1 00:00:02,400 --> 00:00:06,040 Speaker 1: Happy Saturday and Happy New Year. The pill down Man 2 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:08,039 Speaker 1: that's going to come up in one of our episodes 3 00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:10,080 Speaker 1: this week, so we thought we would pull out our 4 00:00:10,119 --> 00:00:14,720 Speaker 1: episode on that scientific fraud for Today's Saturday Classic. Our 5 00:00:14,840 --> 00:00:17,599 Speaker 1: first Unearthed episodes of the year are also coming in 6 00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:19,600 Speaker 1: just a bit, and we know we have listeners who 7 00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:24,120 Speaker 1: are eagerly awaiting them. This episode was originally a standalone 8 00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:26,960 Speaker 1: Unearthed episode, so we thought it might help tide folks 9 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:29,200 Speaker 1: over until the next one's come out in a week 10 00:00:29,320 --> 00:00:34,480 Speaker 1: or so. This originally came out December, so enjoy and yes, 11 00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:37,760 Speaker 1: folks have already written into us about how to pronounce 12 00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:44,000 Speaker 1: the word zoologist. Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, 13 00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:54,960 Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to 14 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:59,560 Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Tray, Steve Wilson and I'm Holly fry So. 15 00:00:59,640 --> 00:01:04,360 Speaker 1: The Pill down Man one of the world's most infamous 16 00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:09,440 Speaker 1: instances in scientific fraud, and in August of which is 17 00:01:09,480 --> 00:01:13,920 Speaker 1: this year, researchers published a paper in Royal Society Open 18 00:01:13,959 --> 00:01:16,560 Speaker 1: Science that concluded that it was the work of a 19 00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:22,720 Speaker 1: single hoaxer. So rather than rolling that into our Unearthed episodes, 20 00:01:22,959 --> 00:01:25,360 Speaker 1: which are just around the corner, we are doing an 21 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:30,280 Speaker 1: entire unearthed episode just on this Uh. We're going to 22 00:01:30,319 --> 00:01:35,160 Speaker 1: talk about the pilt down man, how this hoax played out, 23 00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:38,360 Speaker 1: and what exactly was unearthed in this newly published paper 24 00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:41,880 Speaker 1: that inspired us to do this episode. Yeah. So that 25 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,240 Speaker 1: we've gotten lots of requests for over the years. Yeah, 26 00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:46,920 Speaker 1: And for me, I've sort of had it on the 27 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,160 Speaker 1: I'll get to that one day maybe list. And now 28 00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:51,920 Speaker 1: this is a time when I can be proud of 29 00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:55,320 Speaker 1: my procrastination because it enabled this cool thing to come out. 30 00:01:56,040 --> 00:02:00,480 Speaker 1: Well what what is? Uh? Eight. One of the things 31 00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:02,840 Speaker 1: that's intriguing to me is that I literally wrote this 32 00:02:02,960 --> 00:02:06,720 Speaker 1: on the list in August, right that it has I 33 00:02:06,760 --> 00:02:09,280 Speaker 1: have been planning to do this episode right now as 34 00:02:09,320 --> 00:02:15,920 Speaker 1: of August, and now it seems particularly relevant because it 35 00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:21,360 Speaker 1: is such a cautionary tale about not just uncritically observing 36 00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:27,959 Speaker 1: absorbing things that are announced as news. The whole time 37 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:29,840 Speaker 1: I was working on this outline, I was like, this 38 00:02:29,919 --> 00:02:34,840 Speaker 1: is this feels like we just need a reminder. So 39 00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:37,480 Speaker 1: it makes sense of why the pilt Down hoax even 40 00:02:37,520 --> 00:02:39,760 Speaker 1: happened in the first place. We actually need to go 41 00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:43,120 Speaker 1: all the way back to Charles Darwin's publication of On 42 00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:46,880 Speaker 1: the Origin of Species in eighteen fifty nine. The full 43 00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:49,760 Speaker 1: title of that particular writing is on the Origin of 44 00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:53,800 Speaker 1: Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of 45 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:57,840 Speaker 1: favored races in the Struggle for Life, and this details 46 00:02:57,919 --> 00:03:01,120 Speaker 1: Darwin's theories of evolution by natural selection, which are at 47 00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:06,160 Speaker 1: the foundation of evolutionary biology. When he published this book, 48 00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:09,280 Speaker 1: Darwin knew that one type of evidence that would really 49 00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:12,480 Speaker 1: support his theories was in relatively short supply, and that 50 00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:16,800 Speaker 1: is transitional fossils. These are fossils that have some traits 51 00:03:16,840 --> 00:03:19,920 Speaker 1: belonging to an older species and some belonging to a 52 00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:24,720 Speaker 1: more modern species. And transitional fossils are physical evidence of 53 00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:30,240 Speaker 1: an intermediary evolutionary step that demonstrates how life is changing 54 00:03:30,320 --> 00:03:35,880 Speaker 1: over time. One famous example of a transitional fossil is archaeopterics. 55 00:03:36,320 --> 00:03:39,040 Speaker 1: It's got some features that are more like a reptile 56 00:03:39,160 --> 00:03:41,840 Speaker 1: and others that are more like a bird, and today 57 00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:45,560 Speaker 1: it's viewed as a transitional fossil between non avian dinosaurs 58 00:03:45,640 --> 00:03:49,840 Speaker 1: and modern birds. Darwin knew that people would try to 59 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:53,640 Speaker 1: discredit his work because at that point in history, not 60 00:03:53,880 --> 00:03:58,880 Speaker 1: that many transitional fossils had been found. Archaeoptrics, for example, 61 00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:01,560 Speaker 1: would not even be discuss or until eighteen sixty and 62 00:04:01,720 --> 00:04:05,040 Speaker 1: a lot of people at that point described it more 63 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:08,720 Speaker 1: as the first bird rather than as a transitional fossil. 64 00:04:09,920 --> 00:04:12,480 Speaker 1: Of course, was after his book had already been published, 65 00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:17,600 Speaker 1: but Darwin actually anticipated actually these exact source of discoveries. 66 00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:21,440 Speaker 1: He explained in the Origin of Species that this lack 67 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:25,520 Speaker 1: of evidence was probably due to an incomplete geological record 68 00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:29,320 Speaker 1: and not to an actual absence of the fossils that 69 00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:33,840 Speaker 1: would prove him. Right after Darwin's publication of On the 70 00:04:33,839 --> 00:04:37,160 Speaker 1: Origin of Species, there was a big focus on finding 71 00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:41,200 Speaker 1: more transitional fossils. In particular, people were hoping to find 72 00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:45,479 Speaker 1: the missing link, that single fossil that would conclusively demonstrate 73 00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:50,320 Speaker 1: a connection between ancient apes and modern humans. Today, we 74 00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:54,400 Speaker 1: know about lots of transitional fossils that detailed the progression 75 00:04:54,520 --> 00:04:58,080 Speaker 1: of all kinds of life. We have transitional fossils and 76 00:04:58,120 --> 00:05:00,640 Speaker 1: the evolutionary family trees of bird is and fish and 77 00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:03,720 Speaker 1: whales and horses and elephants and on and on. I 78 00:05:03,800 --> 00:05:09,480 Speaker 1: literally could just randomly name animals. That's the thirty minute 79 00:05:09,560 --> 00:05:13,920 Speaker 1: podcast episode is just Tracy saying animal works. It starts 80 00:05:13,960 --> 00:05:16,000 Speaker 1: to sound like the list of what they were eating 81 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:19,920 Speaker 1: in Monty Python in the Holy Grail. So in terms 82 00:05:19,920 --> 00:05:23,560 Speaker 1: of human life, the idea of a single missing link 83 00:05:23,680 --> 00:05:27,720 Speaker 1: between ancient hominids and modern humans has really vanished under 84 00:05:27,720 --> 00:05:31,279 Speaker 1: the weight of a lot of individual transitional fossils that 85 00:05:31,320 --> 00:05:34,000 Speaker 1: add up to a human family tree that's full of 86 00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:38,680 Speaker 1: forks and branches. It is not a single linear, one 87 00:05:38,800 --> 00:05:41,839 Speaker 1: lane road that starts on ape and ends on human 88 00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:46,800 Speaker 1: connected with one magical quote missing link fossil. It's a 89 00:05:46,839 --> 00:05:50,680 Speaker 1: lot more complicated than that. Yeah, uh in n though 90 00:05:50,680 --> 00:05:54,200 Speaker 1: the missing link would have been an earth shattering, groundbreaking 91 00:05:54,279 --> 00:05:57,840 Speaker 1: and career making discovery, and that is what brings us 92 00:05:57,839 --> 00:06:01,880 Speaker 1: to pilt Down Man And February of nineteen twelve, Sir 93 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:05,560 Speaker 1: Arthur Smith, Woodward, keeper of Geology at the British Museum 94 00:06:05,680 --> 00:06:08,280 Speaker 1: now called the Natural History Museum, got a letter from 95 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:12,440 Speaker 1: Charles Dawson. In addition to being a solicitor, Dawson was 96 00:06:12,480 --> 00:06:15,360 Speaker 1: an amateur archaeologist, and he said he had found something 97 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:19,039 Speaker 1: very exciting in some gravel beds and pilt Down, Sussex. 98 00:06:19,960 --> 00:06:23,200 Speaker 1: According to Dawson's account, he had noticed that a road 99 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:26,480 Speaker 1: where he lived had been repaired with some odd flints, 100 00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:29,120 Speaker 1: and he traced the flints to their source, which turned 101 00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:32,400 Speaker 1: out to be a shallow gravel bed. While talking to 102 00:06:32,400 --> 00:06:34,479 Speaker 1: the workers there, he learned that they'd dug up something 103 00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:37,919 Speaker 1: they described as quote, like a coconut, and that they'd 104 00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:42,080 Speaker 1: thrown the pieces away. Dawson dug these fragments out of 105 00:06:42,080 --> 00:06:44,560 Speaker 1: the trash and found that they were part of a skull, 106 00:06:45,200 --> 00:06:47,479 Speaker 1: and over the next couple of years he'd gone back 107 00:06:47,520 --> 00:06:50,200 Speaker 1: to the pit and found several other pieces of skull 108 00:06:50,279 --> 00:06:54,080 Speaker 1: and jawbone before finally writing his letter to Smith Woodward. 109 00:06:55,360 --> 00:06:58,320 Speaker 1: Uh These skull fragments and jaw bone, he described, looked 110 00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:02,000 Speaker 1: somewhat human, but not ex actley, and his letter he 111 00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:04,840 Speaker 1: compared his discovery to a job bone that had been 112 00:07:04,839 --> 00:07:07,919 Speaker 1: discovered by a workman in a sand pit near Heidelberg, Germany, 113 00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:12,360 Speaker 1: in nineteen o seven, which had been named Homo heidelberg insis. 114 00:07:12,400 --> 00:07:17,440 Speaker 1: In Homo heidelberg insis had some features in common with 115 00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:20,560 Speaker 1: Homo erectus and others in common with modern humans or 116 00:07:20,600 --> 00:07:25,200 Speaker 1: Homo sapiens. Dawson said his discovery quote would quote rival 117 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:31,080 Speaker 1: h heidelberg Insis in solidity. Dawson and Smith Woodward kept 118 00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:33,760 Speaker 1: quiet about this find at first, as they did some 119 00:07:33,840 --> 00:07:36,920 Speaker 1: more digging at the pit, and then they presented their 120 00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:40,160 Speaker 1: findings to a packed meeting of the Geological Society of 121 00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:44,360 Speaker 1: London on December eighteenth of nineteen twelve. They had an 122 00:07:44,360 --> 00:07:48,000 Speaker 1: ape like mandible or jaw bone. Two of its molars 123 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:51,440 Speaker 1: were in place and had significant wear, and then there 124 00:07:51,440 --> 00:07:54,160 Speaker 1: were pieces of the brain case of a skull, which 125 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:57,480 Speaker 1: seemed a lot more human than the mandible did. They 126 00:07:57,480 --> 00:08:00,840 Speaker 1: had also found some stone tools and fragments other non 127 00:08:00,960 --> 00:08:05,080 Speaker 1: human mammal fossils. Their coloring was comparable to that of 128 00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:08,000 Speaker 1: the gravel bed, and the conclusion was that these fossils 129 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:14,120 Speaker 1: were at least five hundred thousand years old. Regarding their presentation, A. C. Hadn't, 130 00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:17,200 Speaker 1: writing in the journal Science, said quote Mr Dawson gave 131 00:08:17,240 --> 00:08:19,720 Speaker 1: an account of the finding of the specimens, the nature 132 00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:23,640 Speaker 1: and geographical and geological position of the gravel bed, and 133 00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:27,920 Speaker 1: Dr Smith Woodward described the remains in a most excellent manner. 134 00:08:28,920 --> 00:08:31,400 Speaker 1: Hadn't went on to write, quote, there could be no 135 00:08:31,480 --> 00:08:34,320 Speaker 1: doubt that this is a discovery of the greatest importance 136 00:08:34,360 --> 00:08:37,280 Speaker 1: and will give rise to much discussion. It is the 137 00:08:37,320 --> 00:08:40,040 Speaker 1: nearest approach we have yet reached to a missing link. 138 00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:44,560 Speaker 1: Probably few will deny that eoanthropist Dawson I is almost, 139 00:08:44,640 --> 00:08:48,160 Speaker 1: if not quite, as much human as Simian. I'm just 140 00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:50,240 Speaker 1: gonna say we are guessing on how that is pronounced, 141 00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:56,160 Speaker 1: because it seems like no one knows. So your aanthropist 142 00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:59,240 Speaker 1: Dawson I is what they've named their find, and that 143 00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:05,520 Speaker 1: means Aawson's dawn man, which is not self congratulatory at all. 144 00:09:05,559 --> 00:09:08,280 Speaker 1: I mean, I know, often scientific names of things are 145 00:09:08,360 --> 00:09:12,720 Speaker 1: named after the person who found or discovered or put 146 00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:15,480 Speaker 1: them in a taxonomy or whatever, but like Dawson's dawn man, 147 00:09:17,360 --> 00:09:21,360 Speaker 1: it just seems particularly back patty. Yeah. Uh. In nineteen 148 00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:25,120 Speaker 1: thirteen and nineteen fourteen, excavations continued at the gravel pit 149 00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:29,280 Speaker 1: where these first fossils had reportedly been recovered, and these 150 00:09:29,360 --> 00:09:33,680 Speaker 1: excavations unearthed some other evidence as well. There was a 151 00:09:33,800 --> 00:09:36,680 Speaker 1: canine tooth which had some features in common with ape 152 00:09:36,679 --> 00:09:40,240 Speaker 1: teeth and others in common with modern human teeth. They 153 00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:43,320 Speaker 1: also found a carved slab of bone that became known 154 00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:46,040 Speaker 1: as the cricket bat because it was roughly shaped like one. 155 00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:50,440 Speaker 1: Although Dawson did keep excavating, or at least saying he 156 00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:53,000 Speaker 1: was excavating the start of World War One meant that 157 00:09:53,080 --> 00:09:56,120 Speaker 1: it took place on a much smaller scale. He sent 158 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:58,559 Speaker 1: a couple of postcards to Smith Woodward saying that he 159 00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:01,440 Speaker 1: had found some other fossil and other sites not far 160 00:10:01,480 --> 00:10:04,559 Speaker 1: away from that first fine but otherwise this was really 161 00:10:04,559 --> 00:10:07,080 Speaker 1: the end of the discoveries that pilt Down. And then 162 00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:11,640 Speaker 1: Dawson died in nineteen six A lot of scientists were 163 00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:16,839 Speaker 1: very excited about the pilt Down discoveries. Understandably, not only 164 00:10:16,840 --> 00:10:19,000 Speaker 1: were they put forth as the missing link that was 165 00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:22,320 Speaker 1: so important to evolutionary science at the time, but they 166 00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:25,000 Speaker 1: had also been found in Britain, which meant that the 167 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:27,960 Speaker 1: British Isles had played an important part in the evolution 168 00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:31,640 Speaker 1: of all of humanity. The British Empire was at this 169 00:10:31,720 --> 00:10:35,520 Speaker 1: point the largest empire and human history, controlling almost one 170 00:10:35,600 --> 00:10:38,320 Speaker 1: quarter of all of the land on Earth. So the 171 00:10:38,400 --> 00:10:41,200 Speaker 1: idea that Britain had also been a keystone and human 172 00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:45,199 Speaker 1: evolution carried this mix of pride and of wealth. Obviously, 173 00:10:45,880 --> 00:10:48,800 Speaker 1: these people were quite ready to believe that Britain was 174 00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:52,400 Speaker 1: actually the birthplace of the human uh the human species. 175 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:57,960 Speaker 1: So although it was not universally accepted. The pilt Down 176 00:10:57,960 --> 00:11:01,480 Speaker 1: Man played a major role in scientific thought about human 177 00:11:01,480 --> 00:11:05,719 Speaker 1: ever evolution for about the next forty years. More than 178 00:11:05,760 --> 00:11:08,920 Speaker 1: two fifty papers and monographs were published about it, and 179 00:11:08,920 --> 00:11:11,520 Speaker 1: it was cited in more than seventy publications. So it 180 00:11:11,600 --> 00:11:13,760 Speaker 1: was a pretty big deal. And it was also completely 181 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:18,360 Speaker 1: made up. We're going to talk about after a sponsor break. 182 00:11:25,480 --> 00:11:28,680 Speaker 1: So after this announcement, many in the scientific community just 183 00:11:28,720 --> 00:11:31,840 Speaker 1: took Dawson and Smith Woodward's report to the Geological Society 184 00:11:31,880 --> 00:11:35,160 Speaker 1: of London at face value. The original pieces of these 185 00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:38,720 Speaker 1: specimens were locked away in storage for safekeeping, but casts 186 00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:41,800 Speaker 1: of them were made to share with researchers who wanted 187 00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:45,960 Speaker 1: to do further study. A lot of the early scientific 188 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:49,480 Speaker 1: debate about these specimens didn't even consider the basic question 189 00:11:49,520 --> 00:11:52,680 Speaker 1: of whether they were authentic at all. Instead, it was 190 00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:55,920 Speaker 1: about things like whether Smith wouldwards interpretation of the skull 191 00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:59,120 Speaker 1: was correct. He had made a reconstruction of the skull 192 00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:02,520 Speaker 1: based on nine fragments that had initially been found. The 193 00:12:02,600 --> 00:12:05,920 Speaker 1: resulting skull had a capacity of about one thousand and 194 00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:11,719 Speaker 1: seventy six cubic centimeters to other anatomists and anthropologists disagreed 195 00:12:11,800 --> 00:12:16,400 Speaker 1: about whether Smith Wouldwards reconstruction was accurate. Sir Arthur Keith 196 00:12:16,440 --> 00:12:18,520 Speaker 1: of Scotland was on one side of this debate, and 197 00:12:18,559 --> 00:12:21,320 Speaker 1: Sir Grafton Elliott Smith of Australia was on the other. 198 00:12:21,880 --> 00:12:24,839 Speaker 1: Keith made his own reconstruction, which had a capacity of 199 00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:28,000 Speaker 1: about fifteen hundred cubic centimeters, or about the same as 200 00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:31,640 Speaker 1: a modern human skull, which prompted Smith Woodward to revise 201 00:12:31,760 --> 00:12:35,480 Speaker 1: his original reconstruction. Smith, on the other hand, came to 202 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:39,640 Speaker 1: different conclusions, insisting that the original one thousand, seventy six 203 00:12:39,679 --> 00:12:42,360 Speaker 1: cubic centimeters was a lot more correct. These all had 204 00:12:42,400 --> 00:12:44,839 Speaker 1: to do with basically how the skull pieces were lined 205 00:12:44,920 --> 00:12:49,600 Speaker 1: up and what parts of the skull bones people thought 206 00:12:49,679 --> 00:12:52,960 Speaker 1: they were from. Like you think of your skull as 207 00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:57,960 Speaker 1: one solid piece, but it's actually several pieces connected by sutures. 208 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:01,280 Speaker 1: So the question was whether these fine fragments of skull 209 00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:05,319 Speaker 1: were being correctly used to make a reconstruction, not whether 210 00:13:05,360 --> 00:13:09,040 Speaker 1: they were actually from a prehistoric human. There was also 211 00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:11,199 Speaker 1: a lot of talk about whether the canine tooth that 212 00:13:11,280 --> 00:13:13,720 Speaker 1: was found later was really part of the same mandible 213 00:13:13,840 --> 00:13:17,240 Speaker 1: or not, but there was no talk about whether any 214 00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:21,760 Speaker 1: of these pieces were actually genuine basically a big chunk 215 00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:25,559 Speaker 1: of the scientific literature surrounding this fine just was credulous 216 00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:29,040 Speaker 1: and uncritical from the start. And to be fair, many 217 00:13:29,160 --> 00:13:31,840 Speaker 1: of the technologies that we used to authenticate the age 218 00:13:31,840 --> 00:13:34,760 Speaker 1: of fossils today were not invented yet and they would 219 00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:37,440 Speaker 1: not be for more than twenty years. And also a 220 00:13:37,559 --> 00:13:40,440 Speaker 1: lot of the other fossil evidence today that we know 221 00:13:40,520 --> 00:13:45,040 Speaker 1: about that shows that hominids developed more humanlike jaws before 222 00:13:45,320 --> 00:13:48,920 Speaker 1: they developed developed bigger brain cases, those had not been 223 00:13:48,960 --> 00:13:51,720 Speaker 1: discovered yet either, so they didn't really have things to 224 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:55,400 Speaker 1: compare them to. But even so, a lot of people 225 00:13:55,480 --> 00:13:58,360 Speaker 1: studying this fine simply took for granted from the beginning 226 00:13:58,400 --> 00:14:01,400 Speaker 1: that it was legitimate and they free their study from there. 227 00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:05,920 Speaker 1: Like the quote popularized by Carl Sagan, extraordinary claims like 228 00:14:06,080 --> 00:14:08,160 Speaker 1: I found the missing link in a gravel pit and 229 00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:12,560 Speaker 1: pilt down require extraordinary evidence, and that just was not 230 00:14:12,679 --> 00:14:17,400 Speaker 1: present here. This uncritical acceptance that the piltd Down man 231 00:14:17,480 --> 00:14:21,680 Speaker 1: was real was certainly not completely universal, especially as time 232 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:25,640 Speaker 1: passed and people had more opportunities to study it. For example, 233 00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:29,240 Speaker 1: American zoologist Garrett Smith Miller published quote the Jaw of 234 00:14:29,280 --> 00:14:33,320 Speaker 1: the piltdown Man in Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections in nineteen fifteen, 235 00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:36,920 Speaker 1: and which he concluded that the skull fragments did come 236 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:39,880 Speaker 1: from a real human skull, but that the mandible came 237 00:14:39,920 --> 00:14:44,640 Speaker 1: from an extinct species of chimpanzee. Writing an American anthropologist, 238 00:14:44,720 --> 00:14:49,560 Speaker 1: William K. Gregory later published an analysis the molars which concluded, quote, 239 00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:53,280 Speaker 1: I believe that Mr. Miller is fully justified in holding 240 00:14:53,360 --> 00:14:56,040 Speaker 1: that the lower molars of the Piltdown jaw are those 241 00:14:56,120 --> 00:15:00,640 Speaker 1: of a chimpanzee and not of an extinct genus of hominity. 242 00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:05,200 Speaker 1: As more analysis emerged, there were also people who not 243 00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:09,760 Speaker 1: only questioned whether this work was quote scientifically justifiable, but 244 00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:14,120 Speaker 1: also warned that all this buzz and heightened expectations were dangerous. 245 00:15:14,680 --> 00:15:18,240 Speaker 1: George Grant mcgurdy had published a fairly credulous overview of 246 00:15:18,280 --> 00:15:21,800 Speaker 1: the pilt Down findings in nineteen fourteen, but by nineteen 247 00:15:21,840 --> 00:15:24,720 Speaker 1: sixteen he had not only revised his own opinions, but 248 00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:28,120 Speaker 1: was also alarmed at the state of scientific inquiry around 249 00:15:28,120 --> 00:15:32,160 Speaker 1: the pilt Down man. In the journal Science, mcgourty outlined 250 00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:35,800 Speaker 1: a range of doubts, criticisms, and skeptical inquiries that had 251 00:15:35,880 --> 00:15:38,720 Speaker 1: come in from the United States Britain, France, and Italy, 252 00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:42,600 Speaker 1: among other places, and he included this warning quote. Has 253 00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:47,600 Speaker 1: not this dazzling combination blinded the discoverers and indirectly some 254 00:15:47,680 --> 00:15:51,120 Speaker 1: of their colleagues, even at a distance, because of the 255 00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:54,640 Speaker 1: high pitch of expectancy to which recent discoveries in the 256 00:15:54,720 --> 00:15:59,960 Speaker 1: prehistoric field have not, without reason contributed. Under the circumstance, 257 00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:05,280 Speaker 1: such blindness, if only temporary, would be pardonable and comparatively harmless. 258 00:16:05,680 --> 00:16:10,000 Speaker 1: But serious danger lurks in the possibility of its persisting 259 00:16:10,160 --> 00:16:13,400 Speaker 1: long enough to become an obsession and a hindrance to 260 00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:18,000 Speaker 1: future progress in this particular field. And that's exactly what 261 00:16:18,080 --> 00:16:21,600 Speaker 1: was happening. In spite of the growing body of skepticism 262 00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:25,360 Speaker 1: and criticism, the pilt Down man became a widely accepted 263 00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:29,320 Speaker 1: part of a body of scientific literature. Things started to 264 00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:33,320 Speaker 1: unravel a little about a decade after the pilt Down discovery. First, 265 00:16:33,520 --> 00:16:36,560 Speaker 1: in ninety six, it was discovered that these gravel beds 266 00:16:36,560 --> 00:16:39,880 Speaker 1: where the fossils were found were not old enough to 267 00:16:39,920 --> 00:16:45,960 Speaker 1: contain five hundred thousand year old fossils whoops uh. Then, 268 00:16:46,240 --> 00:16:50,400 Speaker 1: starting in the nineteen thirties, paleontologists started finding other hominid 269 00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:53,680 Speaker 1: fossils in other parts of the world, and they seemed 270 00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:56,440 Speaker 1: to suggest an evolution of human life that was taking 271 00:16:56,480 --> 00:16:59,720 Speaker 1: place primarily in Africa and Asia. And as we noted 272 00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:02,640 Speaker 1: or Leier that the jaws were becoming more human link 273 00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:05,320 Speaker 1: before the brain cases and not the other way around, 274 00:17:06,800 --> 00:17:09,320 Speaker 1: it made less and less sense that some critical moment 275 00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:12,480 Speaker 1: in human evolution had happened on some tiny islands off 276 00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:16,000 Speaker 1: the northwest coast of Europe, following a totally different pattern 277 00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:19,879 Speaker 1: from what was being discovered elsewhere. But even so, a 278 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:23,439 Speaker 1: sizeable chunk of the scientific community carried on believing that 279 00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:28,040 Speaker 1: the Piltdown specimens were genuine. A number of chemical and 280 00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:32,000 Speaker 1: isotopic dating methods started to be developed in the nineteen forties, 281 00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:35,280 Speaker 1: and in nineteen fifty three, Kenneth Oakley, then head of 282 00:17:35,280 --> 00:17:38,840 Speaker 1: anthropology at the British Museum, analyzed the pilt Down man's 283 00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:43,639 Speaker 1: skull fragments through florine dating, and the fragments were definitely 284 00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:46,719 Speaker 1: much newer than Dawson and Smith Woodward had said, and 285 00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:50,080 Speaker 1: they were way way too new to be the missing link. 286 00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:53,800 Speaker 1: The first test suggested that it was only fifty thousand 287 00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:58,320 Speaker 1: years old, not ten times that Following Oakley's discovery, the 288 00:17:58,359 --> 00:18:01,919 Speaker 1: British Museum publicly announced that the pilt Down Man was 289 00:18:02,040 --> 00:18:06,720 Speaker 1: a fraud, and these floorine tests definitely were not perfect. 290 00:18:07,200 --> 00:18:10,000 Speaker 1: They showed that all the skull pieces were the same age, 291 00:18:10,160 --> 00:18:13,400 Speaker 1: whereas later analysis would show that in fact they were not, 292 00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:17,400 Speaker 1: and later on more refined dating methods would also determine 293 00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:20,600 Speaker 1: that the pieces were only about six hundred years old, 294 00:18:20,960 --> 00:18:25,000 Speaker 1: certainly not fifty thousand. But in spite of those shortcomings, 295 00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:27,720 Speaker 1: they were definite proof that the pilt Down Man was 296 00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:31,800 Speaker 1: not a real hominid fossil. Yeah, as our ability to 297 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:35,399 Speaker 1: test things got better over time because we learned, so 298 00:18:35,520 --> 00:18:37,960 Speaker 1: did our ability to point out just how fake these 299 00:18:37,960 --> 00:18:43,399 Speaker 1: things really were. Further analysis showed the mandible was really 300 00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:47,800 Speaker 1: from a juvenile orangutan, and that all these pieces that 301 00:18:47,920 --> 00:18:53,720 Speaker 1: had been purported to be a person's remains were actually 302 00:18:53,760 --> 00:18:57,760 Speaker 1: meticulously altered to look genuine. They had been stained to 303 00:18:57,800 --> 00:19:00,399 Speaker 1: match the material in the gravel beds, but the danes 304 00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:03,159 Speaker 1: were not made of substances that were local to the area. 305 00:19:04,119 --> 00:19:07,359 Speaker 1: The moehlers had also been artificially worn down to like 306 00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:10,920 Speaker 1: natural and then other mammal fossils that were found in 307 00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:14,280 Speaker 1: the same area were actual genuine fossils, but they were 308 00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:18,760 Speaker 1: not from species that actually lived in pilt Down. This 309 00:19:18,840 --> 00:19:22,280 Speaker 1: was not a case of somebody accidentally finding some human 310 00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:25,480 Speaker 1: bones near on orangutan bone for some reason and then 311 00:19:25,560 --> 00:19:31,360 Speaker 1: drawing of logical but incorrect conclusion. It was a deliberate hoax. 312 00:19:32,560 --> 00:19:35,160 Speaker 1: The good news was, with the pilt Down Man out 313 00:19:35,200 --> 00:19:37,520 Speaker 1: of the way, all of the other fossil evidence that 314 00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:40,320 Speaker 1: had been discovered in Africa and Asia in the decades 315 00:19:40,359 --> 00:19:44,040 Speaker 1: since then made a lot more sense. There was no 316 00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:48,080 Speaker 1: longer any lingering question of, well, if humanity's origins are 317 00:19:48,119 --> 00:19:50,520 Speaker 1: in this part of the world and evolving this way, 318 00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:53,440 Speaker 1: traveling in this pattern, what is this other fossil doing 319 00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:58,720 Speaker 1: way over here following a completely different model. This was 320 00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:02,320 Speaker 1: incredibly important in terms of the study of human evolution. 321 00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:05,480 Speaker 1: The pilt Down Man had become such a dominant presence 322 00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:08,320 Speaker 1: in the field that people were using its existence to 323 00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:14,480 Speaker 1: totally disregard legitimate fossil findings that strongly suggested human origins 324 00:20:14,600 --> 00:20:19,000 Speaker 1: in Africa. One of the foundations of scientific progress is 325 00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:22,080 Speaker 1: the ability to reassess your conclusions when you're faced with 326 00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:25,080 Speaker 1: new compelling evidence. But the pilt Down man was such 327 00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:29,560 Speaker 1: a juggernaut that people were disregarding that new evidence instead. 328 00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:34,360 Speaker 1: This was probably complicated by a conscious or unconscious reluctance 329 00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:38,320 Speaker 1: among at least some scientists to believe that modern humanity 330 00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:43,200 Speaker 1: rose in Africa, not in Britain. But the bad news 331 00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:45,960 Speaker 1: was that a lot of the world had fallen for 332 00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:50,879 Speaker 1: this hoax. It had impeded progress and perpetuated inaccurate information 333 00:20:50,920 --> 00:20:54,560 Speaker 1: for decades. On top of that, the revelation that it 334 00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:58,919 Speaker 1: wasn't real eroded the general public's belief in science. In 335 00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:01,800 Speaker 1: the words of Earnest A. Houghton of Harvard, writing an 336 00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:06,239 Speaker 1: American Anthropologists in ninety four, quote, what really worries me 337 00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:09,240 Speaker 1: is the revelation to a lady that is often hostile 338 00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:13,280 Speaker 1: to biological science, of calculated dishonesty on the part of 339 00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:17,879 Speaker 1: someone intimately concerned with a discovery of supposedly great importance 340 00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:21,040 Speaker 1: to the history of man. It is as shocking is 341 00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:23,240 Speaker 1: the proof that men in high places of our own 342 00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:27,280 Speaker 1: government have betrayed their country. Already, the press is flooded 343 00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:30,880 Speaker 1: with accusations by anti evolutionists that all of the other 344 00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:34,120 Speaker 1: evidence of man's origin from an ape like ancestry has 345 00:21:34,119 --> 00:21:38,199 Speaker 1: been deliberately faked by unscrupulous scientists. The fact that the 346 00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:41,720 Speaker 1: pilt Down fraud is possibly and even probably unique will 347 00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:46,040 Speaker 1: be very difficult for the public to accept. Before you 348 00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:48,240 Speaker 1: get too attached to the wise words of Ernest D. 349 00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:52,560 Speaker 1: Houghton here, I mean they really touched me. I feel 350 00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:56,639 Speaker 1: like they are applicable even still today. Uh. He also 351 00:21:56,680 --> 00:21:59,679 Speaker 1: did a lot of work combining race in criminology that 352 00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:04,199 Speaker 1: is influenced by the eugenics movement, and the lot of 353 00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:07,880 Speaker 1: that work was pretty definitely racist. So as much as 354 00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:11,359 Speaker 1: I love these words that he has to say about 355 00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:13,960 Speaker 1: how damaging it was for this to be revealed as 356 00:22:13,960 --> 00:22:17,919 Speaker 1: a fraud, there are other factors of his work. So 357 00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:21,640 Speaker 1: this is not a h an endorsement of him as 358 00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:28,160 Speaker 1: a scientist by us as podcasters who are not scientists. Uh. Yeah, 359 00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:31,520 Speaker 1: we can appreciate his insight in that moment without applauding 360 00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:34,160 Speaker 1: the rest of his body of work, for sure. Uh. 361 00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:37,639 Speaker 1: And with this finding now unquestionably shown to be fraudulent, 362 00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:40,840 Speaker 1: the focus then turned to piecing together who had done 363 00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:42,639 Speaker 1: it and why, And we're going to talk about that 364 00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:44,679 Speaker 1: after we first pause for a word from one of 365 00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:55,560 Speaker 1: our sponsors. In the years after the pilt Down Man 366 00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:59,160 Speaker 1: was shown to be a hoax, many many theories were 367 00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,760 Speaker 1: put forth out the potential culprits. A lot of the 368 00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:06,080 Speaker 1: attention has been on Dawson himself. After all, he was 369 00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:08,399 Speaker 1: the one who reported the findings of the first place, 370 00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:12,320 Speaker 1: and he was instrumental in the announcement and the initial investigations. 371 00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:15,840 Speaker 1: He may have hoped that such a profound discovery would 372 00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:19,840 Speaker 1: earn him admission into the Royal Society. A couple of 373 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:23,119 Speaker 1: people who either knew or worked with Dawson were citing 374 00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:28,520 Speaker 1: sided as possibilities as well, including Samuel Woodhead and Pierre 375 00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:31,880 Speaker 1: Taliard de Charness. The latter was the one who actually 376 00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:36,480 Speaker 1: found that canine tooth. Even though he played such a 377 00:23:36,560 --> 00:23:40,200 Speaker 1: huge role, most people did not suspect Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, 378 00:23:40,320 --> 00:23:43,120 Speaker 1: believing him to have been an unwilling dupe or one 379 00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:45,760 Speaker 1: of the intended targets, since his reputation would have been 380 00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:48,720 Speaker 1: ruined if word had gotten out while he was still alive. 381 00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,399 Speaker 1: Sir Arthur Keith, whose paper on the skull reconstruction we 382 00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:56,920 Speaker 1: talked about earlier, was also suggested as a suspect. One 383 00:23:56,960 --> 00:23:59,600 Speaker 1: of the most famous suspects at least outside of the 384 00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:04,240 Speaker 1: world of scientists was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who knew 385 00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:06,800 Speaker 1: Dawson had an interest in this type of thing and 386 00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:11,200 Speaker 1: lived nearby. In ninety weird set of criteria to say 387 00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:15,320 Speaker 1: somebody is a suspect. I mean there were like, apparently 388 00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:16,800 Speaker 1: there were people who were like, he just wants to 389 00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:22,360 Speaker 1: destroy the evolutionists, right, that's so seriously circumstantial stuff that's 390 00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:27,120 Speaker 1: getting piece together. Flimsy circumstantial stuff. Uh. In nineteen sixty six, 391 00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:30,359 Speaker 1: a trunk found in storage in the British Museum was 392 00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,760 Speaker 1: discovered to contain a number of bones, including some that 393 00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:36,919 Speaker 1: had been stained in a similar manner to the Piltdown Man. 394 00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:41,440 Speaker 1: This trunk, marked with the initials M. A. C. H 395 00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:45,560 Speaker 1: apparently belonged to Martin A. C. Hinton, who also amassed 396 00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:49,359 Speaker 1: quite a collection of other bones, fossils and specimens. He 397 00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:51,679 Speaker 1: had been working as a volunteer at the museum in 398 00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:54,760 Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, and he became its keeper of Zoology in 399 00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:59,480 Speaker 1: nineteen thirty six. So naturally this brought up lots of 400 00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:01,520 Speaker 1: theory is about what was going on with what was 401 00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:03,399 Speaker 1: in this trunk. One of the theories was that these 402 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,320 Speaker 1: bones were Hinton's trial run, and that he had done 403 00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,480 Speaker 1: this and then planted the fussiles in quotation marks to 404 00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:13,320 Speaker 1: get revenge on Smith Woodward, who had turned him down 405 00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,600 Speaker 1: when he tried to move his volunteer position back in 406 00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:21,000 Speaker 1: Nweve into a paid one. However, not all of this 407 00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:24,560 Speaker 1: quite adds up. I had a hard time pending down 408 00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:29,440 Speaker 1: exactly why this was later debunked as being who had 409 00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:33,320 Speaker 1: orchestrated this, But his time at the museum started after 410 00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:37,719 Speaker 1: the first discovery it pilt down, and he also had 411 00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:43,720 Speaker 1: expressed some skepticism at the fine being authentic. So another 412 00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,080 Speaker 1: school of thought is that the way these stained bones 413 00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:50,000 Speaker 1: that looked very similar to the pilt down specimens came 414 00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:53,240 Speaker 1: to be in his suitcase is that he was trying 415 00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:56,600 Speaker 1: to replicate the coloring it pilt down to prove that 416 00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:01,480 Speaker 1: it was a fraud. The paper, published in Royal Society 417 00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:05,480 Speaker 1: Open Science this year is an attempt to conclusively solve 418 00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:09,040 Speaker 1: this whole puzzle once and for all. The study involved 419 00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:14,439 Speaker 1: DNA analysis, dating analysis, spectroscopy, and high precision measurements of 420 00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:18,640 Speaker 1: the specimens, as well as studying three dimensional representations of them, 421 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:24,359 Speaker 1: which is known as virtual anthropology. The DNA analysis confirmed 422 00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:28,320 Speaker 1: that teeth and the mandible were from an orangutan, probably 423 00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:31,719 Speaker 1: one born in Borneo, and that all of the orangutan 424 00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:35,080 Speaker 1: specimens that were part of this hoax probably came from 425 00:26:35,080 --> 00:26:38,719 Speaker 1: the same individual animal. Attempts to figure out whether there 426 00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:42,879 Speaker 1: are any missing orangutan specimens and local museum collections have 427 00:26:43,080 --> 00:26:46,600 Speaker 1: so far been unsuccessful, but it's also possible that somebody 428 00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:50,760 Speaker 1: could have bought an orangutan skull in an antiquarian shop. 429 00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:55,920 Speaker 1: A minimum of two, possibly three, different human skulls were 430 00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,160 Speaker 1: used in the production of the skull fragments, and while 431 00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:01,520 Speaker 1: tests to figure out whether they were all the same 432 00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:05,160 Speaker 1: age were inconclusive, they were all subjected to the same 433 00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:07,800 Speaker 1: m O to make them look like fossils that could 434 00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:13,040 Speaker 1: have come from that gravel bed, and there was dental 435 00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:16,159 Speaker 1: putty used to hold the teeth in place in the 436 00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,399 Speaker 1: mandible and to hold the gravel and pebble plugs in place, 437 00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:22,879 Speaker 1: with these materials being similar to the sediment that was 438 00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,639 Speaker 1: at the pilt Down dig site, that this discovery of 439 00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:29,399 Speaker 1: dentil putty was not new to this research that was 440 00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,200 Speaker 1: just published, like people knew about the dentil putty way before, 441 00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:38,760 Speaker 1: which like continues to make me question why in n 442 00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:47,120 Speaker 1: nobody was like this looks glued on, right. I mean, 443 00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:51,600 Speaker 1: maybe it was just some really really skillful dentil putty use, 444 00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:56,240 Speaker 1: but I don't know. That's one of the many things 445 00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:58,359 Speaker 1: that makes me go, how ready were you all to 446 00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:03,280 Speaker 1: believe that the sing link was from Britain? Because that's 447 00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:04,960 Speaker 1: the only way all this works, And I think the 448 00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:09,439 Speaker 1: answer is very ready, extremely ready. The team concludes that 449 00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,199 Speaker 1: given the consistencies in the m O and the limited 450 00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:15,360 Speaker 1: number of total specimens, the pilt down Man was probably 451 00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:19,560 Speaker 1: the work of one forger, most likely Charles Dawson, possibly 452 00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:23,040 Speaker 1: trying to further his own scientific career, which, given that 453 00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:25,880 Speaker 1: he died in nineteen sixteen at the age of fifty two, 454 00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:29,040 Speaker 1: just four years after the first announcement, clearly did not 455 00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:31,960 Speaker 1: quite work out for him. I had a whole conversation 456 00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,480 Speaker 1: about this episode with with my husband in the car 457 00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:39,000 Speaker 1: over the weekend about how, like, you know, a lot 458 00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,400 Speaker 1: of these different people have been put forth as potential suspects, 459 00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:44,400 Speaker 1: and a lot of them are are sort of dismissed, 460 00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:48,280 Speaker 1: and really all of these things are really circumstantial, Like 461 00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:51,520 Speaker 1: there's just there's even with all of this analysis, there's 462 00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:54,040 Speaker 1: still a lot of circumstantial evidence and guesswork and stuff 463 00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,360 Speaker 1: like that. But to me, the biggest strike against Charles 464 00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,720 Speaker 1: Dawson is the fact that he did die only four 465 00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:06,280 Speaker 1: years after this whole thing started, so any like many 466 00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:08,400 Speaker 1: of these other people who have been pointed out as 467 00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:11,880 Speaker 1: suspects lived for a whole lot longer, and and that 468 00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:14,120 Speaker 1: sort of raises the question of, Okay, what were they 469 00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:20,720 Speaker 1: after that never came to fruition Like Charles Dawson's relatively 470 00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:24,840 Speaker 1: early death makes it seem like whatever he was after 471 00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:27,840 Speaker 1: he didn't get and then he was never he wasn't 472 00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,320 Speaker 1: around to either further perpetuate it or be like, you 473 00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:34,920 Speaker 1: know what, I made that up? Like that's it's yet 474 00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:40,400 Speaker 1: another piece of circumstantial evidence, uh in in the Charles 475 00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:43,600 Speaker 1: Dawson column. So all of that, though, may raise the 476 00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:48,440 Speaker 1: question why spend so much time and effort just trying 477 00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:50,520 Speaker 1: to get the bottom of who did this? And so, 478 00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:54,160 Speaker 1: in the words of the papers authors quote, solving the 479 00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,760 Speaker 1: pilt down hoax is still important now. It stands as 480 00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:00,680 Speaker 1: a cautionary tale to scientists now to see what they 481 00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,560 Speaker 1: want to see, but to remain objective and to subject 482 00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:12,200 Speaker 1: even their own findings to the strongest scientific scrutiny. That's 483 00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,720 Speaker 1: a piltdown, man. I love that episode. Thank you, Tracy. Oh, 484 00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:19,800 Speaker 1: you're very welcome. I'm I'm gonna totally admit I had 485 00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:27,360 Speaker 1: a very good time reading the vastly incorrect papers published 486 00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:31,160 Speaker 1: in the early nineteen teens about this finding from people 487 00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:33,880 Speaker 1: who were flat out wrong, and at the same time 488 00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:39,959 Speaker 1: I was really bad about it, Like uh we I 489 00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,280 Speaker 1: have often when we've done episodes about old medical history 490 00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:46,120 Speaker 1: or something like that, read you know, the old papers 491 00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:49,160 Speaker 1: from the time that that were published, and these, you know, 492 00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:54,440 Speaker 1: people very confidently espousing stuff that's wrong, just really wrong, 493 00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:56,880 Speaker 1: and that it makes me a lot matter this time 494 00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:59,680 Speaker 1: because it was wrong and somebody did it on purpose 495 00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,520 Speaker 1: and it stood in the way of scientific progress for 496 00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:07,440 Speaker 1: decades makes me real mad. Yeah we uh you and 497 00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:11,720 Speaker 1: I talked about off Mike, the fact that forty years 498 00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:14,239 Speaker 1: is a really long time when you consider like that 499 00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:16,520 Speaker 1: is the length of a career for a scientist in 500 00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:19,960 Speaker 1: some cases, and so there were probably people who were 501 00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:24,320 Speaker 1: not willingly even party to this sort of blindness. But 502 00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:28,880 Speaker 1: we're proceeding along on a career path that was basically 503 00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:33,400 Speaker 1: complete blunder, and they wasted their time and their scientific minds, 504 00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:39,280 Speaker 1: and yeah, and wasted the greater whole of humanity's ability 505 00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:44,120 Speaker 1: to learn more about where we came from. And then 506 00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:47,040 Speaker 1: it's by total coincidence that between the day when I 507 00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:50,400 Speaker 1: wrote this on the calendar however many month months ago, 508 00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:54,480 Speaker 1: and now like now, there is such a renewed focus 509 00:31:54,520 --> 00:32:00,560 Speaker 1: on like the the putting out there of just fake, 510 00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:06,720 Speaker 1: wrong information that is demonstrably wrong and it being accepted 511 00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:17,600 Speaker 1: as fact. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. 512 00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:19,920 Speaker 1: Since this episode is out of the archive, if you 513 00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,000 Speaker 1: heard an email address or a Facebook U r L 514 00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:24,400 Speaker 1: or something similar over the course of the show, that 515 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:28,600 Speaker 1: could be obsolete now. 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