1.) The Piltdown 'human' was found in South East England in the early 1900's. This piece of fossil was found by a labor who then gave it to Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist. This piece of fossil was given a thought to be the missing link to Darwin's theory. Dawson then met a geologist, Sir Arthur Woodward and an anatomist, Arthur Keith and Telihard. In February 1912 Dawson published his discoveries and his thought about how it has the evidence of an ape-like jawbone and human-like teeth. This cause the scientific community in uproar. For England this was great news, they finally can have proof that they also have old human-ape-like fossils found in their land. However, in 1949 they tested the fluorine content of the fossil and found out that the age of the fossil is less than 100 years old. They also found an artificial stain and the teeth had been filled on the fossil and in the end they found out that the fossil belonged to a female orangutan whose teeth had been filled so it will look like human-like teeth. Big suspicion was given to Charles Dawson who was thought wanted to make it to the high class of scientific society. Dawson also found many other fossils with the same artificial stain found in the Piltdown's fossil. In the end the discovery was just a Hoax. It doesn't have any connection between human and ape at all.
2.) The mistake was in how prideful and desperate was England. They wanted to proof that man's origins was from Britain by claiming that the fossil could be the oldest human like-fossil. They also wanted to rise up even higher and wanted to use these discoveries in their politics tactic as well. They probably didn't even bother to check and analyze the fossil many more times whether if it's really a fossil that could have be the missing link to Darwin's theory. In the end this arrogance of England brought their scientific prestige to a lower place.
3.) The positive aspect in here is that when the more modern scientist were able to date the skull and developed a better technique so that they could avoid a fraud. The scientist use fluorine to determine the age of the object would by timing the duration of how long the object would absorb the fluorine and chemical that were able to show the artificial stains in the skull and a more advance microscope. They also use the scientific methods to question whether if the skull could really be from and ape-human-like.
4.) The human factor in the case of Piltdown Hoax should be able to be removed because at that time advances chemical and advances things weren't available for them and the one who conduct the experiments were conducted purely by human alone. The human factor are much reduced in today's science because we now have technologies that would do an experiment in the most precise measure and this reduce the error margin in science.
5.) The life lesson from this hoax is that we should check something as important as the discovery some more. Also how pride or arrogance should not be involved in science because it brought down the pride in the end.
Hey Gisselle, I like that you made all your responses clear and succinct, especially for the first question, you had a good summary of the events at Piltdown. I think maybe you could have elaborated a little more on the life lesson for question 5 but I agree that pride caused the downfall for the scientists involved.
ReplyDeleteHi Gisselle! I liked how detailed your post for the brief summary part was! It gave me a better perspective on how the Piltdown Hoax came to be. I totally agree with you that England was desperate and greedy so they needed prove just like many other European countries that they also had early human fossils. I also think that technology has made things like scientific discoveries to be made sure they are not a hoax. Lesson learned for many scientists!
ReplyDeleteOverall, good synopsis with good detail, but you threw in the term "missing link". Why? 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.
ReplyDeleteSo back to the issue of significance. You do include Arthur Keith's name in the synopsis, which is excellent but should have been a clue towards the significance of this find. Yes, this was significant because it was the first hominid found on English soil, but there was also *scientific* significance. Had Piltdown been valid, it would have helped us better understand *how* humans (not *if*) evolved from that common ancestor with non-human apes. Piltdown was characterized by large cranium combined with other more primitive, non-human traits, suggesting that the larger brains evolved relatively early in hominid evolutionary process. We now know this to be incorrect, that bipedalism evolved much earlier with larger brains evolving later, but Piltdown suggested that the "larger brains" theory, supported by Arthur Keith, was accurate.
I agree that the scientific community was partially at fault for the perpetuation of the Piltdown hoax. But what about the perpetrators themselves? Why did they create the hoax in the first place? What human faults are involved there?
"...so that they could avoid a fraud"
Unfortunately, they *didn't* avoid the fraud. It was perpetrated for 40+ years. But good discussion of the technology used to uncover the hoax, but 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 think you need to step back and think about what the "human factor" actually is. You seem to be assuming all factors are negative. Is that the case? Do humans bring nothing positive to the scientific process? How about curiosity, ingenuity and innovation? Could we even do science without these factors?
Good life lesson.