The Piltdown Man

In 1912 in a pit near the English town of Lewis in the small village called Piltdown, a young archeologist named Charles Dawson found a piece of an old human skull. This was a new discovery of the sort and Dawson took this as an opportunity to first tell the London Natural History Museum. With the help of Sir Arthur Woorward, they discovered the remnants of the skull’s jawbone contained human teeth. They also discovered that the skull was only hundreds of years old which differed from their guess that it was millions of years old. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution believed that England was the birthplace of early man and this discovery proved his point. They named the skull the Piltdown Man and many throughout the world were aware of the discovery. Many in the science community questioned how and when someone could do such a thing… many suspected Dawson, Woodward and Hinton.

There were some human faults that affected the reputation of the scientific process Those involved in the hoax allowed it to drag out for such a long period of time. Dawson was greedy and just wanted his name and reputation to excel. His ego and desire for fame and recognition sacrificed the reputation of his discovery in the first place. I believe the same thing happened to Woodward as well which made things worse since he was held on a higher pedestal than Dawson because of his great reputation. Neither men were the cause and creators of the fraud – Hinton was the prime suspect – but the question is … Why did so many scientists allow this case and discovery to go untested for so long? The prideful heart and desire for power is what’s to blame in all of this.

There were a few positive aspects of the scientific process with the revealing of the skull to be a fraud. One of which was that scientists must check over and over again the results and data to call it absolute truth. It is wise to be one hundred percent sure before revealing it to the public. The fluorine test revealed that the items were not millions of years old and they determined along with this discovery that the bones had been boiled and stained to make them look older and aged. Another positive discovery was that the jaw bone part of the skull was a female ape. I guess you learn from your mistakes and that was definitely the case in this situation.

It is not possible to remove the “human” factor from science to reduce the chance of errors like this one from happening again. As humans, we are able to educate ourselves in science and grow in knowledge so I would not want to remove the human factor. Because of the Piltdown Fraud, it shows that humans have faults and make errors but the scientific method does provide the missing key to preventing errors and making mistakes by being thorough and taking time.

The lesson that I can take from this whole historical event regarding taking information at face value from unverified sources is to never limit your beliefs and opinions by what you simply hear. It is wise to see with your own eyes the evidence and know the facts rather than simply absentmindedly believe. In this situation, I am clearly not a scientist so I could not have gone and examined the skull. But if I were, I would have wanted proof and I would have wanted to be hands-on rather than just believing what I was hearing through the grapevine. It is sometimes hard to decipher what is a fact and what is just a belief when someone of authority and higher status is telling me what they believe. But, it never hurts to use discernment!