WEBVTT - The Piltdown Man 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:06.080 You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts. 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:10.720 Folks, it's a hugo. No, I haven't. 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:22.440 Seen when us see the Welcome to Hoax, a podcast 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:24.600 about the lies we wish were true. 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.200 And truths that sound like lies. I'm the ghost of 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.000 Danish Sports and I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan. 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:31.600 Welcome to the show. 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:37.160 Lizzie. Are you a biology person? Did you like biology 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:39.240 in school? I liked it? Okay. 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:41.800 The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.720 Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. I mean, that's 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:46.680 really all we need for this episode. I'll get you 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.559 to college. I love biology. I was a big I 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:52.839 was pre met in college. This is in fact I 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:54.680 remember from your memoir. This is a fact we know. 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:58.520 I worked at the Adler Planetarium when I was in 0:00:58.600 --> 0:00:59.080 high school. 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.720 Not just the shock Chicago's Planitarium. Is that biology that's 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:03.760 planning it's planets. 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.000 But I did also almost get a summer internship at 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:08.960 the Field Museum back in my pre mid day. 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:10.080 I'm almost proud of you. 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:15.000 I thank you. I instead made the decision to get 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.160 take an internship at Conan and move out to Los 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:20.640 Angeles and do an entirely different career path. So that 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.800 was really a moment that could have been. But I'm 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:24.840 much happier now. 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:25.920 And now you know me. 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.760 That's true. But I am someone who really likes biology 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.720 and evolutionary biology, and so this is a story I 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:35.800 have known about for a very long time, and I'm 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.640 excited to sort of dive into it. 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:40.959 Wait is this Am I about to find out that 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:42.280 the hoax is evolution? 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:43.560 Ohzy? 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:46.640 Because God created the world in six days and then 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:48.120 on the seventh thing he rested. 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.520 Yeah, he made men perfectly exactly as we are, We've 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:52.280 never changed. 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:53.640 And then he made woman out of a rib. 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.920 Yeah. Oh okay, No, but it is a hoax. That 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.440 is a pretty popular hoax. But I was very excited 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:06.120 as I dove into it to find layers about why 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.200 it maintained for so long and sort of understand the 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.160 historical context around it. So with that, Lizzie, do you 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:16.360 know the phrase missing link? 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:25.040 Yes, So it's the proverbial or like mythical step between 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:31.120 like not apes, but like the prehistoric ancestor that we 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.399 share in common with apes and cavemen. 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:35.359 Yeah. 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:41.280 And I think there's a joke about this in the 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:46.760 TV show like The Wild Thornberry's maybe where like they 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.920 maybe adopt a kid who's the missing link and he's 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:51.800 like very wild. 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:52.880 Donny. 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.120 Yeah, I think there's a joke about that, but I 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.679 might feel like confusing different things from my childhood, but 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.960 like that that's what I know it. 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.080 You're exactly right. Oh, but what I mean say is 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:10.640 the term missing link isn't actually really useful, and it's 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.600 considered in biology an outdated term because there's a very 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.200 sort of primitive view of evolution that's like can you 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:20.480 picture in your mind's eye that like diagram of like 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:22.799 a fish and then it like starts walking on it's 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.800 a man. So that's sort of a view of evolution 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:28.640 that's known as orthogenesis, which is like a very linear 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.240 model of evolution, which is just like one, two, three, 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.359 blah blah blah, that like march. That image is called 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:36.960 the march of progress, and it sort of is a 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.160 version of evolution that kind of has like religious overtones 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.360 because it's like we're being perfected, We're going from simple 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.080 organisms to complex organisms. 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.240 Intelligent design vibes. 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.360 A little bit like even though it is still evolution, 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:55.640 it's a very basic understanding of evolution, and it's just 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.080 not right, Like we don't go from worse to better species. 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:03.160 That's just not how works. Orthogenesis is like one after another. 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.880 And then the idea was something called phylogeny, which is 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.160 like a evolution that's like a branching tree. That's like 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:11.680 we and apes have a common ancest yes, And so 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:16.279 you're like, okay, that's pretty complicated, but you know apes 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.359 seven anywhere from seven to thirteen million years ago, we 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.280 diverged from apes and then became different species. But now 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:29.680 evolutionary historians refer to evolution as a braided stream because 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.560 it turns out there are like a ton of early 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:38.200 human versions that then interacted and bred together and intermingled, 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.920 like there's Neanderthal DNA in Homo sapiens and vice versa. 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:46.000 Like you're using a lot of euphemisms for like early man, 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:50.920 fucking apes, early like fucking ape type people. 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.160 So we're back and forth. Like if you actually look 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.720 at a diagram of like all the different subversions of 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.719 humans that exist, did you know millions of years ago, 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:05.640 it's like a very dense tree or like a bush 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.360 with branches going back and forth. So missing link doesn't 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:14.800 really make sense because there would be like so many 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.480 missing links because you can just be like, Okay, well 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.440 where on this point does that fossil go, And it 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:24.160 could be anywhere on that map. That's not just like 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.839 one linear progression where we're actually missing anything because we 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:32.640 do have all those fossil records, but we don't have 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.400 a lot of fossils. When you know, people are like, oh, 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:39.000 do you have every single fossil? Like no, and they 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.200 did not have a lot of fossils, you know, one 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:45.279 hundred years ago they had even fewer because finding fossils 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:46.240 is hard. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:48.560 Yeah, I mean when you were like that, do we 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:50.919 have every fossil, I'm like, I would say, we probably 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:53.560 have almost none of the fossils. 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:58.120 Yeah, only a tiny percentage of living organisms become fossils. 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:00.799 Like if you die and you're buried, you don't become 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.120 a fossil. There has to be like a very specific 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.119 geo process like the Librea tarpits, you know, being buried 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.680 under sediment or like specific weather conditions like a really 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:16.320 dry desert. So like fossils are really rare. But after 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:20.080 Darwin published on the Origin of Species in eighteen fifty nine, 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:24.200 people wanted fossils to go prove what he was talking about. 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:28.440 Particularly at that time, they wanted the missing link, which 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.480 would be ideal. But again, we now know there are 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:34.960 millions of missing links. It doesn't actually matter, But back 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.760 then it would be like the find of a lifetime. 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.280 Cool. Can I ask a question that probably were going 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:45.279 to cut, Yes, but I'm just curious, Yeah, is anyone 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.960 looking for like a racial missing link? 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.920 Yeah, that is actually a really big and important question 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:53.800 that we should not cut because we get to it 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:54.120 in this. 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.440 Episode, Okay, because like I don't know if that was 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.200 like just like I just don't want to sound super ignorant, 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.040 because I'm like, we all come from an ancestor. But 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.800 I know that genotypically, which is what's on the inside, 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:14.120 all of humankind is one race, the human race, But phenotypically, 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.840 which is what's on the outside, there are clear categories 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.120 of people based on where your ancestors are from. Like, Yeah, 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:23.760 all the people from one part of the world look 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:25.800 really alike in one certain way, and all the people 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:27.600 from another part of the world look really alike in 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:31.960 another certain way. And I'm like, clearly, somewhere in the 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.640 family tree, there's gotta be someone who looks halfway between 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.440 these people, right, And at some point one brother went 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.840 to one part and one brother went to a different part, 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:42.560 and then they ended up looking different. And I'm like, 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:43.800 how did this happen? 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.160 Well, Lizzie, I am gonna blow your mind and say, 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.200 if you believe it. In the early twentieth century, people 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.640 were really fixated on why different people look differently. 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.920 Yeah, I believe it, and I don't want to be 0:07:58.000 --> 0:07:59.680 I don't want to I don't want anyone to think 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:01.200 that I am fixated on that. 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:03.600 No, it's interesting. It's a question that side. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.320 Don't take that your race is the most important thing 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.880 about you. I'm not fixated on race as a person, 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:10.640 but I am fascinated by humans. 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.920 The spoiler alert answer, which is not a spoiler alert 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:19.720 because it's science, is it turns out we evolved separately 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:24.240 much later than people think, like less than one hundred 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:26.920 thousand years ago, and at the time, what was a 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.600 theory called like the out of Africa theory is correct. 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.840 We all evolved in Africa, and then more recently than 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.440 they believed at the time, the different you know, racist 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:40.720 and ethnicities formed, but they didn't know that. 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:42.720 It's just like green eye people just kind of showed 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:43.840 up in a couple spots. 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:48.080 Okay, but we're in the early twentieth century right now. 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.320 We're going to start our story in nineteen twelve when 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:57.080 a man named Charles Dawson, not Charles Darwin, unrelated. 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.840 And not Charles Dickens and not Charles Dickens are main character. 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:05.120 Charles Dawson is a solicitor from Sussex. He's a lawyer, okay, 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:10.200 but he's also an amateur geologist and archaeologist who just 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.320 does it as a hobby. Loves it for the love 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:14.280 of the game. He wants to get it, you know. 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.440 He loves the geographical society and wants to rub elbows 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:18.840 with them. But he's not a professional. 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:22.680 He is paleontologist, like a job at this point. 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:25.840 Yeah, I mean, well, he's friends with a man named 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.920 Arthur Smith Woodward, who is the keeper of geology at 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.440 the then the British Museum of Natural History. Now it's 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.080 a separate museum known as the Natural History Museum. So 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:37.360 that guy's a professional. Okay. 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:37.640 Cool. 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.080 Charles Dawson writes to this professional and says, I found 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:46.520 something that might be kind of interesting. According to Charles Dawson. 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:49.960 A few years back he had seen workmen digging in 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.840 the pilt down gravel pit near where he lived, and 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:55.880 one of them, one of the workmen had mentioned that 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:59.080 he found something that he thought was a fossilized coconut, 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.199 and Dawson went to investigate. And it turns out this coconut, 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:05.880 what looked like a coconut, was just like a dark 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.120 brown stained skull, and it was dark brown because it 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:13.600 was incredibly incredibly old. So then Dawson goes back to 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.360 like the scrap piles of this gravel pit and finds 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.480 the rest of this skull, and he's writing to Arthur 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:25.280 Smith Woodward and saying this might be interesting. Do you 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.160 want to come take a look. Yeah, So a bit 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:33.760 about Dawson before we introduce Smith Woodward. Even though Dawson 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:38.640 is not a professional, he has made several pretty impressive fines. 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.920 He's like found teeth of early mammals, he found a 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:47.200 stone axe, he found bricks from Roman Britain, this hybrid 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:51.480 iron Roman statuette. So things that aren't like, you know, 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.480 we don't know about them today. But for an amateur 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.920 geologist in Sussex, he's doing really well. People actually call 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.880 him the Wizard of Sussex. So he's someone that Arthur 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.800 Smith Woodward considers a friend. Arthur Smith Woodward, first of 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.120 many Arthur's in this episode, comes to the site to 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.319 dig because if you find an old skull, you might 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.160 find more things. And they dig together June through September 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:20.600 in nineteen twelve, and they find more skull fragments, a jawbone, 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:23.800 and a set of teeth. There's also I just want 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:28.880 to plant this cameo, this French Jesuit geologist Pierre Tilhard Deschardin, 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.160 who also stops by and he actually is just like 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:33.680 I want to see what's what, and he finds some 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:34.160 of the teeth. 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:36.600 And this is in a local tar pit. 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:38.480 This is in a gravel pit. 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.200 Is in a gravel pit in Sussex, which is nobody 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.000 cares what they're doing in the gravel pit, Like it 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:45.160 doesn't belong to anybody. 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.960 No, it's workmen who are digging out gravel to like 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:48.720 pave things. 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.720 Oh okay, I'm just saying, like this isn't somebody's property. 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:54.640 No, I don't think anyone cares about. 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.199 It, okay, Like they're not getting in anybody's way. 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:00.440 They're also they're going through the scrap piles. Oh, they're 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.240 going through the men the workers that also EXCA had 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.359 already excavated and they're going through the piles. 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:06.840 Interesting. 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:12.280 So Woodward again, the professional here reconstructs these fragments that 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:16.600 they found, the jaw, the skull, and he discovers something 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.800 kind of amazing, which is that the skull looks like 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:25.280 it's human, but from five hundred thousand years ago, which 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:28.920 you know, for context, archaic Homo sapiens are about three 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.560 hundred thousand years old. More modern Homo sapiens are about 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:35.600 one hundred and sixty thousand years old. So a five 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:40.559 hundred thousand year old like humanoid skull is amazing. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.480 How is he getting that number? Because I don't you're 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.240 not carbon dating and you are now nineteen twelve. 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.160 I think you are estimating from the best of your 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.719 ability based on the stain, Like the coloring of it 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.760 means like how long it's been in the earth, and 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.520 he's and the size of the skull because human brains 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:57.920 have gotten bigger over the time. 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.679 And he also and it was just like in some gravel, 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:09.600 what like six feet down in Sussex, Yeah, sus speaking, 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:11.240 putting the sus in Sussex. 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.840 Well, here i'must say, here's the even more amazing part. 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:15.480 And I think what helped him date it? 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:17.559 Also, if it was small, couldn't it just be like 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:18.000 a child. 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.480 Maybe. But here's the kind of amazing part. Well, I 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:23.600 actually I don't think it's I think they know sort 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:25.320 of what size human scholars like. 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:28.360 But science, the jaw. 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.560 Does not look like a human jaw. It looks like 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:34.600 a primate jaw. And that's even more amazing because it's 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:38.800 a human skull with a primate jaw. But you'd think, oh, 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.760 it's just a monkey jaw that somehow fell into this 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.600 gravel with it a pet monkey. But the teeth were 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:50.559 mold they had wear patterns that looked like human teeth. Interesting, 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:56.120 So that's very exciting for a few reasons. First, because 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:58.640 this big debate was going on at the time whether 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:04.640 early you know, pre humans developed their brains first or 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:09.240 their human diet first, And this was showing pretty clearly 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:11.880 that they developed their brains first, because it was a 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:13.600 big skull and an ape like jaw. 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:17.959 That is so convenient that they were having this debate. 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.160 And then they happened to find some evidence they exactly 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.440 answered this debate that answered this to great question, what 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:25.480 a lucky fine. 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:27.720 So it's an amazing fine, and you know what else 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:32.239 is lucky. It's found in England. What was really exciting 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.640 is because it's so helpful. So there had been a 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:38.480 fine in Germany and I'm going to mispronounce this because 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.560 it's Latin, but they call it Homo Heidelbergens and it 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.880 was basically a pre human that was found in Heidelberg, Germany, 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:48.080 and that was very exciting for the Germans. But now 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:50.680 it's you know, about to be World War one in 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.320 a few years, and we don't want Germany to have 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:57.240 a more impressive fine than England. So it is pretty 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:01.480 exciting that we found, you know, wording to the Atlanta 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:04.920 Georgian magazine at the time, quote natives of Great Britain 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.200 can trace their ancestry further back than any other people's 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:11.840 on the face of the earth, which is amazing. And also, 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.920 as we were talking about with racism, that fun thing. 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.480 This podcast's bailiwick. 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:27.120 Yeah, racism. Finding this skull and jobbone really reinforces a 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.400 Eurocentric model of evolution that shows that the races were 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:36.840 developing separately a very very long time ago, years ago, 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.600 so it's differentiating the races, and it's like showing that, like, well, 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.680 a lot of evolution happened to lead to the superiority 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.040 of white European people, and it just happened to be 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.200 happening on the island of Great Britain. You know how 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.720 it would make sense that all this evolution would be 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:53.400 happening on this little island. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.960 Yeah, on this little island with like bad weather and 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:01.280 not that many different types of crops and you know, yeah, 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:06.480 a pretty genetically similar population. It makes total sense. 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.000 And then again, just to reiterate, racists did not separate 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.760 five hundred thousand years ago. It happened much much more 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.720 recently because those changes, those developmental changes, are minuscule in 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.440 the scheme of evolution. But they didn't know that at 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:22.120 the time. Another thing that was pretty exciting for them, 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:23.800 and the press had a lot of fun with this, 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.080 and like when you're reading articles about it, it's like 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:28.120 cute because it feels like everyone had an inside doke. 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.200 They also found this carved fossilized elephant thone that had 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.920 been flattened like use is like a decorative object or 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.440 a tool, but it kind of looked like a cricket bet. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.480 So this guy had a cricket bet, which they liked. 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.440 So Arthur smith Wood where this is the find of 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.480 his career. He announces the discovery at the Geological Society, 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:00.720 and he named it again apologies for the Latin anthropists 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:06.160 Dawson I or Dawson's dawn Man. And right away people 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:10.880 are a little you know, suspicious or at least just curious, 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.800 and they challenge the reconstruction because this isn't a full 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:17.360 skull they found. It's fragments. And if you've ever tried 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.480 to like put things together, you know that he was 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.399 like making an argument about the size of the brain, right, 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.520 But it's like if you put them together a little 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.200 more down, then the brain could be way smaller, right. 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:31.520 And if you put them together really far apart, then 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:33.600 you have two skulls. 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:35.480 Yeah exactly. Yeah. 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.920 I mean I'm saying like, if you have like six fragments, 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:40.639 like okay, maybe you have three fragments each from two skulls, 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.280 so like you can the evidence can line up however 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:43.680 you want it. 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.480 That's it. So people are looking at these fragments being like, 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.159 these fragments are interesting, but the way you're putting them together. 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.200 I'm taking issue with one of the biggest anthropologists who 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:56.920 took issue with it was our second Arthur of the episode, 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.760 a man named Arthur Keith, who's another anthropologist, and he 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:06.480 is looking at the way that Smith Woodward reconstructed it 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:10.000 with certain teeth, like a reconstruction. He like drew in, like, oh, 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.080 and these type of teeth would go here, teeth that 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:16.280 they didn't find. And he did it with ape like canines. 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.400 Your canines are like the long pointy teeth. And Smith 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.920 Woodward imagine that this, you know, Dawn Man had ape 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.000 like canines, and Arthur Keith is like, but those other 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:29.760 molars look pretty humanoid. And if they were doing side 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.440 to side chewing, how would they have ape like canines. 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.119 That doesn't make sense. And the two of them were 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:40.800 so misaligned on this possible model that these lifelong friends 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:42.040 literally and their friendship. 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:42.960 Oh my god. 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:47.720 Yeah, the Arthur's come apart because of the fake teeth, 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:50.760 the imagined teeth in this model. 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:54.960 Can I just say it is I mean, granted, you know, 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.800 we have the benefit of hindsight, and these people were scientists, 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:00.879 and they believed what they believe based on the evidence 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.399 they had at the time. But yes, looking back, it 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:06.960 is a little bit silly to me that they thought that, like, 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:13.240 you know, the absolute peak of human evolution could only 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:15.919 have come out of Great Britain. Well, you know, an 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:18.800 island that can only produce people named Arthur. 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.320 Apparently, I don't think of that one. 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:23.080 You don't even have diversity of name. 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:28.280 I don't think they thought that the only high fossils 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.600 were in England. I think no, again, because they had 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.479 found these fossils in Germany. But I think they were 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.560 excited that they finally had their own. Some people, if 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.320 you can believe it, were saying that, like, it actually 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.520 looks like an ape jaw with a human skull. It 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.040 just doesn't look like it's one being one person. Yeah, 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.359 that they just found an ape jaw and found a 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:50.280 human skull. 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:51.840 Right, why are you putting them together? 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:56.200 So there are published people like in nineteen thirteen, a 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.200 man named David Watterson publishes in a journal that he's like, 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:03.000 this just looks like an ape jaw and human skull 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.359 to me, but don't go together. Don't go together. And 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.240 they were like, these things could have just ended up 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:10.200 in a heap together. 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:13.520 Yeah, And they're maybe not even from the same time period. 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:19.000 But here's the thing. In nineteen fifteen, Dawson says, in 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.800 another site two miles away, he found fragments of a 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:27.119 second skull, also with this same jaw that looks like 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.600 an ape like jaw. So this find is known as 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.400 pilt Down two. People don't talk about pilt Down two 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.920 as much because we didn't get a ton of detail 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.680 about it. We don't even know where the exact site 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:42.159 is because Dawson didn't write it down. And then in 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:46.920 nineteen sixteen Dawson dies, Oh rip he dies. He's only 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:47.520 fifty two. 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:49.360 Did he become a fossil? 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:52.879 I don't know. I hope I bet he wishes me. 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:55.240 I hope, I bet I bet he tried. 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:58.640 But basically he had found what is known as pilt 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:02.000 Down too sort of left it to Arthur Smith Woodward, 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:06.160 who presents the finds to the Geographic Society and kind 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:08.560 of like dances around the fact that he doesn't actually 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.080 know where it came from. But this one is a 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.680 frontal bone, an occipital fragment, a lower molar that is 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.200 the same species as the original find. So it's like 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:20.560 if an ape jaw just happened to be in a 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:23.320 heap pile with a human skull, and that was just 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:27.440 like a weird coincidence. Why would it happen twice? So 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:32.479 for the next few decades it sort of remains an 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:37.680 interesting find and a source of national English pride, but 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:40.920 it's kind of overshadowed by other exciting finds all over 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:46.040 the world, and it kind of runs contradictory to other 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:50.080 evidence that starts coming out about evolution, namely that it 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:54.120