Piltdown Hoax

Piltdown Hoax was pieces of bone fragments that were found and was said o be fossilized remains of early unknown humans.  The town called Louis in Southern England there was a man named Charles Dawson who started this whole hoax many years after a worker found a piece of skull in the Piltdown gravel pit and Dawson and a man named Arthur Woodward continued to dig up different bone fragments.  They said that the skull had ape like jawbone and human teeth.  This lead researchers in the wrong direction for many decades until the truth came out in 1970; the hoax was discovered when a trunk was found that contained fossils that were modified and looked similar to that of the Piltdown finding.  The belief was that the larger modern day human brain evolved prior to the evolution of out omnivorous teeth.  Dawson findings were found to be in fact forged.

The human faults are that their greedy, prideful and lack of knowledge on the subject; just before this, Germany made a claim of humans originating from Germany, the hoax was then started in England to draw peoples attention for years.  The British wanted the attention and another part of the reason why the hoax was accepted for so long was the scientists had an improper understanding of evolution and how it occurred.

What exposed this hoax was other findings throughout the world and none of these findings would ever match that of Dawson's findings.  Many tests were done on the fossils during the mid-1900, one of these tests was a fluorine test, which showed that the fossils were no more than 100 years old.  After their testings they were able to conclude that the fossils indeed came from two different creatures, which was human and of an ape.   They were able to see that bones were staged different colors and looking at the teeth under the microscope showed scratches that imply that the teeth had been filed down to change their shape so it looks more human in appearance.

I think to a certain extent it is possible to remove the human factor from science, but as humans we are always looking for the answers.  It is human nature to find those answers when possible.  I do not think it is possible to completely remove the human factor from science.  However, we can definitely lessen it and learn from it.  I believe that by properly following the scientific method that you can limit the amount of hoaxes that are accepted as the "truth".

I learned that this shows how important it is to think critically and not to believe someone because they have a title or seem important or even seem to know what they are talking about.  We need to use our own minds and to know what sounds reasonable to us and use common sense.  I try to imply this in many aspects of my life.