1. The Piltdown Hoax was found in Piltdown, in the rolling hills of Sussex, a rural county in southeast England in the early 1900’s. A laborer was digging at Barkham Manor, near the village of Piltdown, found a strange peace of skull. He gave it to Charles Dawson, a local amateur archaeologist. When the Piltdown man was first found, the scientific community was ecstatic. They thought that Dawson had found the missing link between humans and apes. Dawson and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward were digging for a summer and found an ape-like jawbone with human-like teeth that seemed to link it to the skull. On December 18, 1912, they presented Piltdown Man (“the earliest Englishman”) to the world. Some scientists wondered if this jawbone and skull were really from the same creature, because a crucial piece, the canine tooth, was absent. Dawson and Woodward with an amateur French archaeologist, Teilhard de Chardin found the missing teeth a year later in Piltdown. In 1917 Woodward announced the discovery of a second Piltdown Man.
In 1953 they announced that the Piltdown Man was fake. This discovery was embarrassing for the British scientists. Kenneth Oakley applied a chemical test to authenticate and date the fossils. The mineral department on the behalf of the Natural History Museum tested the nitrogen content. The tests showed that the Piltdown Man was much younger than expected.
There were many suspects of the hoax: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dawson, Woodward and Martin Hinton Woodward’s rival at the Museum, but the identity of the Piltdown hoaxer has remained a mystery.
2. One fault that I believe played a factor in this scenario was rivalry. I think rivalry played an important factor because Britain and Germany were rivals and wanted to bid up each other wherever and whenever they could. Britain wanted to prove that they were the first birthplace to the human race. Dawson was known to be an ambitious man and he may have wanted to be the first Englishman to find the first fossils. I also think that too many people were involved in this hoax to be recognized and gain titles.
3. Scientists ended up discovering the hoax when they started to look more closely at the fossils. They did a fluorine test that measured the fluorine content on the fossils so that scientist could roughly date the age of the fossils. The remains showed that they were rather young. They then launched a full-scale analysis on the fossils. It showed that the remains had been stained and were superficial and the material had been cut when the bones had already been fossilized. The scientists then looked at the Piltdown mans teeth under a microscope and saw that the teeth had been filed down to look like human teeth. The jawbone that was with the Piltdown mans skull was that dated back less than 100 years and was a female orangutan jaw. They also noticed that bones had been removed to make the jawbone look like it belonged.
Scientist before the hoax had their doubts. As I stated previously the jawbone was that of an orangutan and the teeth, which belonged to an ape, had been filed down to portray human teeth. Scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as difficult to interpret and inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere.
4. The definition of “human” factors from science is understanding the properties of human capability. So in my opinion I do not think that it would be possible to take away the “human” factor to reduce the chance of errors. I say this because in order to try and understand why someone would try and pull of a hoax of this magnitude you need to have an understanding of humans and their behaviors. Without that I think that it would be hard to figure anything out in this world whether it has to do with science or not. I personally would not want to take the “human” factor out of science. Humans play a role in science in almost every situation.
5. One life lesson that I can take from this historical event and just the world in general is that being greedy does not help you. Dawson or the mystery man wanted to be the first to discover the Englishman fossils that could have been the first link between humans and apes. However, at the end it was proven that the fossils were fake and too young. If someone tries to mislead people, the truth would come on the surface sooner or later. In this case it took about 40 years to discover the truth.
I also believe that it would be hard to progress in science without the human factor and that it is essential to keep moving forward in the scientific world. Furthermore, I agree that scientists can’t be greedy when they are working or trying to discover something. Scientists’ common goal should be to try and discover something for the benefit of the scientific community or mankind. Not so you can be the first at finding something, or so you can finally find the first Englishman just because other countries have done it before you. Scientists need to have the right motives. My grandpa died of cancer because he was exposed to certain chemicals when he was working as a scientist, but that also shows that he was very selfless in his work. He put his work basically before his health, as he looked to further the scientific community, and he did make discoveries before his death. Dawson was clearly not in the right frame of mind to be doing that kind of work, which inevitably led to the hoax.
ReplyDeleteExcellent discussion. I especially liked paragraph 2 with your discussion of the political ramifications of the find. Science doesn't occur in a vacuum. It can be affected by sociopolitical factors of the time.
ReplyDeleteI definitely believe this was a rivalry thing and too many people wanted to make a name out of this. People do it today in different ways by trying to change the components of something slightly in order to present it as their own. This of course was a lot different than what I am talking about because this was fraud and to a larger extent. Everything was perfectly explained, but I would of liked to hear about why you thought humans play a role in science. I mean like why would taking the human side to it make the science part of it less faulty. Great post though.
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