The Case of the Piltdown Man

One of the best (or worst) examples of what could go wrong when bias is introduced to science, The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological hoax in the early 1900s orchestrated by a group of scientists in England that affected the entire scientific community for decades. On December 18, 1912, British scientist Charles Dawson claimed that a skull fragment was found and given to him in Piltdown, East Sussex four years prior. He, along with fellow paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward went back to the site where Dawson found additional skull fragments. Upon analyzing the skull, they found that it was similar in many ways to a human skull, but also had traits shared with the chimpanzee. This lead them to believe it was new link in the evolution chain between humans and apes. It also significantly supported the theory that the large human brain was the first evolutionary step that lead to the homo sapiens. The scientific community accepted these finds as a breakthrough.

Despite initial acceptance, there were a few scientists who challenged the study due to structure of the skull. They found the skull and jaw to be mismatched, especially concerning its dentition and the existence of canine teeth with human-like molars. Eager to back up his findings, Woodward, Dawson and French paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin went back to the site and miraculously found a canine tooth that fit the jaw perfectly. Curiously, Chardin left soon after that and did not continue working on the project. Scientists continued to challenge their findings as canine teeth contradicted the existence of human-like molars, which are caused by side-to-side chewing movements; something that would have been impossible with large canines. Despite all that, scientists weren't yet concerned with the authenticity of the skull, but rather its design. The biggest proponent to Woodward's reconstruction, Arthur Keith, was merely accused of arguing with the findings as a means of promoting his own ideas on the skull.

The Piltdown Man continued to be a controversial subject throughout the years, having since been backed by the finding of a second Piltdown skull matching the first, and thus falsifying the hypothesis that a human skull and an ape jaw simply ended up in the same location. However, in 1953, after fluorine absorption dating was created, they decided to test out the skull fragments to see just how old they were. Shockingly, the discovered the skull fragments were much more recent then they imagined. These findings along with the discovery of what at the time were considered younger fossil fragments that bore less human traits prompted an investigation and the eventual exposure of the Piltdown hoax. In a recent 2016 review, it was noted that Dawson alone made all the alterations to what is now known to be an orangutan skull in order to create this supposed ancestor. It was found that the same preparation of staining, teeth filing and molding were done by the same person, of which Dawson was the only person involved in both findings.

While I mostly attribute the scale of the impact of the hoax on the level of technology and tools these scientists had available at the time, I believe these scientists were a little too focused on reputation over true science. A big reason why the Piltdown man was so readily accepted was due to the cultural and social desire from England to have the earliest known connection to man be found in their home country. Many scientists put aside their investigatory nature for their nationalism, becoming less critical and more easily supportive of the claim. Rather than trying to falsify the hypothesis, they pushed to make it reality, despite the evidence against it creeping behind them.

The process of fluorine absorption dating was a huge breakthrough for paleontology and science in general. If we still lived in a time where we couldn't date these fossils, it would've have gotten exponentially more difficult to disprove the Piltdown findings with all those present having been long gone. Aside from that, a big positive is the nature of scientists to continue to try to disprove theories that were considered unfalsifiable in the past. If we did not further test these theories, we wouldn't be able to find more information they may have missed, or as with this case, we wouldn't realize that the findings weren't reputable.

I don't believe the "human" factor can be removed from science, it's intrinsic to our curious nature. It may have its faults, but like most human traits and characteristics, the good outweighs the bad. It's these hunches and ideas that allow us to progress and gain knowledge we would have otherwise disregarded.

A big life lesson here is that in the science, your individual needs (or in this case, your nationalist needs) should never take precedence over the pursuit of the truth. One must remember that it's a positive thing to be wrong in science, as that lets you check off one route, and continue to the next. In science, as in all fields of study, you may try to trick your way into the history books, but those who write them will always figure you out eventually.