Piltdown Hoax Blog Post

Piltdown Hoax might be labeled as one of the most influential and groundbreaking false discovery in the world of science. During the 1910s, the search for the evidence of connection between the apes and human was very intense. In the midst of the heat, early in 1912, amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson found a jawbone that seemed like belonging to an ancient human skull. He contacted and invited England’s leading archaeologist, Arthur Smith Woodward, and French archaeologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to the little village of Piltdown, where the first discovery of the jawbone was made. The trio, excited to share their discovery, explained that the jawbone that was discovered shows the connection between the apes and humans. Amazed by the new discovery, scientists believed that England also has human fossils like others, and in addition, that England’s human ancestors might be the oldest out of any ancestors. Also, the new found jawbone supported the idea of humans developing a bigger brain before beginning to walk on two legs. Later on, the trio found more fossils at the village and silenced all remaining skeptics. For the next decade, the model of Piltdown man dominated research on human evolution although no more Piltdown man fossils were discovered after Charles Dawson died. Scientists had started to begin to discover ancient fossils of human ancestors in other continents that seemed to conflict with the Piltdown foundings. Because the scientists did not have the proper tools and knowledge, they were not able to explain the difference in Piltdown discoveries and the fossils from other continents. After World War II, scientists could roughly estimate the date of the fossils by measuring the fluorine content in fossils. In 1949, scientists conducted the fluorine test and found out that the fossil was not that old. In 1953, scientists launched the full-scale analysis of the Piltdown fossils and discovered that the fossils were actually forged, not formed by human ancestors.

Although scientists are curious, creative, and persistent by nature, they are still human, and that brings in room for faults to impact the scientific process. For example, this Piltdown Hoax was planned simply out of jealousy of Charles Dawson. Because Britain was unable to find significant fossils of their human ancestors while other countries such as Germany was discovering many fossils and becoming known as the birthplace of men. This negatively impacted the scientific process by unnecessarily forging fake evidence to feel proud and slowing down other possible discoveries. In addition, another human fault is gullibility. Excited that Britain finally found a fossil of human ancestor, naive British scientists believed in the Piltdown discoveries until 40 years later, where evidences from many other continents seemed to go directly against the discoveries. It wasn't until 1949, when the authenticity of the discovery was called into question. This could have been avoided by simply scrutinizing the discoveries and finding out that the wear in the canine teeth was backwards.

With the ability to study the fluorine content left in the rocks/fossils, scientists were able to estimate the date of those discoveries made. This technique of fluorine dating positively affected the scientific processes by allowing scientists to answer unsolved questions. By using this technique, they were able to discover that the discoveries made in Piltdown was fake, and that human “bones” had chronic acid stains and iron solution alterations to make the bones look older than it is.

I believe that it is impossible to remove the “human” factor from science to reduce the chance or errors. This is because the “humanness” is what feeds the curiosity of human and the desire to discover and answer unsolved questions. Without the “human” factor, we wouldn't even be questioning the world. Because humans have such great determination for wanting to be the first to discover something new, I believe that the humanness in science will never disappear. However, it is possible to prevent events such as the Piltdown Hoax from happening again to us by learning from our mistakes. As humans, we are able to study and learn from the mistakes we made and make sure that the mistake does not happen again. Tools like Scientific Method allows us to reduce the human error and prevent such hoaxes from happening because scientists do not accept ideas or experiments that have not been tested for validity. Through the scientific method, we make sure that the idea is true by being able to repeat the experiments and getting the same results that prove that some idea is correct. I would personally not want to remove the human factor from science because removing human factor would be the same thing as removing the desire to advance and make progress in life. By removing this desire, all we would do is make discoveries and do nothing about it.

The lesson I learned from learning about this event is to prove that some new ideas or discoveries are valid by being able to test the experiment repeatedly and seeing if the results are all supporting the idea. When receiving unverified information from others, I will make sure that their reasoning and explanations are valid and sound before letting their ideas impact my other ideas.