Piltdown Hoax Blog Post 

The Piltdown hoax occurred in the 1900's in the County of Sussex in Southeast England. A laborer who was digging at Barkham manor, a short while from the village of Piltdown, discovered a strange piece of what looked like a skull. The man not knowing what he found brought the fragmented skull to Charles Dawson who was a local amateur archaeologist. After receiving the bone, Dawson began to dig the area up himself and he found more bone fragments at the site. Believing that he had made an incredible discovery, likely to rival Germany's findings of the Neanderthal, Dawson took his findings to The Museum of Natural History in London. There he met esteemed geologist, Sir Arthur Smith Woodward who, realizing how big of a discovery this could be, traveled back with Dawson and began digging with him. During that summer of digging the men found numerous prehistoric animals and even, stone age tools. They soon struck gold, when they found an apelike jawbone with what appeared to be human like teeth, which Dawson connected with the skull the laborer had originally brought him. It appeared that Dawson and Woodward had found the connection between man and primate, established mans place in nature, and proved Darwin's Theory. On December 8th 1912 Woodward and Dawson introduced the creature Eoanthropus dawsoni, nicknamed the Piltdown man. There was some speculation overseas that the maybe the different findings did not actually go together and that perhaps separate ape and human fossils were mixed together in the same deposit To prove this theory incorrect, Woodward and Dawson needed to find another piece to this puzzle, a canine tooth. Back at the dig site the men invited another archaeologist, French philosopher and priest, Teilhard de Chardin to search with them. The men were lucky and not only found a canine tooth that matched their predictions in size and shape, but they also only a few short years later, found another piltdown man, in the form of a skull and tooth. These findings silenced their doubters for the next forty years.

Unfortunately in 1953 evidence came about the Piltdown man was a hoax. It wasn't until 1949 that the Piltdown man was even questioned again. With the discovery of fluorine analysis, in 1953 that analyses how old fossils are, scientists wanted to test their new found knowledge out on the Piltdown fossils. The results showed that the fossils weren't ancient at all but relatively recent. Further analysis showed that the jaw wasn't even human, and was instead the jaw of a young orangutan that had the teeth filed down to resemble human teeth. The skull pieces that had been found were in fact human but belonged to a recently deceased human not an ancient one. The fossils had been stained and died so they would look as if they had been found at Piltdown. As it turned out, every single one of the finds and Piltdown had been faked and planted. The British Science World was in an uproar. They had built whole careers and theories on these findings only to find out they were fraudulent.

There were many human faults revealed during the Piltdown Hoax. I believe that envy and selfish ambition were  faults that played the biggest role in this hoax. British scientists were extremely envious of the fact that while seemingly every country had begun to find evidence of early man, they had yet to find anything. This jealousy could have been what led to the hoax and what led to the immediate acceptance and praise of the Piltdown man findings, even with other countries skepticism. The mastermind's selfish ambition also played a large role in the hoax. Whoever was behind this hoax let their own needs and desires trump their ideals and morals and allowed them to fabricate a breakthrough scientific discovery that reflected badly on everyone. These faults negatively affected the scientific process because the scientists who had spent their lives and careers analyzing this findings began to doubt the accuracy of science. If the Piltdown fossils hadn't been tested again it could have gone undetected and if something like this had happened once whose to say it wouldn't happen again. 

Even with the negative aspects of the scientific process revealed, there will still many positive aspects of the scientific process revealed through the hoax. A positive scientific tool that was revealed was the fossil dating system. Fluorine analysis, which helped scientists discover that the Plitdown fossils were fraudulent, is an example of a fossil dating system. There are two types of fossil dating, there is relative fossil dating which just tells you that something is older or younger than something else, but it doesn't tell you much else. The other form of fossil dating is chronometric or absolute dating. Chronometric dating gives fossil age in an estimate in actual numbers of years.

While I think that it is possible to remove the "human" factor from science I would not want to remove humans from science. I think that there is room for error in every practice and that people make mistakes regardless and that's ok as long as we learn from the mistakes of the past. I think that science has grown from this hoax and that science have moved on and will continue to try to ensure that another Piltdown hoax does not occur again.

The lesson I learned from this story is to not take anyone's word at face value. Even if it appears to be true make sure the source is reliable and if you have any sort of inclination that the source is not reliable do not let your own selfish, whimsical ideals corrupt you to make questionable decisions.  

Homologous Trait: Forelimbs

The Dolphin

Dolphins are large mammals who are closely related to whales and porpoises. They can grow between 4-30 ft and can weigh between 90 lbs and 1 ton. Dolphins are found worldwide mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves and they are carnivorous mammals who eat fish and squid.  They are typically a grayish color although amazon river dolphins can be pink. Dolphins bodies are adapted for fast swimming. Their tail fin are used to propel them through the water while their pectoral fins are used to provide directional control. The dorsal fin of the dolphin provides stability while they swim. Dolphins are very vocal and playful animals and communicate through signature whistling noises. They have very few natural predators outside of specific sharks. 

The Cat

The domestic cat is a small, usually furry, and carnivorous domestic animal. Cats are often valued for their companionship and ability to hunt vermin. They were considered cult animals in ancient Egypt where they are thought to have first been domesticated. Cats have strong flexible bodies, quick reflexes, sharp retractable claws, and teeth adapted for killing small prey. Cats can hear sounds to high or too faint for humans to pick up on and can see in near darkness. Despite being hunters, cats are a very social species. Cats are similar to other members of the genus Felis weighing between 8-25 pounds. 

Homologous Trait and Common Ancestor: Both cats and dolphins share a similar bone structure in their forelimbs. Both of these animals have  humerus, ulna, radius, and wrist and finger bones. Although they share similar bones their functions are different for each animal. Cat forelimbs are used for mobility and pouncing and capturing prey while a dolphins flipper is used to propel it through the water and keep it stable while it swims. Both Cats and Dolphin most likely share a common mammalian ancestor, possibly of the Artiodactyl order.

Analogous Trait: Fins

The Penguin

Penguins are aquatic flightless birds who typically live in the southern hemisphere of the world. On average adult penguins are around 4 ft and weigh about 77lbs. These animals are typically black with white stomachs and are highly adapted for life in the water because their wings have evolved into flippers. Most penguins feed on fish, krill, squid, and other forms of sea life while swimming under water. They spend about half their lives in the water and half on land. Although all penguin species are native to the Southern hemisphere they are not found in only cold climates. In fact a certain breed of penguin, the Galapagos Penguin is found near the equator.

The Fish

A fish is any member of a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of gill bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Most fish are cold blooded animals and are abundant in most bodies of water, they can be found in nearly every aquatic environment. The earliest organisms to be classified as fish were found in the Cambrian period. 

Analogous Traits: The analogous trait shared between penguins and fish are fins. A fin is a flattened appendage on various parts of the body of many aquatic vertebrates and some invertebrates used for propelling, steering, and balancing. Despite the fact that both of these animals share a similar trait I do not believe that their common ancestor shared this trait and since the penguin is a bird and the fish is a fish it is likely that the fin evolved in the penguin species because it was needed in the environment penguins were living in at the time. 

Protein Synthesis



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Jean Baptiste Lamarck and his Influence over Charles Darwin Theory of Natural Selection

Despite the fact that Charles Darwin had numerous influences for his Theory of Natural Selection, I believe that the works of Jean Baptiste Lamarck played a larger role. Jean Baptiste Lamarck was one of the first to use the term "invertebrate" and was one of the first to think that humans evolved from a lower species, he believed that all living things were built from the most simple of things. He was also the first of his time to suggest a relationship between species and their environment, he proposed that if the external environment changed, that an animal's patterns would also change to accommodate the changing circumstances. His theory is known as the Inheritance of acquired characteristics, and although his theory has been proven to be genetically incorrect, according to http://evolution.about.com/od/scientists/p/Jean-Baptiste-Lamarck.htm he was one of the first scientists to discover and publish the idea that adaptation helped species to better survive different environments. 

Lamarck's ideas that environmental changes directly affect what traits will stay or become different was very important in Darwin's study of adaptation. His ideas also led to Darwin's discovery, that natural selection acts on random variation. I do not believe that Darwin could have developed his Theory of Natural Selection without Jean Baptiste Lamarck. Lamarck's ideas and failures when it came to animal patterns and the external environment's effects on the animals helped polish Darwin's ideas of adaptation which were vital in understanding why certain species die out or increase in population, based on vast environmental differences within the same subset of species. 

The delayed publication of Charles Darwin's famous "Origin of Species" was due in a large part to the fanaticism that plagued the church. Darwin's studies of Evolution, while not forbidden by the church, was frowned upon for directly challenging the opinions and logic of the church. Challenging the status quo could lead to him being ostracized by his family and friends or worse. Darwin being of a wealthy prominent family and good social standing was hesitant to publicly challenge the opinion of the church with his controversial study. It is probable that the only reason Darwin even published his book was because Alfred Russell Wallace, the Scottish naturalist whose findings on The Evolutionary process greatly mirrored Darwin's, had begun to publish his findings, and Darwin was afraid that Wallace would be credited with for findings Darwin had discovered long before.