What lessons can we learn from Piltdown Man?

Question

Considering this was believed for fourty years before being exposed as a fraud. The evidence was there all along.

The point is J.P. Many people saw what they wanted to see regardless that the contrary evidence was there all along.

I should add this was used as evidence in the famous scopes monkey trial. I wonder how that would have effected the verdict if the lawyers were able to reveal this.

Here is a quote from Henry Gee writer for Nature in 1999 about the then current state of fossil evidence linking men and monkeys. "the intervals of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and decent. Gee regarded each fossil an isolated point, with no knowable connection to any other given fossil, and that all float around in an overwhelming sea of gaps. Putting it more bluntly Gee concludes "to take a line of fossils and clai they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries with it the same validity as a bedtime story- amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.

Seems when people try and point out problems in evolutionary theory they want to try and divert the subject to religion.

J.P. I made no refferance to religion in my intial question. If it came up it was in response to others comments who predictable would rather not deal with the issue being raised.

here is another great quote from science writer james Shreeve about the neandethol controvercy. After talking to 150 scientists-archeoligists, anatomists, genetecists,geologists, and dating experts. Sometimes it seems I came away with 150 different opinions about the place of eandethol in human evolution.

In 1996 Berkley evolutionary biologist F. Clark Howell wrote: There is no encompassing theory of human evolution...Alas there never has been. he field is characterized by "narrative treatments" based on little evidence, so that it is true that an encompassing scenario of human evolutionis beyond our grasp, now and if not forever.

Arizona state University anthropologist Geoffrey Clarke said in 1997 scientists have been trying to arrive a t a consensus for over a century about human origins" "Why haven't they been unsuccessful?' "Because paleoanthropologists proceed from such different biases, preconceptions and assumptions".

Thanks J.P. you are only proving my point. That some don't like their pet theories being questioned. And when they do they throw pitched fits about everything but the issue which is being discussed, which suggests people are more worried about the ideas behind the science than the actual science itself.

As for experimental data, I assure you this is being done. One examlple is from the biologist Ralphe Seelke and his work with bacteria that have been given thousands of generations to evolve. When two or more mutations are needed for the organism to benefit.

Laughing the someone elses hot are mostly the ones who have been honest enough to admit the problems in thier theory and I applaud them for that. It is unfotunate that more of these aren't made known in your high school science class. and it is unfortunate that some who do try and expose this information end up being hounded. This is documented and villified. And even if my gas is someone elses are you seriously suggesting that your gas is original?

If my hot air was my own then I would be accused making it up myself. So there we have it. each of us quotes our own resources. Greatfully many of mine are blurbs that slip out from the Darwinian camp.

Answer 1

the most immediate lesson is that scientists are gullible too, especially when they want really badly to prove a pet theory. The second lesson is that people will believe what they want to believe.

Answer 2

Piltdown man was exposed by scientists. The fact that it took forty years is certainly no shining example of science in action, but it does show that science corrects errors.

Preconceptions are an unavoidable problem in just about any investigation, but they are less so in science because first, different scientists often have different preconceptions, and second, the physical evidence must always be accounted for. Many scientists from America and Europe did not accept Piltdown Man uncritically, and the hoax unraveled when the fossils could not be reconciled with other hominid fossil finds.


One hoax cannot indicate the inferiority of conventional archeology, because creationists have several of their own, including Paluxy footprints, the Calaveras skull, Moab and Malachite Man, and others. More telling is how people deal with these hoaxes. When Piltdown was exposed, it stopped being used as evidence. The creationist hoaxes, however, can still be found cited as if they were real. Piltdown has been over and done with for decades, but the dishonesty of creationist hoaxes continues.

Answer 3

And after 40 years, who was it who declared it a fraud -- the creationists or evolutionists?

Oh, that's right... the evolutionists who in doing again proved that evolution is a fact, and the theory that describes that fact is capable of prediction and analysis.

---------

During a good portion of the time, the theory was not sufficiently refined and predictive to determine it was a hoax. When it was sufficiently refined and predictive, people went back and re-examined it. That is the nature of science -- not only does a theory have to be based on hard evidence and facts, but the evidence and facts are regularly put to the test again as the theory develops. Science self-corrects.

When was the last time a religion self-corrected, or even admitted it had errors? Any religion that does not is automatically false because it is an enemy of Truth.

--------------

And it seems the religious latch onto the few scientists who agree with them, instead of the 90%+ who disagree with the religious.

You made it religious far before I ever clicked the "Answer" button.

-------------

Let me be more specific: You made it religious far before you even asked the question.

See, science operates on dissention. Einstein didn't buy into Newton -- Mercury's precession was off by 88 arc-seconds under Newton's theories. And because Einstein dissented, the theory of gravity was dramatically improved.

That there are scientists who disagree with various aspects of evolution is part of that whole self-correcting process. Some of them may actually have good points -- they might even be RIGHT... but they have to come up with hard facts to make their case, or they're just blowing so much hot air and, to paraphrase, 'vocalizing rectally' (talking out their @$$).

There are a few scientists right now, for example, who are working on an alternate theory to Relativity called TEVAS. And they are considered fringe, they disagree with the Great and Mighty. But here's the thing ... TEVAS can do without dark matter and dark energy what Relativity requires dark matter and dark energy ... so the data actually better support TEVAS. But until they can come up with a TEST for TEVAS, relativity will rule the roost.

To put it bluntly -- when you can find a scientist who rejects or questions evolution and has a testable hypothesis that runs contrary to current evolutionary understanding, come back and talk to me. Otherwise, you're just exhaling someone else's hot air.

Answer 4

We can be aware that Evolution of species doesn't stand or fall on the basis of any single example of fossilised evidence. It is a scientific theory that, like all scientific theories is modified when new information arises, not thrown in the bucket when certain evidence is proven to be invalid. The fact that creationists clutch at this straw just exposes the weakness of creationism. It doesn't constitute any kind of challenge whatsoever to evolution.

Answer 5

There are many good books and documentaries on the subject. What we as laymen can learn is that we should demand evidence for everything and the more evidence the better. Peer review for example. and we have come a fair way since those days... more labs more papers more exposure, example cold fusion.

Answer 6

Well, I guess we can learn that not all scientists are honest, any more than any other group of people. But we should have expected that anyway. And that therefore there is likely to be an occasional case of fraud mixed in with legitimate scientific research.

Answer 7

The Piltdown man hoax is conclusive, irrefutable proof that the Earth was created in 1923 by a hyper-intelligent mutant chimpanzee sent from the future.

Answer 8

It just goes to show you how far an evolutionist will go to manufacture evidence for his unfounded belief, even if the evolutionist is a respected scientist. This new "hobbit" like creature will prove out to be , like Lucy, just another extinct little ape. Thats my take on it.

Answer 9

Hint: it wasn't the creationists who figured out it was a fraud. That's what you should learn - science is self-correcting.

Answer 10

It may interest you to know that all of their so called ape-men fossils turned out to be illegite and were exposed....Piltdown 'man' ...etc...all of them...of course most evolutionist won't talk about it.

And they go into a rage when you bring it up...that ought to tell you something.


Anything that seems to dis-prove God, they jump at it and swallow it whole.....hook, line, and sinker.