The Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown hoax was a hoax that took place in 1912. In an English village named Piltdown. Charles Dawson an Archaeologist and Arthur Woodward geologist claimed they had found a skull and jaw of a human ancestor who lived from 500,000 to 1 million years ago. This jaw bone was claimed to be the missing link between ape and man. This was a big discovery for the scientific community, and Dawson was credited with the fame.  Some scientists didn't believe that there findings were real but they couldn't challenge Woodward’s opinion.  This hoax was discovered false when a few years later, findings of ancient remains of human ancestors who lived hundreds of thousands of years after the Piltdown man were found in Asian and Africa, this didn’t match up to the Piltdown man because their skulls were less human and not more human. This brought many questions to if the Piltdown man was real. In 1949 scientists put the fossils to many test and the result was that the fossils were up to 100,000 years old. After more test they found that the fossils were stained and cut to try to add age to the fossils. The teeth that were on the fossils were even filed down.  After more and more test they came to find that the jaw bone was only 100 years old and was actually a jaw bone of an orangutan.
The human fault that came into play with this hoax was that Charles Dawson wanted to become a famous scientist that was known for a great finding. He wanted to be accepted by fellow scientists.  This was very negative to the scientific process because it now was clear that scientist can forge fossils to have great findings.  The positive aspects of the scientific process that revealed the Piltdown man as a fraud was the tests that were given. The fluorine test was the first step that showed scientists that this “man” was not who they thought it was. After that scientist then gave this Piltdown man a full analysts, they looked under the microscope at the teeth and found they were filed down to look like human teeth and the jaw bone was cut so that they had no proof if it really belonged to the fossils skull that was found with it. I don’t think it’s possible to remove the human factor from science. The human factor will always be there and that is what science needs. It needs scientist who will question one another’s work and even their own findings.  I would never want to remove the human factor from science because no machine will ever be able to replace a humans brain. Humans have great findings each day and always will because we have an unlimited thought process because we are always thinking of different things and what is going on. The lesson I take from this event is that scientific findings can be forged and with that they should always be verified by other scientist who are impartial to the findings. Also that by having this event occur it brought the idea to scientists that other findings can and will be forged and they need to beware of that.