In an attempt to further their careers and justify the claims that evolution is a legitimate theory, many scientists have fraudulently deceived the world by planting or reconstructing fossils which they would claim to be authentic finds. One of the he most widely published evolution fraud was committed in the UK where a skull presumably belonging to a missing link was presented to the world. It was one of the greatest scientific hoax ever.
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| A human cranium attached to the jawbone of an orangutan. |
Piltdown Man. The Piltdown Man was a paleoanthropological hoax in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. These fragments consisted of parts of a skull and jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, East Sussex, England.
This skull, which was originally “found” by collector Charles Dawson,
fooled most of the world’s paleontologists into believing it represented
a key missing link on the ape-human evolutionary chain. The hoax
survived for 40 years before finally being revealed as a fraud in 1953.
In fact, the skull turned out to be nothing more than a modern human
cranium attached to the jawbone of an orang-utan.
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| Britain's greatest hoax: BBC, UIK |
Who perpetrated the hoax? When the hoax was exposed nobody knew who the perpetrator was. No one confessed to the deed. For forty odd years people have speculated about the identity of the culprit; over time an impressive list of suspects has accumulated. The case against each suspect has been circumstantial, a constellation of suspicious behaviour, of possible motives, and of opportunity.
This fraud is quite unique. Most scientific frauds and hoaxes fall into a few categories. There are students concocting evidence to fit a superior’s theories. There are confirming evidence frauds, in which a researcher fabricates findings that they believe should be true. There are outright frauds for money, fossils that are fabricated for gullible collectors. There are rare cases of fabrication for reputation, done in the knowledge that the results will not be checked. And, upon occasion, there are frauds concocted simply as an expression of a perverse sense of humor. More than 30 individuals have been accused of being Piltdown hoaxers.
Charles Dawson, the archaeological enthusiast who found the first
pieces, was almost certainly involved. But many scientists still suspect
he had the backing of experts who were the true guilty parties.
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| The Daily Mail The 1953 meeting in which Geological Society revealed the Piltdown Man to be a hoax |
Candidates include Arthur Conan Doyle, who played golf at Piltdown and
had a grievance against scientists because of his spiritual beliefs; the
Jesuit philosopher, palaeontologist and alleged practical joker Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin, who lived in Sussex at the time and who actually
helped Dawson dig at Piltdown; Arthur Smith Woodward, the Natural
History Museum scientist, who accepted Dawson's finds as genuine and
argued they belonged to a new species of early human; the anatomist
Arthur Keith, who also passionately endorsed the discovery; and Martin
Hinton, another museum scientist, whose initials were found, in the
mid-70s, 10 years after his death, on an old canvas travelling trunk,
hidden in a museum loft, that contained mammal teeth and bones stained
and carved in the manner of the Piltdown fossils. When it comes to
suspects, the Piltdown Hoax makes Midsomer Murders look restrained.
John Cooke’s 1915 painting of the Piltdown men, showing anatomist Arthur Keith in a white coat, and behind him to the right, the Natural History Museum’s Arthur Smith Woodward, next to the archaeological enthusiast Charles Dawson, who discovered the find. A portrait of Charles Darwin hangs on the wall in the background as if to add gravitas. Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/Rex Features
Source: The Guardian
Piltdown Man- Britain's embarassment and the world's greatest sophisticated scientific fraud was an audacious fake.
The Talk Origins Archive
The Daily Mail Online
History Channel
BBC
Brtish Museum & Universtiy of Oxford
Smithsonian
Angelfire
A Science Odyssey
The Appendix
National History Musuem
Wikipedia: a paleoanthropological hoax
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Other Hoaxes
Java man: Initially discovered by Dutchman Eugene Dubois in 1891, all that was found of this claimed originator of humans was a skullcap, three teeth and a femur. The femur was found 50 feet away from the original skullcap a full year later. For almost 30 years Dubois downplayed the Wadjak skulls (two undoubtedly human skulls found very close to his "missing link"). (source: Hank Hanegraaff, The Face That Demonstrates The Farce Of Evolution, [Word Publishing, Nashville, 1998], pp.50-52)
Orce man: Found in the southern Spanish town of Orce in 1982, and hailed as the oldest fossilized human remains ever found in Europe. One year later officials admitted the skull fragment was not human but probably came from a 4 month old donkey. Scientists had said the skull belonged to a 17 year old man who lived 900,000 to 1.6 million years ago, and even had very detail drawings done to represent what he would have looked like. (source: "Skull fragment may not be human", Knoxville News-Sentinel, 1983)
Neanderthal: Still synonymous with brutishness, the first Neanderthal remains were found in France in 1908. Considered to be ignorant, ape-like, stooped and knuckle-dragging, much of the evidence now suggests that Neanderthal was just as human as us, and his stooped appearance was because of arthritis and rickets. Neanderthals are now recognized as skilled hunters, believers in an after-life, and even skilled surgeons, as seen in one skeleton whose withered right arm had been amputated above the elbow. (Source: "Upgrading Neanderthal Man", Time Magazine, May 17, 1971, Vol. 97, No. 20)
Miscellaneous Fakes and Frauds
Brontosaurus: One of the best known dinosaurs in books and museums for the past hundred years, brontosaurus never really existed. The dinosaur’s skeleton was found with the head missing. To complete it, a skull found three or four miles away was added. No one knew this for years. The body actually belonged to a species of Diplodocus and the head was from an Apatosaurus. (source: Paul S. Taylor, The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible, [Chariot Victor Publishing, 1989], pp.12-13)
Source: Evolution Frauds & Myths
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