The
Piltdown Man hoax was the remains of jaw bone and skull found in 1912 in a
southern English village called Piltdown. The remains were found by an amateur
archeologist Charles Dawson. These remains at the time were seen as an
evolutionary branch of early humans. The skull resembled a human skull, while
the jaw structure resembled that of an ape, yet the teeth that were found on
the jaw were flattened down like that of a human. The remains at the time were
thought to be one million years old. It was a big discovery at the time for
remains of early humans had been found in France, Germany, and Asia but none in
England. It was a joy in the scientific community that England now had ancient
human fossils, which may have been the oldest of all found at the time. The
findings at the time would have taught us that humans had developed big brains
before they walked upright. However the opposite is known to be true today. In
the 1920’s more early human fossils began to be found in Asia and Africa. The
fossils that were found seemed to come after the Piltdown man fossil, yet the
fossils had skulls that were less human like than the Piltdown man. This raised
a lot of suspicion about the fossil however there were no accurate dating methods
available at the time. In 1953 a full scale analysis was conducted on the
fossil. It showed that the fossil had been artificially stained and that it had
been cut with a steel knife. They had also found that the teeth were filed down
into a desired shape by evidence of many scratch marks. They found that the jaw
bone had come from a female orangutan less than 100 years ago and the skull had
come from a modern day human. Parts of the jaw that would have indicated it was
an orangutan were cut off and removed. For scientists this was a big discovery
that had disproved their knowledge for 40 years. However it positively affected
the field of science since the skull did not match up with other findings.
Many
humans by nature want to become recognized and known for something within their
life. The desire for an accomplishment and to make a discovery could have led
someone to do this. With no early human remains being found in England at the
time many people became very happy over this discovery, although there were
skeptics many people wanted to believe that such a huge discovery could have
been made in England. The national museum where it was kept did not allow many
people to view the remains because of the belief or want of belief that it was
real, which did not allow much way of disproving the skull. I believe that the
human faults of wanting to believe in something and the desire of an
accomplishment came into play here.
The
first test to analyze the Piltdown man was a fluorine test in 1949 that could
roughly date fossils. The results of this test showed that the fossil was
roughly a hundred thousand years old. In
1953 a full scale analysis was conducted on the fossil. It showed that the
bones had been stained with an iron solution and chromic acid in order to
produce a look of age. The jaw had come from a female orangutan and parts of
the jaw were removed to not allow people to tell that it was from an orangutan
such as the front of the jaw, and the top. The teeth upon microscopic
evaluation had scratch marks and abrasions on them that showed they had been filed
down to look as if they would be human like. The teeth likely came from a
chimpanzee. The skull had come from a human dating back around 500 years ago or
so. So the skull was of a modern human. All of these pieces were skillfully
crafted together in order to create this elaborate hoax.
I do
not think that it is possible to remove the human factor from science
completely. I think that we can lessen it as paying attention to evidence and
logic, and not being afraid to challenge others in their findings. I think it
is important to try and lessen the human factor in science as much as we can to
be able to avoid error. In science we cannot go off of what we want to see, we
have to go with the evidence and what our logic makes of it. I also think that
findings and theories should not be afraid to be challenged in order to better
understand. I think that it is human nature to see and understand what we want
to understand internally, placebo effect should try to be avoided. People often
times are afraid to speak up when with the minority and going against the
majority’s will however this is something that we also should avoid.
With
this historical event, I think it can teach us that it is very important to thoroughly
examine any evidence found. When information is taken from an unverified source
it should be thoroughly examined and questioned. It should be questioned as to
where it was found, when it was found, and how it was found. Information should
never be just blindly accepted.
The fossil was dated to the Pleistocene but I'm not sure they were claiming it was quite as old as a million years. But otherwise good detail in your synopsis.
ReplyDeleteOther than the fact that this would have been the "first Englishman", what was the other significance of this fossil, had it been valid? What would it have told us about *how* humans evolved. Why was Arthur Keith such a fan of this find?
Good discussion on the different human faults involved in this hoax.
Good detail on the technology used to uncover this 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.