Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown Hoax took place in 1912 near the Southern English town of Louis in Piltdown.
An amateur archaeologist by the name of Charles Dawson found a piece of an ancient human skull - a jawbone, while digging in a gravel pit.

Up until then remains of primitive humans had been found in Germany, Asia, and France but none in England which was huge because England finally had found human fossils.

The scientific community was taken on an emotional roller coaster if you will, of ups and downs. With the discovery by Dawson, the scientific community thought a big discovery was made by piecing together the missing link between apes and humans. It wasn't until the 1950's, when a full blown analysis using an updated dating method, was it discovered that the fossils discovered by Dawson were actually of a female orangutan. Scientists found that the bones were superficial and the artifacts were stained. Also, after examining the teeth on the skull, they found scratches which indicated to them that the teeth were filed down and a steel knife may have been used to cut into the bone to perhaps shape it to look like a human skull. This determination was made because of the evidence found when the analysis was conducted. Also, scientists, back in the day were looked upon as gentlemen and scholarly and no one ever thought anything like what happened at Piltdown could have occurred.

Being that Scientists are human and part of being human is making mistakes. The mistakes made in Piltdown boiled down to one person, Dawson, and being that he was an ambitious person and wanted to fit into the scientific community, he ultimately attempted to pull off the unthinkable. The notoriety he must have received after his 'find' must have taken him to another level and probably thought no one would ever discover what he did. By doing what he did, scientists believed they finally found the missing link between apes and humans but after scientists in the 50's discovered Dawson's findings were not accurate, they went back to square one. 

Up to date dating methods and current analysis was the cause of revealing Charles Dawson's hoax because those things were not available during Dawson's days.

"To err is human, to forgive is divine' comes to mind when thinking if it is possible to factor out the fact that we are humans, we are not perfect, and we are entitled to make mistakes - even scientists fall into the category of being human.  However, as long as the person doing the research is objective and has an open mind, it could be possible to remove the human factor from science.

The fossils found in Piltdown were assumed to be of a human and it wasn't until years later that that theory was proven to be inaccurate. This discovery was made because scientists took the time to re-examine those findings using up to date equipment - in this case, dating method. I am almost positive had these resources had been made available in Piltdown in 1912, Charles Dawson would never have gotten away with this hoax. This being said, the life lesson which can be learned in this particular case, in my opinion, would be that no matter who one is - rich, poor, famous, not famous, etc., don't believe what everyone says just because they say it. Especially when it has to do with science!