Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown hoax started with an archaeologist named Charles Dawson who found what was thought to be the remains of a human skull in the village of Piltdown in 1912. As more bones were recovered by Dawson, Arthur Smith Woodward, and Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who he had brought along, realized that they were the fossils of the link between apes and humans. People were suspicious but kept their opinions to themselves because they were afraid to challenge Dawson’s physical proof. For others, this became concrete evidence of human evolution.

Ancient remains were also discovered in Asia and Africa, but these fossils were not similar to the ones found in Piltdown. After realizing this, specialists were sent out to review the materials found in Piltdown, showing that the remains weren’t as old as suspected, showing that they were less than one hundred years old. The staining on the bones was superficial, the material was cut while fossilized with a steel knife, and there was evidence that the teeth had been filed down. It had been discovered that these remains had come from a female orangutan. Scientists were stunned when they came to the conclusion that somebody had forged the Piltdown fossils. Not only that, but Charles Dawson became the main suspect.

Scientists are just as human as anyone else and can be just as dishonest and deceiving as the rest of us. Humans share certain negative qualities such as greed, the need for power or fame, and letting opinions get in the way of searching for facts. In this scenario, Dawson was an amateur archaeologist, possibly looking for something to advance his career. He wanted to be powerful and known for something amazing such as proof that humans evolved from apes. His greed may have gotten the best of him when he found fake fossils that he had supposedly planted himself. Instead of looking for facts to support his opinion, he created his own “facts” to get others to believe in his theory.

The positive aspects of the scientific process that were responsible for revealing the skull to be a fraud were technologies that measured the fluorine content in order to date the fossils after WWII in 1949, the first full scale analysis that scientists launched in 1953 in order to get a more accurate date of the aged fossils, and microscopes that determined that the teeth were shaved in order to make a certain shape. I don’t think it is possible to remove the “human” factor from science to reduce the chance of errors like this because I don’t believe that humans can just remove their thoughts, feelings, and qualities entirely. I think that scientists are going to make errors due to being humans, and others will most likely discover these errors just like what happened in Piltdown.

I am not sure if I would want to remove the human factor from science, but it would probably be a good idea so that we are able to get solid facts instead of being conned into believing a scientist’s opinion just because he or she is a scientist. The lesson that I can take from this historical event is that lying can affect a lot of people, that scientists are human too. They make mistakes, lie, and are vulnerable to the same things we strive for such as money, fame and power. Also, I have learned that it is best to find your own proof and to not be afraid to challenge things that you are skeptical about, even if someone of higher power and intelligence states it as fact.