In the year 1912 in the Southern English town of Lewis in a little village named Piltdown, Charles Dawson claimed to have found a piece of an ancient human skull. The fossils had a tremendous effect in the scientific community, especially in England because up until that point fossils had been discovered in other countries like France and Germany but not in England. Charles Dawson also found what was the jaw bone of a human that seemed to belong to the piece of skull that he had found before. That piece of jawbone seemed to be that of an ape but it had teeth that seemed to be as if they were human. For years it seemed as though they
had discovered the "missing link" that connected apes and human beings. In the 1920's ancient remains of humans were found in Asia and Africa and they did not coincide with the fossils that were found at Piltdown. The fossils that were found were dated to be more recent than the fossils that Charles Dawson had discovered but they seemed to look less humanly than the fossils that were said to be older that were found at Piltman. The findings in the Piltdown village began to have scientists question the credibility of the fossils. A new technology was being used after world was two which allowed scientist to use fluorine to be able to date fossils. The scientists used the fluorine test to examine the Piltdown fossils. Scientists also looked at the fossils under a microscope and realized that the teeth had been filed down. After the tests were made the fossils were only one hundred years. The human faults in this scenario are ambition, greed, and jealousy. The men that were involved in the hoax were men that had a great reputation in the scientific field and it would benefit them greatly to make a discovery since their word would not be questioned very much since they were quite respected. The jealousy issue may have been that Dawson saw that in other powerful countries the scientist made discoveries on ancient humans and England had not yet obtained any. These human faults led them to think it was acceptable to falsify the fossils. As i explained above the new inventions of
technology which were the microscope and the use of Fluorine to reveal the age of the fossil allowed scientists to discover the hoax. It may be possible to remove human factor from science by running many tests on one certain topic by different people therefore there would be less mistakes because one thing that may benefit one person may not benefit the other and that removes a bit the ability for a scientist to have total control to an idea. I would like to remove human factor because I do not believe that a person who is making up information should receive credit and prestige for a lie that they created. I have learned to not obtain information from sources that are not able to prove their beliefs because any person is able to lie about something that seems right and make people believe it is true when it is not.
Artillery,
ReplyDeleteIntriguing post, a lot of good detail. You're one of the few I have found on these blogs that feels we need to take the "human factor" out of science...I respectfully, disagree but for reasons against your opinion of "I do not believe a person who is making up information should receive credit.." I feel the human factor can be quite beneficial in science and should not be tarnished due to the greed and self interest of one man. Also, because I keep hearing how Dawson was suspected, but never proven guilty of this...so it's astonishing to think on the spectrum of, what if he was set up?? Hmmmm... Good post!
dear artillery
ReplyDeletelove the post. looks great and freat use of visual effects and the lay out was easy to navigate through. i too like MLE anthro must have to respectively dis agree with your idea to remove the human error. i understand that sometimes the human removes the information that does not fit his theory but if we have learned anything about this hoax is to question it. i think that if the truth is trying to be covered up then it will be revealed since they are under a lot of skepticism .
Good detail on the background of this hoax. One correction is related to the use of the term "missing link". I understand that the video uses the term "missing link" but did you have the opportunity to review the video in the assignment folder about the use of this term? Is it valid to use this term to explain the importance of Piltdown? There was another, more important piece of information that would have been gained from this find, had it been valid regarding the size of the cranium and which came first, bipedalism vs. large brains. Did you see that information?
ReplyDeleteI agree that those faults were involved in the perpetration of the hoax. But what faults were involved in the quick and un-skeptical acceptance of the find by the scientific community? What motivated them to accept it without testing it as is required by the process of science?
Good coverage of the fluorine analysis. What qualities of the process of science itself helped to uncover the hoax? Why were they still analyzing this find 40 years later?
You seem to be assuming that the aspects of the human factor were all negative. Are there no positive aspects that you would not want to lose? What about curiosity, ingenuity and innovation? Can you even do science without humans?
Good conclusion.