The Piltdown Hoax
The Piltdown Hoax
In 1912 in Sussex, England, an amateur archaeologist believes to have discovered a "missing link" between the evolution of man and ape. Charles Dawson was marveled by his discovery, and bought in another scientist, Arthur Smith Woodward, England's leading geologist at the time. They go on to discover many bones that appear to be fossils of an early human in Piltdown. If these fossils were real, it would've discovered a lineage in Europe that had flattened teeth in its lower jaw and the idea that the human brain evolved to be larger before humans evolved to walk upright. Many scientists at the time said nothing to rebuttal the claims made from these scientists. However, it's stated that behind closed doors, not everyone agreed to the new findings of Dawson and Woodward. Within human evolution, it actually was against the more well known theory that humans evolved to become bipedal before their brains grew in size. However, these bones remains gave physical evidence that that theory could be wrong.In the Piltdown hoax, both greed and opinions came into play. Charles Dawson was very greedy to become a well known archaeologist who discovered something for his community. However, this brought people to the wrong conclusion of a theory that could've easily been disqualified with more evidence against it. Many people just didn't want to speak out, even if it meant that their theories were correct, or at least more correct than Dawson's on the change of brain before bipedal.
Although the scientific community might've been discouraged after finding out the hoax, it was much better to know than not know. Now that scientists were aware of this happening, they became more cautious of frauds. The entire scientific community checks their work, whether or not it goes with or against their own opinions on the subject. No one is too well known to have their own tests redone by other scientists. The tools used to debunk the hoax were also now well known in the community. Specifically the tool used to determine the age of the bones was probably the most valuable tool to show scientists that these bones weren't truly millions of years old, meaning that they couldn't have been the "missing link" scientists were looking for all those years ago.
I believe it's possible to remove some, but not all parts of human from science. I think that most of the discoveries made should be by a human. As much computer programming and AI as you try to make, there will not be enough (at least right now) to comprehend something new. I think we can use more "nonhuman" factors in the testing and hypothesis of the experiment or theories. I don't think that we could get rid of humans in science, no matter how hard we try.
I think a lot can be learned from this hoax. I think now more than ever, humans can learn to always have your sources and evidence backed up not just by one person or company, but by multiple tests and sources that all come to the same conclusion. I also think this teaches a big lesson on the power of opinion and human emotion getting in the way of the true scientific discovery.
You used the term "missing link" and yet, in the guidelines, it is specifically stated that the term "missing link" could not be used to describe the significance of this find. Did you review the information in the assignment module that explains why this term is not valid? Please make sure you go back and review this.
ReplyDeleteBut you then went to correctly explain the significance of this discovery in terms of it's support for Arthur Keith's "Large brain" hypothesis... so why did you need to even mention the "missing link"? Here's the problem with this term:
You wrote: "... believes to have discovered a "missing link" between the evolution of man and ape. "
Piltdown, had it been valid, would NOT have demonstrated a link between humans and apes. First of all, humans ARE apes, but beyond that, Piltdown would have been a branch on the hominid family tree. It would have had nothing to say about the connection between humans and non-human apes. It didn't go back that far in evolutionary time.
Otherwise, good detail on the discovery and the significance of Piltdown. But you seem to stop there. What about how the hoax was uncovered? That's an important part of this story as well.
I agree with "greed". "Opinions", however, are things, not faults. Opinions can be good or bad. But how about "ambition?" Also, can you find fault with anyone else? How about the scientific community? Why did they accept this find so readily without proper scrutiny? What might have inspired them (particularly the British scientists) to not do their jobs properly when it came to this particular fossil?
"Many people just didn't want to speak out, even if it meant that their theories were correct"
But not in the scientific community. Scientists can gain prestige by shooting down the claims of another scientist, so there is no incentive to accept a conclusion without question... in fact, it is the JOB of a scientist to question, so beyond incentive, scientists actually failed to do their job properly when they accepted Piltdown with so little skepticism. This needs to be explored. So why did the scientists fail to do their jobs? Remember that Germany and France had already found their own hominid fossils. This would have been England's first. Would you like to be the British scientist that killed England's chance to be on the hominid map? Could national pride have played a role here?
The third section asks you to discuss the components of science that helped to uncover the hoax. You do mention the tests that provided the evidence of the hoax, but you spend quite a bit of time talking about how scientists changed their approach to research AFTER the hoax was uncovered. We're still trying to understand the process that uncovered the hoax.
And another question remains regarding these positive aspects: What made scientists come back and retest Piltdown? What was happening in paleoanthropology in those 40 years that pushed them to re-examine this find? What aspect of science does that represent?
I agree with your conclusions regarding the human factor. There are multiple positive factors that humans bring to science. How about curiosity, ingenuity and innovation? Could we even do science without these factors?
Good life lesson.
Greed most definitely came into play in terms of motivation for the fabrication of this hoax. The person responsible wanted to become widely recognized in the scientific community for this extraordinary find. He didn't seem to care about the fact that he would deceiving everyone, in order to gain what he wanted. Of course, there was some good to come from this deception. We now double and triple check everything. There are always experiments being repeated to support or reject certain conclusions. We also have methods of eliminating as much human bias as possible, like the scientific method, for example.
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