The Evolution Chamber: Piltdown Man

[Polymath257]

Yes the sale of sacred relics was big business in the Middle Ages. Chaucer criticises it in The Canterbury Tales. There were probably enough shards of the one true cross on sale to rebuild a forest.

Not just in the Middle Ages....

 

[jonathan180iq]

Yes the sale of sacred relics was big business in the Middle Ages. Chaucer criticises it in The Canterbury Tales. There were probably enough shards of the one true cross on sale to rebuild a forest.

What's even more awesome is that $hit like this still happens today, because people never really learn anything.

 

[Audie]

Yes the sale of sacred relics was big business in the Middle Ages. Chaucer criticises it in The Canterbury Tales. There were probably enough shards of the one true cross on sale to rebuild a forest.

Religious fakery is big biz this very day.

 

[Audie]

First of all, that fraud was found out by an anthropologist and, secondly, even before he found it to be a fraud others, such as Louis Leaky, thought it was likely one because it simply didn't fit in with real human finds discovered since Piltdown was constructed.

Also, if we all were to use your approach, shouldn't we all be condemning Christianity, including you, because of there being so many frauds put forth by so many ministers and some theologians?

In as much as nobody actually knows who constructed
"Piltdown", or why, it is a bit thick to call it a fraud.

At a German U, many years earlier, a professor was
making a hobby of collecting sea shells from a quarry.
Nobody then knew what to make of them.

A colleague decided to play a joke on him, with carvings.
The professor added them to his collection. Emboldened,
the trickster made and more outlandish carvings, thinking
his friend would get the joke.

In the end, they both were fired.

Unless a long lost secret diary of "piltdown" trickster
is found, we probably will never know the intent.

Hardly matters, now, except for the creationists
who need something to point to

 

[Sapiens]

What book? The text book that depicted Piltdown Man as a human ancestor or the book that dared to point out the obvious error?

Smart people may learn from textbooks but never quote from them, they recognize that such secondary sources are, at best, the opinions of what the author(s) thought about the primary sources. Use the primary source instead.

The interesting thing about the Piltdown fraud was how easily fit into the bias of the day, e.g., the first human was a white Englishman.

 

[Audie]

Smart people may learn from textbooks but never quote from them, they recognize that such secondary sources are, at best, the opinions of what the author(s) thought about the primary sources. Use the primary source instead.

The interesting thing about the Piltdown fraud was how easily fit into the bias of the day, e.g., the first human was a white Englishman.

Seriously. Public school tests in the USA are not
very good, except when they are worse.

Every now and then in the news there is something like
"Genius Middle School Student Finds Error in School
science Text". ( Dared to point it out!! )

Geesh, open any such science text at random and count how many
errors you can find.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The evolution chamber is a look back at classic science. An historical look at the theory of Evolution.

Today's episode: Piltdown Man

From 1912 to 1953 Piltdown man was accepted as genuine by the evolution community. After 40 years of prestige in the halls of peer reviewed reproducible observation (i.e. insert head in ***) it was discovered that it was human and ape bones put together and artificially aged. 40 years.

It was never completely accepted by science and many prominent scientists questioned it.

Remember, it was scientists that questioned Piltdown man and did the experiments to determine its authenticity. It was not scientists that perpetuated the fraud.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Smart people may learn from textbooks but never quote from them, they recognize that such secondary sources are, at best, the opinions of what the author(s) thought about the primary sources. Use the primary source instead.

The interesting thing about the Piltdown fraud was how easily fit into the bias of the day, e.g., the first human was a white Englishman.

Look at how much influence the State Board of Education of Texas has on what goes into textbooks and they are not scientists.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Have you gotten around to reading Why Evolution is True yet, or are you just going to continue to post uninformed nonsense without ever actually researching the evidence for evolution?

I bet it is "continue to post uninformed nonsense", but that's just like me to say so.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

That must have been awkward for them.



What book? The text book that depicted Piltdown Man as a human ancestor or the book that dared to point out the obvious error?



Yeah. 40 years is fantastic. For science. I personally think if they hadn't artificially aged the skulls they would have gotten away with it. I guess that goes without saying.

What book? They who? It wasn't scientists that created the fraud.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

What is your opinion of the ancient Greek philosophers who expounded upon Evolution?

My take on Darwin, other than that he was nuts, is that at that time they were so prudish that they thought that the legs of a piano should be covered with pants, and simultaneously, travel was beginning to make it easier for chimps and exotic animals to be put on exhibit. They used to dress the chimps in human clothing to cover their nakedness. It didn't take much of a leap of Darwin's insane imagination to come up with Origins under those circumstances.

I mean, once he failed at Religion.

So it is attack the messenger then, since you can't attack the message. He didn't fail at religion. He failed to become a doctor and studied religion instead. He had a degree in theology. I think it strengthened his moral basis providing him the courage to reveal all he had discovered through observation. He struggled with how to publish and present it for years.

I'm not sure where you are going with dressing up chimps. It seems like you are grasping.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Piltdown Man was always thought of as doubtful.
The 1953 date is the year in which it was formally proved to be a hoax.
I think you will find that it was the popular press rather than the scientific community that ensured the myth continued as late as it did.

I think so too. It seems the fact that scientists were looking and waiting for technology to test it and determine its true nature is lost on some people. It isn't as if it tested itself spontaneously one day.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Piltdown man is truly a dead argument that is only revived by certain segments of fundamentalist Christianity at a loss for real evidence against that which they deny.

 

[Sapiens]

Look at how much influence the State Board of Education of Texas has on what goes into textbooks and they are not scientists.

Not scientists, not educators, not all particularly bright.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Not scientists, not educators, not all particularly bright.

I agree with you on all counts.

 

[metis]

Piltdown man is truly a dead argument that is only revived by certain segments of fundamentalist Christianity at a loss for real evidence against that which they deny.

And also if we were to line up scandals found within science versus scandals found within fundamentalist religions, I think we both know which would be the much longer list.

 

[Audie]

Not scientists, not educators, not all particularly bright.

But all susceptible to bribery.

 

[gnostic]

It was never completely accepted by science and many prominent scientists questioned it.

Remember, it was scientists that questioned Piltdown man and did the experiments to determine its authenticity. It was not scientists that perpetuated the fraud.

Charles Dawson wasn’t a scientist; he wasn’t even a real archaeologist.

The Piltdown Man wasn’t the only fraud that Dawson committed.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

And also if we were to line up scandals found within science versus scandals found within fundamentalist religions, I think we both know which would be the much longer list.

Agreed. We are in the midst of yet another version of an ongoing scandal and that is not even in what I would consider a fundamentalist Christian sect.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Charles Dawson wasn’t a scientist; he wasn’t even a real archaeologist.

The Piltdown Man wasn’t the only fraud that Dawson committed.

Dawson appears to me to be someone that wanted accolades and fame, but without doing the work required to get those honestly. Any real interest he had in science was overwhelmed by his baser desires.

What other frauds was he involved in? I'm not up on my Dawson history.