The story of the Piltdown hoax goes,
a laborer was digging in an area of the village Piltdown in Sussex in southern
England, when he encountered a piece of bone. He showed to a local archaeologist,
Charles Darwin; who then verified its antiquity and said that is was part of a human
skull. Later he decided to search for the rest of the remains, and he come upon
what looked like a jawbone. And about 3 years later, more pieces were found.
All of these remains were thought to be “human-like” with an “ape-like”
jawbone. The researchers thought they had finally found proof that apes evolved
into humans. Almost forty years later in 1953 through the work of Dr. Kenneth
Oakley the Piltdown find was said to be a hoax. He stated that the skull was
that of a human and the jaw was from an orangutan. The teeth of the orangutan
had been altered to make it look human.
As humans we would sometimes like to
be the “first” at something. We are competitive in nature. So in the Piltdown
Hoax it looks like the faults that came into play would be the desire to be
first and the researchers wanted to truly believe that they were the founders and
proved of the theory that humans derived from apes. However, it negatively
impacted these findings because rather than carefully examining these finding
the founder “jumped the gun” and immediately stated that and pushed the theory
that humans derived from apes, and they supposedly had proof.
One of the positive aspects of this “unearthing”
would be the use of fluorine testing. Flourine testing was used to determine
the age of the fossils. This type of testing was founded by Kenneth Oakley in
1939. Subsequently, the Piltdown bones were tested in 1949 and were found to be
much younger than previously thought.
I absolutely do not feel that the
human factor should be taken out of science. That is how most of new discoveries
are made, through trial and error. We as humans make plenty of mistakes, and it
is those mistake that fuel us to find the right answers. The moral of the story
in my opinion would be is always check and double-check. Never take someone’s
discovery or what they as law. If it is in your power, research it on your own
and come up with your own conclusions.
Overall, good synopsis, just a few clarifications:
ReplyDeleteThe big deal about this find wasn't that it supported humans evolving from earlier apes. That really wasn't in question at this point. The big find here was that it supported the argument that large brains had developed before the ability to walk bipedally. The current line of thinking (which is supported by evidence) is that bipedalism evolved before large brains.
You talk about individual reasons for this hoax to occur. What was happening in Europe about this time that might have contributed to the pressure to produce an "English" fossil?
Aside from fluorine testing, are their any aspects of the scientific process in general the eventually uncovered this hoax?
Good final section.
I would just like to convey how easy of a read you made your post. Easy, to the point and clearly understandable; other than that, you express your opinions greatly which is appreciated to read. I also do agree with you that I do not think that the human factor should be taken from science, because discoveries can only be made between the human trial and error process! Good Job!
ReplyDeleteOverall I thought you had a well developed and well written essay. I like the way you broke it down and put the questions together well. Also I really like your response to the human factor. I feel the same way, I would go a little farther and say that without the human factor, the world would be a very unintelligent place. I think you could have said a little more about the life lesson but overall good post. -Austin Gibbons
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