The Piltdown ‘human’ was found in South East England in the early 1900’s. This piece of fossil was found by a labor who then gave it to Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist. This piece of fossil was thought to be the first human fossil to Darwin’s theory. Dawson then met a geologist, Sir Arthur Woodward and an anatomist, Arthur Keith and Telihard. In February 1912 Dawson published his discoveries and his thought about how it has the evidence of an ape-like jawbone and human-like teeth. This cause the scientific community in uproar. For England this was a great new, for they finally can have a proof that they also have old human-ape-like fossils found in their land. However, in 1949 they tested the fluorine content of the fossil and found out that the age of the fossil is less than 100 years old. They also found an artificial stain and the teeth had been filled on the fossil and in the end they found out that the fossil belonged to a female orangutan whose teeth had been filled so it will look like a human-like teeth. Big suspicion was given to Charles Dawson who was thought wanted to make it to the high class of scientific society. Dawson also found many other fossils with the same artificial stain found in the Piltdown’s fossil. In the end the discovery was just a Hoax. It doesn’t have an any connection between human and ape at all.
The mistake was in how competitive and deceitful England was. They wanted to prove that man’s origins came from Britain by claiming that the fossil could be the oldest human-like fossil. They also wanted to rise up even higher and wanted to use this discovery in their politics tactic too. They probably didn’t even bother to check and analyze the fossil many more times whether if it’s really a fossil that could have been the missing link to Darwin’s theory. In the end England’s mistake and arrogance brought their scientific prestige to an all-time low.
The positive aspect in this situation is that when the modern scientist was able to date the skull and developed a better technique so that they could avoid a fraud. The scientist use fluorine to determine the age of the object by timing the duration of how long the object would absorb the fluorine and chemical that were able to show the artificial stains in the skull and a more advance microscope. They also use the scientific methods to question whether if the skull could really be from and ape-human-like as well.
The human factor in the case of Piltdown Hoax should be able to be removed because at that time advance chemical and advance tests weren’t available for them and the person who conducts the experiments were conducted purely by humans alone. The human factor is much reduced in today’s science because we now have technologies that would do an experiment in the most precise measure and this reduce the error margin in science.
The life lesson from this hoax is that we should check something as important as the discovery of the first human fossil more than just with the same tests. Do all the tests that are necessary to prove that what is being said to be proven right. Also how lies and arrogance should not be involved in science because it clouds judgement. In the end truth always prevails one way or another and science is based on facts.