Piltdown Blog Post

1.  The Piltdown Hoax, which www.pbs.org refers to as one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of science, took place in a village named Piltdown in southeast England during the early twentieth century (around the start of the first World War).  The pieces of the skull of the so-called "Piltdown man" were discovered in Piltdown by a worker who gave the fossil to an archaeologist named Charles Dawson.  This fossil of the Piltdown man was deemed by Dawson and his colleague Sir Arthur Smith Woodward to be evidence of the first man (specifically, the first British man, which was extremely important at the time because of the nationalistic war excitement that was flaring up at the time).  They believed that this fossil belonged to a creature that bridged the evolution from ape to man, which would have been quite spectacular if it were not greatly exaggerated.  At the time, the scientific community viewed this discovery as a way of identifying how apes evolved into men, essentially proving Darwin's theory of evolution and validating years of research regarding evolution.  But in 1953, it was discovered that the fossil was a hoax because it did not belong to the first man-evolved-from-ape, but rather it belonged to an orangutan that was only a few hundred years old.  This discovery was made after the Natural History Museum performed a chemical test on the skull to test its legitimacy, only to find that it was artificially altered to appear as if it belonged to the first human-like creature.  Scientists were embarrassed and disgusted at this lie, as many of them had spent decades believing in the validity of this skull; naturally, they did not appreciate being fooled, especially since this falsified discovery was of something that was considered to be the most influential knowledge regarding evolution that existed at the time.

2.  The human faults that came into play in this scenario were potentially a mixture between pride, nationalism, and a desire to be acknowledged throughout history for a great and respectable deed.  All people can be proud, but scientists are particularly so when they want to prove that their claims are accurate, which can only be done through scientific evidence.  Additionally, because this incident occurred during the beginning stages of the first World War when England and Germany were at each others' throats, the people of England were obviously filled with a desire to be superior to their foes in any way, shape or form.  By discovering that the first man was located in England, the British could boast to their German adversaries that their nation is superior (a very foolish basis for superiority I might add - just my two cents though).  Finally, scientists are constantly attempting to establish a place in history by discovering something so momentous that they would be well-known throughout the world for as long as humans are alive and have knowledge of scientific discovery.  This desire for individual achievement stems from the human desire to feel essential, which is perfectly natural for people to feel but does not belong in the world of science.  These faults made it so that the scientists felt as if they absolutely needed to discover something enormous, which means that biases were involved in what should have been an objective scientific discovery.

3.  The skull was discovered to be a fraud due to the chemical tests done at the Natural History Museum in England, which tested the fossil for its age as well as the specific species it belonged to.  The test involved estimating the nitrogen content of the fossil to determine its age, which yielded the shocking result that it was only a few hundred years old and therefore could not have belonged to the first living man.  Once they discovered that it was much younger than originally anticipated, the scientists at the museum checked to see if the pieces of the skull had been falsified through the use of chemicals, which it had been; this confirmed that the skull that was discovered was in fact a hoax and not legitimate.

4.  I do not think it would be possible to remove the human element from science without removing humans altogether.  If a group of machines were programmed to conduct scientific research, the results would be completely objective because the machines would have no other motives.  But humans are always motivated by factors such as wealth, fame, and respect; scientists behave the same way.  Unless scientists were unable to feel emotions and were filled solely with the desire to provide sound scientific research, there will always be a human factor in science.  That said, if it were possible to remove this element from science I would definitely approve because it would ensure that scientific research is legitimate and is done purely for the sake of science.  It would make science so much more accurate, which would allow discoveries and theories to develop much faster than they do with a human factor involved.

5.  The important lesson to take from this incident is that evidence should not be accepted as truth until it has been reviewed and is proven to be legitimate, much like how theories are not accepted until they have been proven to be true through countless experiments.  If a scientist claims that a discovery is legitimate, that does not establish the discovery as legitimate; it is essential for tests to be done to prove that the discovery is not a fraud, like the scenario with the Piltdown Man.   Another lesson to learn is that scientists are humans and are not the ultimate authority of legitimacy on matters that occurred hundreds to billions of years in the past.  It is foolish to take any one scientist's word on something as one hundred percent legitimate until the discovery or hypothesis has been validated by experimentation or testing.