorine content of the fossil and found out that the age of the fossil is less than 100 years old. They also found an artificial stain and the teeth had been filled on the fossil. In the end they found out that the fossil belonged to a female orangutan whose teeth had been filled so it will look like a human-like teeth. Big suspicion was given to Charles Dawson who was thought wanted to make it to the high class of scientific society. Dawson also found many other fossils with the same artificial stain found in the Piltdown’s fossil. In the end the discovery was just a Hoax. It did not have any connection between human and ape at all.
The mistake was in how prideful and desperate was England. They wanted to proof that man’s origins was from Britain by claiming that the fossil could be the oldest human-like fossil. They also wanted to rise up even higher and wanted to use this discoveries in their politics tactic as well. They probably did not even bother to check and analyze the fossil many more times whether if was really a fossil that could have be the missing link to Darwin’s theory. But by the end this arrogance of England brought their scientific prestige to a lower place.
The positive aspect in here is that when the more modern scientist were able to date the skull and developed a better techniques so that they could avoid a fraud. The scientist use fluorine to determine the age of the object by timing the duration of how long the object would absorb the fluorine and chemical that were able to show the artificial stains in the skull and a more advance microscope. They also use the scientific methods to question whether if the skull could really be from and ape-human-like.
The human factor in the case of Piltdown Hoax should be able to be removed because at that time advance chemical and advance things weren’t available for them and the one who conduct the experiments were conducted purely by human alone. The human factor are much reduced in today’s science because we now have technologies that would do an experiment in the most precise measure and this reduce the error margin in the science community.
The life lesson from this hoax is that we should check into something as important as the discovery some more than others. Also how pride or arrogance should not be involved in science because it brought down the pride at the end.
Informative post, I thought it was interesting that you commented on how England wanted to prove that it was responsible for man's first origin. I'm sure at that time everyone wanted to be responsible for the creation of man-kind. I think the conclusion to your post is right on point, you should never let pride get in the way, especially something as important as science.
ReplyDeleteDid you get a chance to review the information in the assignment folder regarding the use of the term "missing link"? This term implies misconceptions regarding the process of evolution and doesn't accurately describe the significance of this find. Also, Darwin's theory was not in question here. Scientists were no longer looking for evidence of "if" humans evolved but *how* they evolved. So if Piltdown had been a valid find, what would it have taught us about how humans evolved from that common ape ancestor?
ReplyDeleteWhile I understand what you are saying in your section on human faults, it is difficult to apply "human" faults to a country. So can you discuss the people involved instead? What faults might have caused the perpetrators to create this hoax in the first place? And why did scientists accept this find so readily with so little scrutiny? This is where your argument of national pride enters in, but the fault lies with the human scientists, not the country as a whole. The scientists should have known better. Had they been doing their jobs properly, I do wonder if Piltdown would have ever made it into our modern science textbooks.
Good explanation of the techniques used to uncover the hoax. Other than better technology, what about the scientific method itself helped to uncover the hoax? Why were scientists still investigating this find some 40 years after it was uncovered?
You mention only the problems with the human factor. Do humans bring any positive traits to the process of science that you would not want to lose, such as curiosity, ingenuity and intuition? Could we even do science without these positive human factors?
Good life lesson.
I agree with you that the scientists should have tested the fossils more carefully. And I think it was mentioned that the artifacts could even have been discovered as fakes right away if the scientists at the time had only examined the teeth with a magnifying glass to see that they had been deliberately filed down. Testing the nitrogen content to date the fossils was also a simple technology that was available at the time. The scientific community just failed to follow through with the scientific method and instead chose to ride the wave and ignore the fact that the fossils may have been fabricated. It didn't have to take so long for this hoax to get exposed. I just wonder what all those scientists involved would have had to say for themselves had someone just exposed the fraudulent findings sooner. Oh well, lesson learned.
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