The Piltdown Man
The Piltdown man was Paleoanthropology, which is a branch of archaeology with a focus on humans, a hoax. In this case, bone fragments, found in a gravel pit, were presented as the fossilised remains of an unknown early human. In 1912 Charles Darwin made the discovery between apes and humans. Dawson, after his discovery, reached out to Arthur Smith Woodward, keeper of the Natural History Musem, and shared his findings with him. After more searching, they later found a set of teeth, a jawbone, and more skull bone fragments. However, in 1949, new technology made it possible to test the fragments finding out that they were only 50,000 years old making the possibility of the Piltdown man being the missing link between humans and apes false. This became false because at this time humans were already developed into the homo sapiens form.
If the Piltdown man did not turn out to be a hoax, this would have been a huge historical find. A biological anthropologist, Dr Joseph Weiner and human anatomist, Wilfred Le Gros Clark, worked with Dr Oakley to further test the age of the Piltdown findings. The used a series of chemical tests, a fluoride-based test dated the upper part of the skull to be 500 years old and the jawbone at a few decades old. The tests also showed that the fossils have been strained with iron and potassium dichromate. These scientists also noticed the teeth have been filed down to make them appear human-like. The findings were them posted in time magazine in 1953. The results showed that that fragments came from tow different species, humans and an ape. Some humans faults that came to play is this hoax, automatically assuming the jaw fragment was a human by going off of the graded down teeth. Another human fault would be thinking that humans developed big brains before walking upright, when it was said to be true that walking upright came before the big brain.
It would not be possible to remove the human aspect of science because humans play a crucial part in science, then and today. Removing humans from science would not prevent these errors from happening again, in today's age, there is technology that would have quickly solved this hoax far before the news broke. A life lesson that could be taken from this is to not automatically assume one has hit the jackpot on an idea, but more to go and focus on the idea acquire more information and then binge about the findings.
If the Piltdown man did not turn out to be a hoax, this would have been a huge historical find. A biological anthropologist, Dr Joseph Weiner and human anatomist, Wilfred Le Gros Clark, worked with Dr Oakley to further test the age of the Piltdown findings. The used a series of chemical tests, a fluoride-based test dated the upper part of the skull to be 500 years old and the jawbone at a few decades old. The tests also showed that the fossils have been strained with iron and potassium dichromate. These scientists also noticed the teeth have been filed down to make them appear human-like. The findings were them posted in time magazine in 1953. The results showed that that fragments came from tow different species, humans and an ape. Some humans faults that came to play is this hoax, automatically assuming the jaw fragment was a human by going off of the graded down teeth. Another human fault would be thinking that humans developed big brains before walking upright, when it was said to be true that walking upright came before the big brain.
It would not be possible to remove the human aspect of science because humans play a crucial part in science, then and today. Removing humans from science would not prevent these errors from happening again, in today's age, there is technology that would have quickly solved this hoax far before the news broke. A life lesson that could be taken from this is to not automatically assume one has hit the jackpot on an idea, but more to go and focus on the idea acquire more information and then binge about the findings.
Hi Katelyn,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I enjoyed reading your discussion about the hoax. I like that you mentioned one of the faults being the assumption about the way that humans developed. If the scientists had followed what they knew to be true rather than being carried away by the potential implications of the find, they would have discovered their faults much more quickly.
Loved reading your post Kaitlyn. I agree that we cannot take away human from science because it then means nothing to us. I also agree that scientists need to always double check everything before they make it public but I do not think that is a problem anymore. Good job!
ReplyDeleteHey Katelyn,
ReplyDeleteYou and I have very similar posts I believe we got our information from the same source so I would like to say that I like how you wrote it and the information sounds correct to me. I also really liked how you added so many of the tests that the scientists used. You also mentioned that the findings were published in Times magazine which I was not aware of and that was a very interesting bit of information. I overall like how you wrote this blog I just wish that you would have gone a bit more in depth on why removing the human aspect from science could not be done, other than they are crucial.
To clarify, paleoanthropology is a branch of physical anthropology, which is why it is included it this course. Archeaology only deals with non-biological human artifacts.
ReplyDelete"In 1912 Charles Darwin made the discovery between apes and humans."
Darwin actually died in 1912, so that is one reason why this is not accurate. Darwin never produced actual evidence of the connection between humans and apes, but he did recognize that this connection likely existed. He also recognized the backlash that would likely occur if he published this thought and so did not include it in his first book (Origin of Species). He did include it in his second book (The Descent of Man).
Beyond this, you offer some good detail on this event but this is a complex story and more could have been offered your reader. In particular, you are missing the scientific significance of this discovery, had it been valid, and it would have helped you to understand that significance if you had provided more detail on this story. 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 (one of the Piltdown scientists) was accurate.
" finding out that they were only 50,000 years old making the possibility of the Piltdown man being the missing link between humans and apes false."
No, this was already false and not valid as the significance of this discovery. Piltdown, had it been valid, would NOT have demonstrated a link between humans and apes. First of all, humans ARE apes, but beyond that, Piltdown would have been a branch on the hominid family tree. It would have had nothing to say about the connection between humans and non-human apes. It didn't go back that far in evolutionary time, and that was already known when Piltdown was presented to the scientific community.
Topics are a little out of order here. I will address the section on "faults" first. You aren't talking about "faults" here but mistakes made. The issue is what led to these mistakes (or blatant falsehoods) being made? First, what led the culprits to create this hoax? Greed? Ambition? And second, how about the scientific community? Why did they accept this find so readily without proper scrutiny? What might have inspired them (particularly the British scientists) to not do their jobs properly when it came to this particular fossil?
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?
"It would not be possible to remove the human aspect of science because humans play a crucial part in science, then and today."
Agreed, but this needed to be explained. Do humans bring anything positive to the scientific process? Could we even do science without the curiosity in humans that push them to ask those initial questions? Or their ingenuity to create tests of their hypotheses? Or the intuition that helps them draw connections and conclusions from disparate pieces of information?
Okay on your life lesson, but this explanation needed to be expanded. Assume that single sentence responses are not sufficient in addressing the prompts.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI know this comment is late but my previous one failed to upload. One thing I though was really unique to your post was your last line " life lesson that could be taken from this is to not automatically assume one has hit the jackpot on an idea, but more to go and focus on the idea acquire more information and then binge about the findings. " I think is is a unique perspective on the life lesson to take besides from the average answer of just researching before assuming. Also, it was nice that your summary was brief and cut the point without disregarding any important information.