Piltdown Fraud

            The Piltdown bones were found in a small village called Piltdown in England. It was all started in 1912 when Charles Dawson found a piece of an ancient human skull, or so he said. Nevertheless, he recruited help and ended finding more bones and piecing them together to make what was a fantastic archeological discovery at the time.

            Bias, greed and forgery came into play. Many years later, scientific aging equipment led modern scientists to an amazing discovery! The bones were not millions of years old but a hundred! The true suspect is unknown, but scientists speculate that Dawson may be the culprit. The jawbone, recovered at the grave mound site in Piltdown, was tampered with; as was the canine tooth. Both were filed down to resemble a more human appearance. In fact, after the discovery of the age of the bones, scientists found that the fossils were not only filed down but also superficially stained to appear older. These discoveries as a whole negatively impacted the scientific process by exemplifying that science can be fooled.

            The saving grace, in my opinion, is the fact that the frauds were found. This can reinstall the faith people have in science by ensuring that frauds can be found and proved wrong. Scientists working on the case used orangutan jaws, which is what the original fraud was, and replicated the fraudulent fossils. Putting stain and files to use, an exact chemical and visual replica was achieved.

            I don’t think it is possible because neither apes nor dogs can perform science. Therefore without the human factor there would be no science. I wouldn’t want to remove it anyways because disagreement is what fuels discoveries.

            This is where the scientific method is a perfect fall back method. Don’t just believe what anyone else says to be true. Find out yourself. Obviously we are not all scientists but those who are, need to scrutinize every aspect of a claim and prove or disprove it. For years, the people of England idolized Dawson and his discovery. How do you think they felt when they found out he was a fraud?