1. Plitdown man turns out to be paleoanthropological Hoax which fragment remains were found and were presented as fossil remains from an early unknown human. The bones that were found were the skull and the jawbones. It was 1912 when these bones were found in Plitdown, East Sussex, England. This finding took forty years, from discovery time to full exposure this is also significant because it is the one of the main issues that helped with human evolution. This finding had a huge effect on the scientific community because it helped better understand things. Also Charles Dawson was the finder of these fossils. Scientist had a very clear response to the Piltdown man in the earlier years of the finding, like it was hard to understand and follow in the human path of evolution, because it didn't fit like fossils that were found in other places. After years of trying to figure out how this fits, it turned out to be fraud.
2. One of the the biggest faults is that it took forty years for it to be fully exposed, in my opinion they should have first exposed it and had all the other scientist help them figure it out. The hardest part about the Plitdown man was to try to put it together and that it did not follow the normal path of humans. These hardships were the biggest negative impact on the exposure of the man and how long it took for us to fully understand that this was a fraud. scientist should be held to a standard where they are required to share their findings without a time frame, and with that one of the other scientist would have found out what was happening and would have never let dawson publish it.
3. The Pltdown man was fraud, turned out that the skull was from a human and the jaw was from an ape. Two little things had scientist going crazy in how this fit into our evolutionary path. The only positive outcome from finding out that the man was a fraud was that it helped us better analysis before spending long years trying to figure it out.
4. Removing the human factor from science would be the worst thing to do. Yes we are humans we make mistakes we are not perfect. Humans are the biggest part of science and helping science better understand what happened in the past with animals and humans. To prevent errors like this one all we have to do is open our eyes and watch out. That is it, not remove humans from science.
5. We get life lessons every single day of our lives, and the biggest lesson that I got from the plitdown man is that never trust anything without full evidence that this is true. Because once one person believes and starts to spread it to the others, pretty soon everyone will believe it and not ask for the evidence behind it. We should always expect to have evidence for any little new discovery.
"This finding had a huge effect on the scientific community because it helped better understand things."
ReplyDeleteThis needs to be clarified because it actually sounds like it made things more confusing.
Aside from details, what was the significance of this fossil find, had it been valid? What would it have taught us about how humans evolved? And why were British scientists so enthusiastic about this find?
The 40 year delay wasn't a fault, but it was the result of faults in the scientific community, as you do describe. But what about the faults involved in the creation of this hoax? What faults motivated the culprits to create this hoax in the first place?
What about the new technology that provided the evidence confirming that this was a hoax? Besides new technology, what about the process of science itself helped to uncover the hoax? Why were scientists still analyzing this fossil some 40 years after it's discovery? While this event did cause many problems, the process of science, if followed as it should be, has built into it practices that will eventually uncover the hoax. These should be seen as positives.
I agree with your conclusion on the human factor section, but I'd like to better understand why you feel humans are necessary for the scientific process? What positive aspects do humans contribute to science?
Good conclusion.