Week 5- The Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown Hoax

1. During the year of 1912, at Barkham Manor near the village of Piltdown in England, a laborer encountered a strange piece of human-like skull bone. This laborer then was said to have reported this to Charles Dawson, and amateur archaeologist. Dawson noted the skull appeared thick and rather primitive.

Back within the 1800s, Charles Darwin's most controversial claims was his belief that apes and human individuals were related. Though, Darwin unearthed fairly little evidence to back up his claims when it came to finding specific evolutionary branches that led to this theory. Thus, the discovery at Piltdown would make a significant difference in unearthing more evolutionary evidence. Dawson and Smith Woodward commenced working together, proceeding to make further discoveries within the area. They found a set of teeth, a jawbone, more skull fragments, and primitive tools which they thought belonged to the same individual. Later, Woodward reconstructed these skull fragments, and the archaeologist developed a hypothesis that this human ancestor lived about 500,000 years ago. Afterwards, they announced their discovery at a Geological Society meeting in 1912, with the majority of scientist accepting this claim as fact. The discovery was so huge, that it made world news across various continents including America, Europe, and even Africa. Despite the huge news the Pildown discovery had made, some scientists still wondered if the oddly matched jawbone and skull were truly from the same creature. During the time, scientists remained doubtful of the discovery, but because the articulation on a certain part of the jaw was broken off, there was no way to truly falsify or prove the jawbone fit the skull at the time. The crucial piece that was absent within the articulation, was the canine tooth. However, a year later, a canine tooth that more or less fit the skull was found at the Piltdown site that seemingly silenced the doubters. Additionally, in the year 1917 Woodward was said to have found another skull and tooth within the same site in Piltdown.

Unfortunately, in 1953 an announcement was officially made that the Piltdown Man was found to be a fake. This concluded, that the Pildown discoveries had been a hoax. In the year 1949, new dating technology came about that changed scientific opinion pertaining to the age of the remains. Utilizing fluorine tests, Dr. Kenneth Oakely, a geologist at the Natural History museum uncovered that the remains found within Piltdown were only 50,000 years old. This eliminated the possible accuracy of the remains discoveries because by this year, humans had already developed into their Homo sapien form. This unfortunate discovery triggered an uproar within the scientific community. This embarrassment was even brought up within the British parliament, and led further to mixed reactions. Individuals started to question how scientist could have been fooled by something such as this for as long as they had. The public truly started to question the authenticity of the scientific community, following this change. Follwing this, biological anthropologist Dr. Joseph Weiner and human anatomist Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, worked with Dr. Oakley to further test the age of the Piltdown findings. They found that the jaw was not a human one at all, it was in fact, possibly an orangutan's. The teeth on the jaw had been filed flat to disguise them while the fossils had been boiled and stained with chemicals in order to give them an aged look.

2. Of course, many of the mistakes which occurred during the Piltdown hoax were human-made errors in judgement. Being human, individuals are inclined to make mistakes when they believe to have found new discoveries that peek their curiosity. Naturally, Dawson and Woodward jumped to many conclusions in their impulsiveness instead of utilizing more logical approaches in their methods. The impulsiveness made them eager to put out their findings quickly, rather then recognizing the technology they possessed may possess loopholes when trying to determine the age of the skull pieces. One noticeable mistake, was their swiftness in putting out the findings before they found a canine tooth that would 'supposedly' fit the jawbone. Impulsive behavior and jumping to conclusions in science proves to make various negative impacts. Impulsiveness may lead scientists in wanting to put out their findings as fast as possible without further research into their hypothesis. If impulsiveness happens upon every discovery made, the public's trust may start to decline in certain ways as more possible doubts arise. From the Pildown hoax, scientists should remember to study their findings thoroughly by backing it up with evidence and verifiable sources before publishing their conclusions. 

3. Despite the negative human errors, there is still some positive aspects to be found within the Piltdown hoax event. Skepticism is a scientists' friend for many reasons. For one, if there were no doubters surrounding these findings, ignorance could have arisen within the scientific community. Without the skepticism, the world might still believe the findings within Piltdown to be true. Textbooks pertaining to Anthropology may have even mentioned the supposed, 'species' of primate found within Piltdown. The willingness to question findings by conducting tests proved to be positive in this case. Because of the new technology that was able to use chemical fluoride in order to better provide accurate results, scientists were able to falsify the findings of Piltdown. It is always significant to pose questions, if these scientists continued to rely on old technology as accurate for the Piltdown findings, the 'hoax' would have never been falsified. As mentioned above, the flouride tests were able to prove the fossils were only 50,000 years old rather then the previous belief which was 500,000. The key scientific processes used in all this specifically were asking questions, conducting further background research, and further experimentation under a hypothesis.

4. Despite how many individuals may want to eliminate human error, it is almost impossible to eliminate such errors entirely. As the saying goes, "We are humans, and bound to make mistakes." Nobody is going to be flawless in their first scientific claims to begin with. The individuals that came before Darwin are few of the many examples of this. Their discoveries were not accurate at first, yet Darwin was able to take their pieces of information in order to form his own theory. However, as mentioned above scientists have learned from the hoax, and by continuing to remain as skeptics and utilizing logic in their claims, mistakes from impulsiveness are immensely reduced. When it comes down to it, no, I would not remove the human factor from science. If the human aspects were removed completely, there would cease to be any aspect to learn from in the first place. The human lesson learned from the hoax overall, was scientists learning to better verify the accuracy of their sources before publishing their conclusions.

5. The life lesson people can take away from this, would be to always remain skeptical until you have hard evidence found within a verifiable source. Individuals should be cautious of being impulsive within their discoveries, and should try to be cautious by being self-aware of their impulsive nature. Additionally, scientists should always keep in question the reliability of the technology available to them before finalizing their results entirely. By jumping to conclusions without verifiable evidence, more hoaxes are bound to take place.