The Piltdown Hoax
Back in the 1900's, 1912 to be exact in the small village of piltdown and amateur archaeologist named Charles Dawson claimed to find a piece of an ancient human skull. When this skull was found Dawson called in the leading geologist in England Arthur Smith Woodward and a man named Father Pierre to help him continue digging the site. These fossils were seen as phenomenal because, they would be the first ever found in England. While continuing the dig Dawson apparently came across a jawbone that looked human but, also looked like an ape jawbone with human teeth. If this discovery turned out to be a human jawbone the trio believed it would show proof that humans and apes were related. By finding these items it appeared that England would be responsible for having the oldest humans due to how it looked compared to other fossils that had been found in other countries. Also by finding these items it proved what Arthur Keith had been saying all along that humans developed big brains before upward walking which has been proven to be false. Due to the nature of what was being found nobody challenged the trio. Also due to not having the accurate dating methods we have no it was hard to prove it was false and with the limited number of people allowed to examine it made it even harder. This made it so the piltdown skull was not given the wide study that would have brought out the inconsistencies.
During WWII they actually measured the flourine levels in the piltdown skull and came to find that they were 100,000 years old not 1 million. This launched a full scale analysis of the skull. The scientists came to find that the artifacts had been stained by someone, the teeth had been ground down, and the skull had been cut with a steel knife after it was already fossilized. The jawbone also turned out to be 100 years old and it belonged to a female orangutan. This all proved the fossils had been forged by someone but, they didn't know who. Dawson became the prime suspect his motive being reaching his dream of being a part of the raw society. It was also proven he forged 1/2 a dozen more fossils. SO wither he knew about the skull being fake or he was also duped. Arthur Keith also had a motive because it proved his theory of human evolution. But, in 1975 they found bones hidden in a chest in the natural history museum which belonged to Martin Hinton an apprentice that helped at the piltdown site. The bones found in the chest were stained the same way as the piltdown skull. It was never proven if he was involved or was trying to prove the hoax.
Human faults are something that we can never change. When self interest and pride come into play scientists become vulnerable to lies and deception. By letting human faults come into science we are allowing people to falsify things but, by allowing others to test the results we are able to prove the lies. I don't think it will ever be possible for us to remove the human aspect of science. We need humans to do the testing and hypothesis we can't rely on computers for that. We need to have small opinions in science but, we also need a chance to prove those opinions wrong if need be. By learning about this hoax I have learned to always have verified sources when it comes to major items in scientific discoveries like this one. By not allowing others to observe the remains we let this lie go on for years. We need to have multiple verified sources to be able to know if something is true or not.
Good coverage of information in your synopsis. Just a couple of points:
ReplyDeleteWe are dealing with *hominid* remains here, not 'human' remains. The term 'human' means modern versions of our species. Piltdown, had it been valid, would have been a hominid fossil.
"Due to the nature of what was being found nobody challenged the trio."
Is this true? Doesn't this seem odd for a scientific field? And if it was true for even a portion of scientists, that in itself needs to be explained (in faults section) as it conflicts with the responsibilities of all scientists.
Good discussion of significance.
You speak of faults generally, but we needed to identify some specific ones that apply to those involved in this event. What faults might explain why culprits (Dawson, if he was an active perpetrator and not just a dupe) created the hoax in the first place? You do suggest a couple, in terms of Dawson's need to be a part of high society and Keith's desire to support his favorite theory. Fame and ambition might apply there. But what about the scientific community? Why did they fail to give Piltdown the scrutiny and skepticism called for by their positions as scientists? You suggest that the trio weren't challenged in their claims, perhaps because of their status in the scientific community, but that doesn't make sense in science. Scientists can gain prestige by shooting down the claims of another scientist, so there is no incentive to accept a conclusion without question... in fact, it is the JOB of a scientist to question, so beyond incentive, scientists actually failed to do their job properly when they accepted Piltdown with so little skepticism. This needs to be explored. So why did the scientists fail to do their jobs? Remember that Germany and France had already found their own hominid fossils. This would have been England's first. Would you like to be the British scientist that killed England's chance to be on the hominid map? Could national pride have played a role here?
I don't see a section discussing the positive aspects of the process of science that helped uncover the hoax. You briefly discuss earlier in your synopsis the fluorine testing that produced the definitive evidence of the forgery, but who is credited with conducting this test? And beyond that, what drove scientists back to Piltdown to retest its conclusions? Scientists won't do this on a whim. They will need evidence that justifies this action. So what was happening in the world of paleoanthropology in that 40 year span of time that may have indicated a retest of Piltdown was justified? This is another important part of the process of science that led to uncovering the forgery.
You seem to be assuming all factors are negative. Is that the case? Do humans bring nothing positive to the scientific process? Could we even do science without the curiosity in humans that push them to ask those initial questions? Or their ingenuity to create tests of their hypotheses? Or the intuition that helps them draw connections and conclusions from disparate pieces of information?
Okay on your life lesson, but it would have really helped to have each prompt response divided into separate paragraphs so I could locate them more easily. Don't make it hard for me to parse out your answers and risk lost points.