Piltdown Hoax

The original “Piltdown Man” bones were discovered in 1912 by Charles Dawson in a gravel pit in a small town of the same name in England. Dawson claimed they were an ancient human ancestor. His story and find were corroborated by a few of the “world’s leading minds” in the field of paleontology and archaeology at the time. Which naturally meant that nobody questioned them until AFTER their deaths. The effects of the “Piltdown Man” discovery were extremely influential to the scientific community, until they started finding other human ancestor fossils in other regions of the world, fossils that didn’t match the find in England. The fossils found in the other parts of the world in the 1920’s, caused the questioning of the Piltdown Man’s credibility, which led to scientists examining the find more closely. Thy were finally able to debunk the claim in 1949 shortly after WW2 with Fluorine Testing, and further research was conducted in the 50’s and 60’s with carbon dating. Modern Dating Methods (in the 1940’s and 1950’s), such as fluorine testing and carbon dating, were responsible for discovering the facts about the true age and origins of the bone fragments. The hoax was completely disproven in the mid 1990’s when they found a chest full of “modern tools” belonging to one of the men involved in the find. Would it be possible to remove the human factor from the research aspect of fossil classification? I suppose so, by replacing “us” with a computer system that can analyze any fossil specimens completely and accurately providing only factual data unlaced with any human speculation, but the human presence still needs to be present in order to retrieve the specimens from their original resting place. The biggest human fault present in this hoax was Hubris or Pride, the men that discovered these bone fragments wanted so badly to be recognized in the scientific community that they sacrificed their integrity and ultimately their credibility to do so. The Lesson here for everyone to learn is “Do not believe the first thing you hear unless verified or corroborated by a CREDIBLE source” and even scientists can be wrong sometimes as well.