Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown Hoax was discovered in 1912 by amateur archeologist Charles Dawson and his group of workers in the Piltdown quarry in Sussex, England. Charles was digging in a gravel pit a found a piece of ancient skull. After examining the skull he found that it looked rather primitive and was thick in nature. After the discovery of the skull fragment Dawson invited leading geologist of London’s Natural History Museum Sir Arthur Woodward to view his discovery. Later after finding an ape like jaw with human like teeth containing 2 worn molars, as well as stone tools and various mammal bones that indicated the gravels were ancient. These fossils were exactly what anthropologists were hoping to find, and moreover, they were found in England, not in some far away land such as Africa or Asia. The skull bone resembled that of a human, whereas the jawbone was extremely light and bore a perfect resemblance to the jaw of an ape. The only similarity to humans in the jaw were the molars. In December 1912, the fossils were presented to the scientific community by Dawson and Woodward, and they proposed that a new genus, Eoanthropus dawsoni, be added to the hominid family. Soon thereafter, scientists such as Smith Woodward began to visualize what the rest of the individual might look like, and in 1913, Father Theiland de Chardin discovered a canine tooth that closely matched Woodward's predictions. The tooth was made to order for the "missing link. Almost forty years later, in 1953, Piltdown Man was exposed as a forgery, mainly through the work of Dr Kenneth Oakley.  He showed that the skull was from a modern human and that the jawbone and teeth were from an orangutan. 

            The human faults that come into play here in this scenario are the fact that forgery in science can  occur in such an easy way that even professionals got caught in this catastrophe since they believed at first until everything was proved wrong. These faults negatively impact the scientific process because in some of these cases people don’t take science seriously. They think that many of what has been proven for example theories that have been discovered to this date might all be part of a fake fact therefore not giving any of the credit and attention science should have. Ambition also plays a big part in this scenario since it pursued this man to do something that in this case created a controversy among the science world. He wanted to be the first one to discover or get the credit over this event he didn’t wanted to wait for science to do its part. Therefore he speed things up and made people believe something that wasn’t real putting science in the brink of judgment as whether to take it seriously or not. It is true that many people wanted to believe it and that’s why it lasted for so long but they couldn’t see how it affected science as a whole and them being blind for such an important event in history.

            The positive aspects of the scientific process that were responsible for revealing the skull to be a fraud were more modern scientific equipment. In 1949 fluoride dating showed that the fossils were quite young. Further study of the fossils in 1953 by Kenneth Oakley ,Joseph S. Weiner and Wilfred Le Gros Clark found obvious signs of forgery. The jaw was from a modern orangutan. The molars and the stray canine had been filed flat to make them appear more human. The skull bones were from a modern human. All the bones had been soaked in a solution that had hardened them and imparted a stain that made them appear extremely old.

            To reduce the chance of errors like this I don’t think that it is possible to remove the “human” factor since it is us humans the ones that have the knowledge to perform science. Animals can’t do this, our brains are the ones developed and capable to think, test, resolve, and do this certain things in order for science to work. I wouldn’t want to remove the "human" factor from science because after all we learn from our mistakes things like this are the ones that open our eyes into reality and to be more secure into what we are exposed to in an everyday basis.

In my opinion I think that you don’t always have to believe what you are told, meaning you have to do some or more research about such important things. People might tell you something but you have the right to investigate whether it is true or false.  People always lie and we can’t change that fact but we can confirm what they are saying is the true .My mom always tells me “always believe half of what a person tells you” and I think we should put that in practice on things this important and on the ones that have a huge impact on our society.