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In 1912 an amateur archeologist by the name of Charles Dawson was working the gravel
pits near Piltdown Village in Sussex, England when he came across what appeared to be a human-like
skull. Dawson believed that he may have stumbled upon a fossil that would finally connect the ancestry
between humans and apes. In hopes that his findings were correct, Dawson reached out to to the Keeper
of Geology at the Natural History Museum, Arthur Smith Woodward. Smith Woodward and Dawson
both consulted with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French priest/paleontologist. These three highly
qualified men combined their knowledge and went to work. Together they discovered artifacts and
additional fossils that corresponded with the original skull that Dawson came across when he was
working in the gravel pits. The artifacts they discovered were identified as primitive tools that were
utilized by our primitive ancestors. The fossils the men uncovered were skull fragments, teeth, and a
jawbone. Smith Woodward and Dawson then took their findings to a geological society meeting.
At that meeting, they proposed that they had uncovered evidence of a five-hundred-thousand year old
human ancestor that would connect our ancestry between humans and apes. Their findings were accepted
by the scientific community. As time went on and technology became more advanced, fluorine
measurements in bones became the most accurate and reliable way to age fossils. In 1949 scientist
measured the fluorine levels in the Piltdown man. They came to the conclusion that the Piltdown man
was aged incorrectly. Rather than being five-hundred-thousand years old, the fossil was only
one-hundred-thousand years old which rendered it a hoax. As human beings, we are biased to our
own opinions and beliefs. Scientists are humans just like everyone else except they try to look at the
world through an objective perspective in order to make new discoveries, however, sometimes
this bias can come in the way of uncovering the truth. At the time the technology for aging fossils
just simply was not there so Dawson came to the conclusion with what he had. It is not possible to
remove the human factor from science. Even though that is what causes mistakes, such as the Piltdown
hoax, it is what leads to new discoveries. Without trial, error, and human speculation we would not
have any new scientific discoveries. The lesson here is to never accept anything for what it appears
initially appears to be. A scientist must provide concrete evidence to support their findings.
While Dawson provided concrete evidence for his time it did not reflect the truth. As technology
advances, we must reassess our findings.
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Jonah great post, but it felt like you should have added more information to your post. I completely agree that the human factor cannot be taken out of science, and that it is actually important to have this factor so we can learn from our mistakes. I think your blog would have been a little easier to read if it were broken up into paragraphs too.
ReplyDeleteJust a formatting point: There were five key prompts in the guidelines. It would be to your advantage to separate your post into a paragraph for each prompt so that your reader can better follow how you address each point. You have plenty of space available. No need to cram it all in.
ReplyDelete"Dawson believed that he may have stumbled upon a fossil that would finally connect the ancestry between humans and apes."
Did he really? 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.
So the issue of significance remains. 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.
I don't disagree with your points in the "faults" section but you don't really answer the question. What faults might have driven the culprits to create this hoax in the first place? Greed? Ambition? And what faults might explain why scientists accepted Piltdown so quickly without the skepticism necessary for all new discoveries? Perhaps national pride played a role here?
"At the time the technology for aging fossils just simply was not there so Dawson came to the conclusion with what he had."
That isn't sufficient to answer the question in this prompt. Describe the technologies that were involved in uncovering this hoax. But beyond this, 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? 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?
Good life lesson.
"Without trial, error, and human speculation we would not have any new scientific discoveries."
I agree, but perhaps we can consider even more positive traits that humans bring to science?