The Piltdown man was a hoax in which British archaeologist Charles Dawson discovered forged fossils that was made to look like the so call "missing link" between humans and apes. For years people believed the fossil to be legitimate and were hailed by the scientific community. With more modern dating methods scientists managed to prove the fossils to be fakes. There are many suspects in the case one of the more recent ones being Martin Hinton, who was found with the exact stain used to fake the fossils in his trunk.
Scientists did not catch this at the time of the discovery because modern dating technology did not exist to directly disprove it, and scientists thought other scientists to be gentlemanly scholars, not tricksters. The human mistake here was, too much trust out in others to accurately display findings. They needed to learn that others will lie for fame and they should always test others work.
Fluorine analysis, a relative dating method, led scientists to discover that the skull was older than the jaw.
The longer a bone lies in the earth the more fluorine it collects. Bones in the ground at the same location for the same amount of time should have the same amount of fluorine. The results clearly showed the age difference between the skull and jaw leading scientists to discover the skull to be human and the jaw to be that of an orangutan.
It is never possible to remove this human factor from science. People will always make mistakes, and people are required to make any form of scientific discovery. They must make the hypothesis, and therefore can always make mistakes. It would be more efficient to remove human error if it were possible, but it would take away much of the curiosity that makes humanity great.
The lesson learned here is to research findings past a single source. If someone can prove something through a procedure than others can replicate the result. Make sure sources are verified by something other than itself.
Hi Austin,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you! You cant subtract humans from the equation. They are what make these discoveries possible. I also agree that we trust way too much, but I believe sometimes you have to trust until proven otherwise. Research should always be done in everything in life.
Claudia
I understand that the video uses the term "missing link" but did you have the opportunity to review the video in the assignment folder about the use of this term? Is it valid to use this term to explain the importance of Piltdown? There was another, more important piece of information that would have been gained from this find, had it been valid regarding the size of the cranium and which came first, bipedalism vs. large brains. Did you see that information?
ReplyDeleteMore detail on the fossil and how it was found and analyzed was needed. This is a complicated story.
I agree that scientists didn't have the fluorine analysis at this time, but there was other evidence, such as alterations made to the teeth and aging of the bone, which they should have detected. Were they bad scientists? Did they miss it on purpose? Were they prevented from analyzing the bones as they should? Why were the British scientists in particular so happy to accept the fossil as valid? A lot was going on here.
Good coverage of the fluorine analysis. What about the process of science itself helped to uncover the hoax? Why were they still analyzing this find 40 years later?
"... it would take away much of the curiosity that makes humanity great."
Precisely correct.
Okay on your conclusion.