Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown Hoax was a discovery of bone fragments (skull and jawbone) that represented remains of an undiscovered early human. The discoverer of the Piltdown Man was Charles Dawson, a British Archeologist. He made this discovery East of Sussex England in a gravel pit, during the year of 1912. Throughout the time of the discovery, Dawson was praised, for it was the “missing link” between humans and primates. This provided scientists and anthropologists, such as Arthur Keith, proof of his theory about human evolution. For the next decade, the Piltdown fossil was the backbone for all of the research regarding evolution of humans. By 1920s scientists discovered ancient remains in Asia and Africa. The new fossils were known to be hundreds and thousands of years after the Piltdown man. And those skulls were less like a human rather than Piltdown man’s more humanly structure. This is how they theorized that Piltdown was a fraud. Later, as technology advanced, they were able to discover that the Piltdown teeth and skull were shaven down so some parts would look more human. They then realized it was just remains of a female ape that was formed to look like human.

Human faults played a significant role in the process of discovering the evolution of man. These faults consist of not testing and properly analyzing what they are being handed. They should have known that fossils are easy to tamper with and scientists should have checked their research rather than being excited about a discovery. A human fault of theirs was that they didn’t have more proof. If they wanted to see if the Piltdown man was real, why didn’t they go out to the same area where Dawson found it and continue to find more for more research? Instead they were excited to find the “missing piece” that they were careless which risked them decades of faulty information.

Scientists then started to use scientific processes that proved the skull to be fraud. By measuring the fluorine content of fossils, scientists can roughly date them. And according to video number 2, in 1949 scientists conducted this test on the Piltdown fossil and it showed that the fossils were only a couple hundred thousand years old. Being the shape that it is, those fossils would have to be millions of years old. In 1953, scientists developed better dating methods and all the stains were superficial. Each cut seemed as if it were cut by a steel knife and lastly the teeth were filed down to a desired shape.

I believe removing the “human” factor in science will not do anything. Science is always changing and there is always going to be errors within the practice. If anything, I would remove the pride of the work. Every scientist wants to be the one that discovers something new and something that changes the world. Without this pride, science would leap in far better directions because it gets rid of the competition aspect. Usually the competition aspect may make science better because scientists are motivated by it, but like the Piltdown case, scientists may be held back decades of research. This precious time may have been used for more modern research and our generation could have evolved to better species in that time wasted.

The life lesson that I got from this is not to believe everything that people say is true without the proper research. It is easy to believe a lie, but after living your whole entire life believing that lie, it is hard to go back and believe the truth. Before believing something, it is best to do your own research and look up proper sources rather than believing one opinion or one statement.