1. February 14th, 1912, Charles Dawson claimed to have found a fossil of a part of the human skull that would challenge the findings of the German's ape man discovery. He claimed that they had found the remains of human's oldest ancestor. Scientists from all over rushed to the discovery, and were excited to see the amazing find. Scientists thought this would be the most important part of history that connected us to the primates.
2. Dawson may have been deceptive in releasing this find as true. He wanted fame in the scientific community and may have faked the find in order to obtain that.
3. Scientists contiguously and rigorously studied the Piltman artifact for 40 years before realizing that their were many factors being wrong with it. For example, when they looked at the teeth, they realized that they had been shaved down with a file and had scratch marks on them. They also found that the skull was from a primate alive 100 years ago, not billions.
4. I don't think removing the human part from science would be a good idea, because this is the study of how we came to be. It drives us to want to find out more and to make new discoveries to better our knowledge of ourselves as the human race.
5. Taking information from people that have no proof or set reputation is not a good way to set up a study. Historical falsies can be made and it will ultimately lead to scientific or even everyday social embarrassments like this. Good source usually will have solid evidence of what they are trying to prove,
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ReplyDeleteThe synopsis is a little generic and could be applied to just about any hominid find. What did Dawson actually find? What bones? Who else was involved in this discovery? Why was this so important for British scientists in particular? What was the significance of this find? And what about the other part of the story, namely uncovering the hoax? How long did it take to produce the evidence that it was a hoax? What test confirmed it? Who ran that test. Expand! Tell the whole story for your readers.
ReplyDeleteWhile we still don't know who the actual culprit was, I agree that the desire for fame (or how about ambition or greed?) likely played a role in creating this hoax. Other than the culprits, can you find fault with anyone else? How about the scientific community? Why did they accept this find so readily without proper scrutiny? What might have inspired them (particularly the British scientists) to not do their jobs properly when it came to this particular fossil?
Why were scientists still analyzing this fossil some 40 years after it was discovered? What aspect of science does this represent? Aside from that, what was the specific test used to uncover the hoax and who conducted this test?
The question about the human factor applied to science in general, not just to anthropology. Would you remove the human factor if you could? Do humans only contribute negative aspects to the scientific process? Do they bring anything positive to the process that you would not want to lose? How about curiosity, ingenuity and innovation? Could we even do science without these factors?
Good life lesson.