To begin I learned
that in 1912 near Southern English town of Louis in a little town called
Piltdown. In this town a man named Charles Dawson claimed to find, while he was
digging, a piece of an ancient human skull. After his discovery he brought along other
colleagues names Arthur Smith Woodward, an archeologist, and one other colleague
to help with the artifacts and digging. The remains were found to be
outstanding out first and these men especially Charles Dawson became famous in
the scientific community. A question in the scientific community became a key point
in their experiments, is there a difference between humans and apes?
Human faults did
come into effect in this scenario. To me
I believe that human fault was involved only because I believe greed took in
affect. To this day I don’t think that many people know what really happened or
who really was at fault but I believe jealousy or trying to get ahead was one
big issue in the case. I believe someone wanted to just say he made that big
discovery and be famous in the end.
When they did find
out that the skull piece or remain was a fraud, they did improve in a few
things on the way. Their technology like the Florentine test helped with
basically telling the scientist that the skull piece was not an ancient skull
piece but was very young. Along the lines they also used more advanced technology
that was able to tell that the skull piece was not human at all but a female orangutan.
Not just technology had improved in a positive way there was also the findings
or remains that other scientist had found in different continents like Asia and
Africa. These remains that were found did not match with the remains found at
Piltdown and soon Dawson’s findings were unraveling. When they found out the
remains were fake scientist then knew they had to be on high alert on artifacts
that were brought to them today as well.
I don’t think you
can take the “human” factor out of science. Only because humans are science and
to me who would be better to find and study remains from long ago. Of course
technology is great but I don’t believe it could do the work better than
humans. Also to be it all involves around humans and living organisms, so I believe
it’s better for us to finish the jobs we started.
I learned that
people can get greedy when it comes to fame or becoming that big name. I
believe that it’s not just what you see it’s the study behind it and what you
learn behind the research. They were wrong for what they did and they should
have come clean but with the technology we have today I doubt anyone would be
able to turn in fake or fraudulent pieces without them getting caught.
I agree with you Tamara in today's world a discovery could be very hard to fake due to the advanced technology we have, and we do need that human factor to preform these experiments not machines. Dawson's findings did make him famous, but too bad his hoax was not discovered until after he died.
ReplyDeleteI also think that jealousy played a role in this hoax. More specifically, blind ambition on the part of Dawson (for sure) and probably Arthur Keith. It's quite surprising that a hoax of this magnitude could have taken place at all, let alone continue for decades! We tend to think of science as infallible, but scientists are human and humans are fallible after all!
ReplyDeleteYou start off your post with this question:
ReplyDelete"A question in the scientific community became a key point in their experiments, is there a difference between humans and apes?"
But by this time, it was understood that humans ARE apes. The question at hand was not so much the difference between humans and *other* apes, but how did humans evolve from their common ancestors they share with those other apes.
Can you describe the fossil a bit more? Why was it so important, both to England itself and to the scientific community? What would it have told us about how humans evolved?
How was the hoax uncovered? How much time did it take to uncover it? Why wasn't it uncovered earlier?
I agree with the possibility that jealousy was a motivator. It could also have been ambition or greed. But why didn't the scientific community investigate the fossil more closely? What incentive did they have to leave it unchallenged?
The name of the test that uncovered the hoax was a fluorine analysis. Good job pulling up the other finds that were occuring at the same time on other parts of the world! Excellent! It wasn't just about falsifying the Piltdown fossil, it was also about how it measured up to all of the other available data. Well done on that.
"Humans are science". I appreciate the idea there. I agree that humans are the source for all scientific inquiry. Some might argue that science itself is just a tool for us to better understand our world. The value of our science is dependent upon how well we use that tool.
Good final section.