The most successful scientific fraud in history, The Piltdown Hoax

      The Piltdown Hoax is perhaps the most famous scientific hoax ever to have been perpetrated. In December 1912 antiquarian Charles Dawson and paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward announced to the world the amazing discovery of an early human fossil that was said to have been collected by a laborer at a gravel pit in Piltdown, East Sussex, England. These fragments collected consisted of parts of a human-like skull and an ape-like jawbone, and was given the scientific name Eoanthropus dawsoni, but was most commonly known as the Piltdown Man. This hoax significantly affected early research on human evolution. For almost 40 years the Piltdown Man fraud had scientist believing that this fossil was the "missing link", the link between humans and apes."The hoax succeeded so well because, at the time of its discovery, the scientific establishment believed that the large modern brain preceded the modern omnivorous diet, and the forgery provided exactly that evidence."(4) Although it had many scientist fooled, there were a few scientist who were skeptical of Dawson's and Woodward's discovery. "In the decades prior to its exposure as a forgery in 1953, scientists increasingly regarded Piltdown as an enigmatic aberration inconsistent with the path of hominid evolution as demonstrated by fossils found elsewhere"(1) Skeptical scientist continued to increase as more fossils were found. Finally, in 1953 the Piltdown Man was exposed for the fraud that it was. Chemical studies and evidence found by Kenneth Page Oakley, Joseph Weiner, and other scientist, found that the fossil actually consisted of a human skull that was 50,000 years old, a 500- year old jawbone of an orangutan, and the teeth of a chimpanzee that had been filed down. After being revealed as a hoax, the Piltdown Man came to represent concrete evidence against evolution, and is repeatedly cited as proof that the entirety of evolution is a hoax. "The Piltdown hoax likely made scientists less willing to accept real early hominin fossils such as Astralopithecus africanus, also known as "Lucy”, but the hoax also shows that even if it takes time, science will eventually ferret out the truth."(2)
       "Nature doesn't lie"... But humans do! Humans by nature are liars and can be very prideful. I believe that one of the biggest faults expressed by the scientists involved in this scenario is the fault of "wanting to be better than anybody else". "It has been suggested that a sense of hurt national pride played a role in the Piltdown Man hoax. By 1912, many hominid fossils had been discovered in mainland Europe, most notably Neanderthal Man in Germany and Cro-Magnon Man in France, and they were even cropping up in Africa and Java, yet Britain had none."(3) It was said that Dawson treated others with little respect to their feelings, and was considered a liar, cheat, and swindler. These faults were detrimental to their scientific process because it discredited them and had scientist questioning every single one of their finds. 
      The fact that the Piltdown Man was eventually revealed to be a fake is evidence that science is capable of seeing through illusion, acknowledging errors, and refining its ideas by use of the scientific method. Around 1939 paleontologist Kenneth Oakley, devised a new chemical analysis called fluorine testing. In 1949 Oakley tested the skull and jawbone of Piltdown Man and as it turned out, the remains seemed to have similar amounts of fluorine, suggesting they belonged together, but surprisingly they appeared to be much younger than was originally thought, about 450,000 years younger. In 1953 Kenneth Oakley met Joseph Weiner who found that the fossil teeth had deliberately been filed down with something abrasive to give them a unique wear pattern. Weiner and Oakley then undertook new chemical analyses, including an improved fluorine test, and found that the jaw and teeth were not the same age as the skull and were not even fossils, just old bones. Some of the bones had been stained with chemicals and some with ordinary paint to make them match each other and the color of the soil where they were found, after these findings Weiner and Oakley were convinced that the Piltdown skull was a fake. By doing what they were supposed to, the truth came out, and that’s the point of the scientific process and relying upon the scientific community. 
      I don't necessarily believe that it is possible to completely remove the human factor from science. Humans have to be involved in one form or another. Things can't just find themselves or study themselves. In order for us humans to know about something or study something we must be involved with the process of doing it. Even if we were to remove the human factor from science, I believe we would still have errors. Perhaps not the errors of hoaxes or fraudulent findings, but nothing in life is ever perfect and there will always be errors. If removing human factor from science would ensure that there would be no possible errors and it would make things a lot better, than I would be in agreeance with doing so. But I don't believe that is possible, so as of now I wouldn't agree with removing human factor from science.  I believe it is what keeps our scientist so determined.
       I believe this historical event has been a huge eye opener for not only scientist, but for people all over the world. Learning about this event has taught me to always check and verify your sources and not just rely on what someone else says. Never let pride get in the way of your beliefs, and I believe the ultimate lesson learned was that the truth will always be revealed.




SOURCES:
(1) http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/science-of-natural-history/the-scientific-process/piltdown-man-hoax/

(     (2)http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/feb/05/piltdown-man-archaeologys-greatest-hoax

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(     (3)http://www.livescience.com/11328-rumor-reality-creatures-cryptozoology.html

      (4)http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/piltdown.html

 

Analogy and Homology

1. HOMOLOGOUS TRAITS:
 
a. Whales and cats are are obviously very different animals. Whales are large aquatic mammals and come from the family of Cetaceans. Like all mammals, whales are warm blooded, have hair, have four-chambered hearts, and breathe air into lungs. Whales breathe through a blow hole above the water, which sets them apart from fish that breath underwater using their gills. Cats are also mammals, but they live on land and are from the family of Felines. Cats can be domesticated and are often used as pets, and just like whales cats are divided into many different types of species.

b.  These two animals are no where near close to each other in size and physically look nothing alike, but share homologous traits, which is the flipper of the whale and the leg of the cat.

 
 Although, the whale flipper and the cat leg both have a humerus, radius, ulna, carpels, metacarpals, and phalanges, they have significant differences in their structure and use of these traits. The bone structure of the cat tends to resemble more of the human structure, as opposed to the whale which has much longer phalanges that is used for swimming and traveling. The cat however, has a longer humerus and radius because it is used to stand on, and the phalanges of a cat are used for grabbing things, and also to defend themselves against other animals. 

c. All of these creatures, in their wondrous array of shapes and sizes, evolved from a small, unassuming, scurrying insect-eater that lived a few hundred thousand years after the apocalypse that finished off most of the dinosaurs. "Scientists have zeroed in on a tiny, rat-sized animal that they believe to be the common ancestor of many of today's modern mammals — including us. This furry little critter lived 66 million years ago, scurrying under the feet of big 'ol dinosaurs and subsisting primarily on a diet of insects."(1).

2. ANALOGOUS TRAITS:
a.  True flies belong to the order Diptera and include flies, gnats and mosquitoes. Flies often have transparent wings with few veins. They range in size from being nearly invisible to the naked eye to well over an inch in length. Moths, on the other hand, belong to the second largest insect order, Lepidoptera. They have two pairs of colored wings that are typically patterned, but drab in color. The smallest moth has a wingspan of less than 1/64-inch, while the largest moths have wingspans the size of a dinner plate.

b. Although both are flying insects, and can be major pests, that is where the similarity between a fly and a moth end. Both flies and moths have a complete metamorphosis including egg, larval, pupal and adult stages. The larval stage, in particular, is often different between the two types of insects. Fly larvae are legless, as opposed to moth caterpillars which have six legs and many leg-like appendages. Moths and flies also feed very differently. While there are many distinguishing characteristics between flies and moths, the wings are among the most conspicuous of the differences, but is also what makes them similar.

c."Knowing the characters of the organisms at the tips of a phylogeny lets you figure out what the ancestral characters were likely to have been. For example, modern flies and moths have silk glands but beetles and wasps don’t. The simplest explanation is that silk glands evolved only once in the ancestor of flies and moths. That means that when we imagine the most recent common ancestor of flies and moths (the ancestor at the node between them), we should imagine an insect with silk glands."(2) But the ancestor still shared the similar trait of having wings.

d.