Piltdown man Hoax Blog Post

Piltdown Hoax

                The Piltdown man is a one of the most famous hoax that present bone fragments showing the fossilized of an unknown early human. It start in England with a group of collectors, which consist of Charles Dawson, Arthur Smith, Woodward, Elliot smith, F.O. Barlow, Arthur Keith, W.P. Pycraft, and Sir Ray Lankester. The group creates forgery pieces of bone to present as a skull of a fully developed modern human. Which suppose to help scientist understand the human evolution until it was exposed as a forgery 40 years later. The hoax was discovered by scientific investigation because the fossil show inconsistent pattern of hominid evolution and later show by testing the bone itself with the fluorine content of fossil and roughly estimate the date of the fossil and it show that the age of the fossil were really young. This help scientist see that the fossil could be forgery, this show the important that they need more test to prove that it actually if it’s forgery.

                After understanding more about the Piltdown man hoax it present a very interest idea about scientist being curious, creative, and persistent. I find that it is really interesting. That scientist developed a way which help testing everything and make sure that every data they collect match and be useful for the next experiment to come. But being human scientist are at fault also. What if the forgery that have been made hold some of the useful information that help with the evolution process but people discard them because it was a forgery.  If scientist make a step back and take a look at it instead of disregard of it all they may find something useful in it. Which would be identifying as “There is no missing link” since there are an indefinite number of missing branches and each of them can connect to many different branches.

                But even all that scientific process help discover the flaw of the Piltdown man hoax and the scientific process responsible for revealing the fraud is the scientific method. The scientific method is first to “ask a question”,  second is to do “background research”, third is to construct a hypothesis, fourth is to test hypothesis with experiment, fifth is to analyze the data and come up with a conclusion, lastly report the result and see if your hypothesis were correct of not. I find this tool to be what help scientist receive the most correct data. Especially Do background research definitely help providing accurate information about the Piltdown skull and help scientist figure out the forgery to help create a correct data.

                In the Piltdown man hoax has present a very important flaw of the human factor not just scientist but human individual. Some people want fame and glory, some people want to find the truth and some do it for the money. I believe that scientific method is very important development that help reduce the chance of errors like this to happen again. But also human factor are very important to science because without fame, glory, truth, or money. Many people won't have motivation to find what is important. This is what make science very interesting. As a life lesson is it is important to verified the sources before publish the data to present the truth and won't have to find out 40 years later to fix the problems.