The Piltdown Man Hoax

         In England in the year of 1912 an amateur geologist by the name Charles Dawson claimed that he had discovered the remains of what seemed to be the piece of information needed to prove that humans had evolved from chimpanzees. He had found the fragment of a skull. He then enlisted the help of Arthur Smith Woodward who was the keeper of Geology at the Natural History Museum. Together they continued to dig and found a jawbone, set of teeth, and other fragments of bone. These fragments were all believed to be from the same individual. In that same year they announced their findings ar a Geological Society meeting, where their story was accepted. Their story was believed to be credible until about 1949 when people had been showing doubts to the findings and at the time new technology had made it possible for specimens to be dated with more accuracy. It was then that Dr. Kenneth Oakley used fluorine tests and discovered that the remains could not be more than 50,000 years old. This led to further testing and it was found that the skull and the jaw actually belonged to two different specimens , a human, and an ape. With these new findings the specimens were closely looked at under microscopes and they found that they had been altered. The bones had been staines, cut and the teeth filed down so that they could have a more human resemblance. All of these shocking findings proved that the Piltdown Man had been a hoax. In November of 1953, authorities of the British Natural History Museum announced these findings and publicly called Piltdown Man a fraud.

   In this case the human faults that seem to come in play affecting the impact of the scientific process would be ambition, and greed. I believe these two cam in play because it seems that Dawson being an amateur geologist wanted to be the one who took credit for discovering such a historical find. At the time many other countries had found remains of what seemed to be human like specimens and England had not found any. This could have been another motive, he could have wanted England to be the place were this grand discovery had been made. Dawson cheated the scientific process in order to have personal gain.

   The positive aspects of the scientific process that were responsible for revealing the skull to be a fraud wreathe further testing that was done. People began having doubts about the credibility of these findings therefore this made people want to do further testing. In this case the new technology that became available was fluorine testing which is a method that measures the amount of fluoride absorbed by bones. With this test they were able to see the skull was actually no more than 600 years old, therefore making it impossible to be from the unknown species.

   I don't think it is possible to remove the human factor from science, because i feel that it is because of our human intelligence that make us question theories. It is in our human nature to want to know more and want to find out where we came from, how did we evolve, how do things work. These things are what make us test out ideas and research and try ro find answers. For those reasons I feel like we should try to take out the human factor.

   From this historical event, I take that we can not always believe everything that is said. Unless things have been tested and proven there can always be doubt to its validity. It is our job to always make sure the facts are correct and that what is said is the truth especially in science things have to be tested and re tested to make sure there is no error.