Piltdown and out of scientific viability.

1. The Piltdown hoax began in Sussex England (Piltdown at Barkham Manor to be more specific) around the early 20th Century. The main finders of these potential humanoid fossils started with a Laborer who then gave them to Charles Dawson who was an amateur Archeologist at the time. Charles was ecstatic and invited Arthur Smith Woodward and Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. With these three, and others to come, digging not much was found except other animal fossils that dated the site being potentially a million years old. The construct of the jawbone of Piltdown man, thus what the humanoid looking fossil was called, backed the idea that Arthur Kieth’s idea of evolution that humans developed a larger brain, or skull before bipedal movement being the primary form of movement. This evolutionary discovery went contrary to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Many scientists speculated the validity of the fossil, but due to its prestige that it gave to the United Kingdom and the vast amount of security around it for testing purposes, there were little that spoke up vocally about the disbeliefs they had. There were fossils that were found in Africa and Asia that contradicted the Piltdown bones in the skull shape development with its age approximation. This led to a skewed understanding that potentially one or the other could have been a mutation offshoot. Post World War II came a way of Fluorine testing that allowed dating methods to measure the amount of Fluorine in bones to date them more accurately. At first it was estimated to be much younger than expected, roughly 100,000 years old, and then in 1953 with better dating methods, it was discovered to be shaped through manmade interference> Scientists were shocked to see that the teeth had been somehow filed down and the lines had been cut and shaped to look like a human fossil. It originally was a female Orangoutang that was forged to look like a humanoid skull.

2. There was a massive amount of pride on the line for the Piltdown Fossil discoveries and their validity. The British Empire wanted to have roots of the human origin in its own country of origin and when other rival countries seemed to have these fossils and they did not, there was jealousy. The Piltdown fossil findings fueled the pride and filled the void of envy that this nation had toward its competing nations. When we let our own hopes and dreams get in the way of factual evidence, we can have the issue of seeing something that is truly nonexistent in its validity, much like the scenario of if someone was interested in someone else and the person they were interested in helped them with something to be a nice person, the original one being helped who was interested in this person may think or feel this action was proof for their hopes and thoughts.
3. What positive aspects of the scientific process were responsible for revealing the skull to be a fraud? Be specific about scientific tools, processes or methodologies that were involved in providing accurate information about the Piltdown skull. (5 pts) The process that helped the discovery were fluoride testing which was the process of measuring the fluoride and uranium content with the fossil or items discovered. There was also the advancement in the microscope to examine the teeth of the jawbone to see that there were rides that signified a manmade tampering with the fossil.
4. The “human factor” from science being removed would 9from what I would see) means developing some sort of machine that takes out the issues that humans can speculate and argue about. This causes major issues all around because to do this someone has to program the machine, in which they would program to their knowledge, which might be one one-thousandth’s of a percent off. This may not seem like much, but in the long run, errors that occur, even minutely, can result in larger problems over time. There is no full way to take out the human factor in the scientific field, because science is the process of humans trying to figure out the surroundings. It is a construct of ideas to have natural phenomenon become understood.
5. For myself, I have seen, and continue to recognize, that just because someone says that it is accurate, does not mean that it is. There has to be proof to show that things are as they say they are and if you have not done the research, then question it and research it for yourself.