The Piltdown Hoax:
1. The piltdown Hoax was discovered In 1908. It is know to be one of the biggest frauds in science history found by the British Natural History Museum.The Piltdown was one of the main headlines in the early 1900's, many people though and believed that the Piltdown man was the Englishman Charles darwson and sir Arthur who had introduced the Piltdown.
2. Humans fault come into play and affect the scientific process negatively due to the mistakes that were mad during the case of the Piltdown that could have been prevented and I should have been found out sooner when the fossils were given to them they should have examined to see if the fossils were real or fake.
3. I think that the Discovery of the Piltdown hoax had a very positive aspect to it because scientists were able to figure out that the skull was a fraud because of he chemical testings that joseph and Oakley had done and found out that the jaw and teeth didn't match the age of the skull. And that they weren't fossils they were bones due to this fact in my opinions the discovery had a very positive aspect in science.
4. I personally don't think that removing the human factor from science will help to prevent errors like the Piltdown hoax from happening. without a human factor there wouldn't be any type of desire from people to discover new things in life with the technology. Even though us humans always make mistakes which that's part of life we all make mistakes and we learn from them.
5. After reading about the Pitdown Hoax I learned that I shouldn't believe everything what people say there are so many going on in the internet and news that are just lies. And us people always believe and think its true. we shouldn't believe everything and we should know who trust when believing but now we have to prove us a lot of facts for us to believe in.
aileen,
ReplyDeletei agree with your life lesson. as they say " take it with a grain of salt". your absolutly right about the internet and the news. i feel that people watch the news or read something on a topic that may be foreign to them and they take whatever article they are reading to be the truth. after reading about piltdown hoax i feel that i have to be cautious about the things i believe without finding evidence.
But what did the hoax involve? How was it found? What bones did the fossil include? What was the significance of the find to science, i.e., had it been a valid find, what would it have taught us about how humans evolved? What was the response to the discovery by the scientific community and why? How long before the hoax was revealed and how was it revealed? This is an interesting and complicated story. This section should have been greatly expanded and described.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the hoax should have been uncovered earlier, but what faults were involved? Was it greed that drove the culprits to create the hoax? Ambition? Why did scientists accept this find so quickly with so little skepticism and analysis? What was going on in the scientific world at this time that might have made them *want* this fossil to be valid?
Given that opponents of evolutionary science use Piltdown as "evidence" that evolution is false, I'm not sure I see this as a positive result. It isn't evidence that evolution is false... it's' only evidence that scientists are human and can fall victim to human faults and weaknesses, but it did damage the credibility of scientists in a way still being felt today.
Yes, the new technology was a positive aspect, but what about the process of science itself? What is it about the way science is conducted (or should be conducted) that ensured that the hoax would eventually be uncovered? Why were scientists still analyzing this find some 40 years after it was unearthed?
"without a human factor there wouldn't be any type of desire from people to discover new things in life with the technology. "
Good. I agree. Good life lesson as well.
I'm sure it took a lot of work to pull this hoax off. And for why? There is so much stuff on the internet that is lies about people, false information, etc. People love to make up things or to ruin a person's life. It just goes to show you that not everyone is honest, even If you are with them.
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