The Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown hoax remains one of the most infamous cases of scientific dishonesty ever seen. This hoax began in 1912 when Charles Dawson was given a supposed ancestor of modern human beings in Sussex, England. Dawson took his discoveries to Arthur Smith Woodward; and together, they thrust their findings into the scientific community's spot-light. This finding was very important because it was claimed to be the early-humanoid that everyone had been searching for. This was also a huge discovery for England- as no early-englishmen had been discovered before and the people took pride in the idea that their country was the home to one of the first early-humans. However, who ever planned this hoax took many steps to cover-up that the jaw bone was not human, by strategically snapping it off right where it would connect to the skull. There was one missing piece though, the canine tooth; with a new recruit on the team named Teilhard de Chardin, the trio discovered a canine tooth from what they claimed to be another Piltdown man.

For years, this Piltdown man was accepted with very little questioning or disapproval. However, all of this changed in 1953 when Professor Kenneth Oakley used the dating method called fluorine analysis to determine that the human skull was much older than this Piltdown jaw. With this finding, the bones were more closely examined, only to find that these were not even human bones- they belonged to a young-adult orangutan. Even the mineral department at the natural history museum determined it was false using nitrogen tests. Turns out, the human-like teeth had been filed down, the skull had been stained, and even the canine was a fake. This whole hoax had a massive effect on the scientific community, years of research were wasted.  A man named Raymond Dark found the Taung skull in South Africa, that was actually one of the earliest human ancestors, but since it did not fit with the Piltdown, he was disregarded. People wanted to believe that England was the start of humans so they blindly believed in the Piltdown man. Dark was ultimately proved correct. Scientific hypothesis were created and based supported by this fake discovery, making them false. This was a huge shock to the scientific community because Dawson and his colleagues had been respected and well known scientists.

Humanity in Science

In regards to the Piltdown Hoax, human faults, unfortunately, played role in deceit. One major human fault that came into play here was trust (Whether or not this is a flaw in general matters, it is here). Since Dawson and Woodward were respected and highly regarded in the scientific community as well by the public, everyone basically automatically trusted them. This negatively affected the scientific process because nobody tested their hypothesis, in other words, there was no falsifiability- it was seen as true regardless to the fact that no tests had been run and key evidence was missing. Another human fault was want for acceptance. Although we do not know who actually was responsible for this fraudulent finding, it is clear that this person most likely was seeking prestige and recognition. A prime suspect is Dawson, who would have been motivated by his desire to be accepted with prestigious scientists and their communities. This hurt the scientific process because it completely disregarded the whole purpose of the scientific method and forged discoveries that would have been proven false if the scientific method was used with pure intentions. People of Europe also had too much pride, they wanted the fossil to be proof that England was the birthplace of mankind. They disregarded the real findings of Dark because their pride got in the way of the actual scientific evidence needed to make such claims.

Positive Scientific Processes

Although the entire Piltdown hoax was a blow to science, the processes that were used to discovery the falsehood of the bones were not. As touched on earlier, Kenneth Oakley used a method of dating called fluorine analysis. ones in the earth are exposed to the seepage of groundwater, which usually contains fluorine. Fluorine analysis in simple words is measuring the level of fluoride in bones because the longer a bone has been in the ground the more fluorine it accumulates during the process of fossilization. The bones in the same location would be expected to contain the same amount of fluorine - because of this, it is a very localized process that can only be used to compare discoveries from the same location. The natural history museum also carried out a test to determine nitrogen content, which proved it to be much younger than claimed.

Removing "Human" Factor

It is not possible to remove the "human" factor from science to prevent errors like the hoax from happening again. Although technology allows for new information and testing to be completed without a human hand operating it every step of they way, the experiment is still being conducted by human scientists. Even algathrums and codes are created by humans, even if they do not need humans to make them work- there will always be room for error. I think in the concept of human flaws such as trust and pride that really fueled this false Piltdown fossil, can be removed if we choose to look at a case without bias (which is nearly impossible in some cases but can be done). Removing human factor from science is not something that I think should be done because how can one find out anything without having motivation or curiosity (human traits) to find out or discover something. In the same way humanity halts scientific advancement, it also is the root of scientific discovery.

Life Lesson

The Piltdown man hoax is one that we should all learn from. When receiving information from an unverified source, we must always be skeptical. Even if the source seems to be creditable or holds fame over their discoveries, there is always room for human error and for the undesirable human flaws to be driving the 'discovery'. It is important to test things before regarding it as true to prevent wasting years or even decades researching a false lead. Mistakes happen, whether or not the mistake leads to a false desirable or undesirable result, it is still a mistake. The hoax is a good learning experience for the scientific community to be more skeptical and require proof that has not been tampered. At the time of the incident there had never been any sort of hoax of this kind so it is understandable why they were so easily manipulated.