Piltdown Man

        In 1912 Charles Dawson, an archaeologist, had found part of a skull that had seemed more human- like. He found this skull in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown village in Sussex, England. Charles Dawson said that he had found the skull of a human-like ancestor, proclaiming it was an ancestor between an ape and a man. The scientific significance if this were true would have been huge. This skull could have provided us with evidence that we do have relation with apes. Also, could have been the earliest known sapient man. It would’ve also changed the way we understand human evolution, because the hoax skull provided evidence that this human ancestor developed a large brain before walking upright. The effects that this had on the scientific community was that they were excited about the find. Otto Schoetensack, who discovered the Heidelberg fossils, said that this find was the best evidence for an ape-like ancestor of modern humans.On the other hand, in 1923 Franz Weidenreich examined the find and reported that it was a modern human cranium and an orangutan jaw with filed-down teeth. Even though there were people saying otherwise, most of the scientific community believed this skull was authentic. Especially when the Scheffield Park finds, which were three fragments of a second skull, was taken as proof of the authenticity of the Piltdown skull. In 1953, Joseph Weiner and Kenneth Oakley examined the Piltdown fossils and found that the teeth had been purposely ground down with something abrasive. They did chemical analysis, including an improved fluorine test and found that the jaw and were not the same age as the skull and were not even fossils, just very old bones. They found that some bones had been stained with chemicals and some with painted to make them look like the color of the soil. After they discovered this they knew the Piltdown fossil collection was a hoax. On November 20, 1953, they reported their findings to the Natural History Museum and the news was out the next day. The response it received from scientists was that Dawson had been the man behind the hoax. The scientists who discovered that it was hoax said that the scientists 40 years before them had been victims of this elaborate hoax.

        Yes we are all human and we all make mistakes and sometimes believe what we want to believe without investigating. Some faults that came into play here was seeing and believing. The United Kingdom human evolution research community wanted to believe so badly that England was the site of early human evolution. I believe another mistake made by scientists was that they did not conduct much enough investigations on the skull fragments. The science community only seemed to want to prove it was authentic rather than it not be. It became widely accepted during that time, and scientists blindly believed their colleagues and peers. These faults negatively impacted the science process because it was so easily tricked and obviously proven to be unsuccessful. The trust in scientists decreased and now there are many processes that fossils have to go through to be deemed real and authentic.

Some positive aspects of the scientific process that helped prove the piltdown man was a fraud was examining data and conducting an experiment . Kenneth Oakley tried to authenticate the piltdown man by doing a new chemical analysis called fluorine testing, which the fossil bones absorb the fluorine from soil and water. The piltdown remains had similar amounts of fluorine suggesting they belonged together, but appeared to be only 50,000 years old instead of 500,000 years old. This proved inaccuracy in what Dawson had told the public. Also, Joespeh Weiner used the scientific process of observing and conducting research on the specimens. He noticed that the fossil tooth's were purposely ground down. Oakley and Wiener decided to conduct another experiment, doing another chemical analysis, an improved fluorine test, and found the jaw and teeth were not the same age as the skull. They also did a second test using nitrogen analysis, which confirmed the first test. Also, evidence of it not being real was tested by recreating the abrasion of teeth with a file, which proved the teeth were filed down by someone. A bunch of visual observations concluded that skull clearly did not come from one animal. They also tested the material of the jaw bone, which was found artificially stained with potassium dichromate to make it appear older. Most of the scientific processes that we use today they used to prove that it was a fraud.

Artificial intelligence testing hypothesis and having hard cold evidence is taking the “human” factor from science. Then again are human characteristics are the reasons we choose to discover things and figure out the natural world around us. I believe we need the human factor because we are the curious beings that want to discover the truths of our world. We need these errors so that we can learn from them and prosper.

The lesson that i can learn from this historical event is that just because it seems real and looks real doesn't mean its real. For something to be proven the truth or “authentic” it cant just look like the part it needs to be proven and tested until it holds enough evidence. Also, just because your smarty pant peers seem to believe something to be true doesn't always mean you should trust them. We should always follow are scientific processes and test, test, and test!