1. The Piltdown man is an infamous hoax that is believed to have been conceived by Charles Dawson. Charles Dawson was an amateur at the time of the discovery in a small English town of Piltdown. Dawson made discoveries of skull fragments in a gravel pit in Piltdown. The overall response from other scientists was that the the Piltdown man skull was a forgery and that it included bone fragments of a human cranium and an ape's jaw.
2. Dawson's ambition and greed paved way for this forgery to happen. He made up a new species from existing species' fossils and made it his own. Same can be said of the scientist, Dr. Arhur Keith, who wanted to support his own idea of the evolution of the human. He saw Piltdown man as a way to confirm his own ideologies and was set on doing everything he could to confirm it. This would greatly skew the scientific process as evidenced by the many different results from testing the same bone fragments that was down by scientists.
3. Positive aspects that can be taken from the scientific process was the other scientists willing to retest the samples and see if they could come up with the same results as Dawson. Scientists were able to date the fossils with a method measuring the fluorine content in the fossils. The fossils proved to be roughly only a hundred years old and that number easily put to rest of an ancient human ancestor thought to be a million years old. They were also able to use a microscope and find grooves in the teeth that would suggest the teeth were filed down to a desired wear pattern of a human from an orangutan jaw and teeth fossil. The fossils were stained and manipulated to removed obvious signs of the origins of the fossils.
4. As long as humans are using the scientific process, I would imagine it being extremely difficult to remove the human element from it. Every scientist has a subliminal bias and way to view the evidence in a way most beneficial to them. I wouldn't want to remove the human factor from science because then science wouldn't be there. Most discoveries are done by accident and are usually done in a fashion similar to see if they can disprove or support a theory with new tests. Humans will be needed to study science to help create a better understanding of how things work.
5. You learn that you must do your own testing to and research to reassure the facts. Taking the word of somebody online that tells a story one way is often not told in a truthful manner. You hear all the time about journalists taking comments out of context and twisting the words into a way of a negative connotation. Celebrities are constantly subject to this practice and us as the readers have no way to know the actual context of the interview. Until the person confirms or denies that is how they said and meant something, as a reader we are subject to just know what's been said.
The Piltdown man was researched and studied from a span of 1908, when the first piece was discovered to late 1940's early 1950's when it was a confirmed hoax.
ReplyDeleteThe comment above should have been incorporated into your post. You can go in and edit old posts to make changes if necessary.
ReplyDeleteThis issue of the 40 year span of time between discovery and invalidation is key in terms of the problems it created for the scientific community and how scientists were perceived by the rest of the world.
Why did it take so long for the fraud to be uncovered? What motivations might have been behind scientists not validating the findings on their own?
Other than that, good post.
Matthew M. Very well done post, I saw it as one that caught my attention. You really broke it down so that people can understand it, I liked how you mentioned "You learn that you must do your own testing to and research to reassure the facts" exactly it is like when you do something right but someone will say no your wrong, but for a fact you know you were right so you have to reassure your facts, also evidence. I also enjoy reading your post because it’s very informative.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post. I shared the same ideals. I like how you stated "subliminal bias". I think that is a good way to put the human error. I don't have any disagreements with this post. I think that your analysis was very in depth and you had very good points.
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