Stalwarts
of ideologies create lies and fake evidence to rectify their beliefs. The
tendency is not limited to religiopolitical ideologists, but pseudoscientists
also try to opaque the truth. Their fervid hoaxes undermine the logic and show
one side of the coin. One of them was Charles Dawson, who tried to validate the
evolutionary theory with fraudulent fossils.
Charles
Dawson was professionally a lawyer and an immature paleontologist who came to
the scene in 1912. Dawson with Sir Arthur Smith Woodward presented his findings
to the Geology Society of London. He claimed to have discovered a critical
missing link between humans and apes in an evolutionary tree. From his excavation,
he claimed to find a fossil having a human-like skull and canine. The skull was
unusually thick, and the canine was between ape and human in size. He also
claimed to have discovered stone tools and fossilized animals in the
surrounding. Dawson hypothesized that the individual would have existed 500000
years ago.
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Dawson’s
findings were exactly what scientists were looking for at that time. Along with
scientific discovery, it was also a response to the German discovery of the
jawbone of Homo heidelbergensis. Which had created an inferiority complex among
UK naturalists.
The
jawbone discovered in Germany was two-hundred-thousand to six
hundred-thousand-year of old hominin. The hominin is considered the common
ancestor of modern humans and Neandertals. So, the so-called discovery of
Piltdown man was readily accepted by many UK evolutionists. At the height of
tension, which eventually led to WW I, the discovery was considered fortunate
by UK scientists.
In
1949, research restarted, and Dawson’s hoax came to the limelight in 1953.
Scientists used fluorine dating, which initially revealed that the bones were
not of the same age. Further research showed that the fossil, actually, was the
amalgam of the human skull and orangutan teeth. The skull was just 500 years
old, in which the carved canine was artificially fixed. And the tooth of the
orangutan was sculpted with the help of a metallic instrument to give the
desired look. The surrounding fossils and the stone tools were also fake.
Moreover, the amalgam was stained with potassium dichromate to give the
impression of ancient fossils. (Which disappeared instantly when soaked with
acid).
William
Dawson was born in 1864 and died in 1916 before his hoax got exposed. Although
it was teamwork, the studies showed that it was Dawson who was the actual
culprit.
The article is written by Muhammad Islam, one of the writers at the School of Literature.
