Excerpts from
“The Great Bone Hoax:
Piltdown and the Self-Correcting Nature of Science”
by Michael Shermer
[from The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense (2001)]
[In] her splendid book Narratives of Human Evolution,
anthropologist Misia Landau shows how scientific theories,
especially those purporting to explain human evolution, are
narratives, or stories that, like all stories, are very much
influenced by the times and cultures of the storytellers
themselves. Even though these storytellers are scientists,
and their stories are riddled with empirical evidence, the
data never just speak for themselves. Evidence must be
interpreted through theories and hypotheses, and these are
shaped by non-scientific factors. Landau analyzes these
theories as stories, and like the scholar of folktales she
deconstructs evolutionary narratives into their component parts:
“Every paleoanthropological account sets out to answer the
question, what really happened in human evolution?
Paleoanthropologists generally discuss four main events: a
move from the trees to the ground (terrestriality); the
development of the upright posture (bipedalism); the
development of the brain, intelligence, and language
(encephalization); and the development of technology, morals,
and society (civilization). Although these events occur in all theories of human evolution, they do
not always occur in the same order. Nor do they always have the same significance.” Was it
bipedalism that gave rise to tool use, which generated big brains? Or was it tool use that led to
bipedalism and then big brains? Were early hominids primarily hunters—man the killer ape,
warlike in nature? Or were they primarily gatherers—man the vegetarian, pacifist in nature? More
importantly, does the narrative change in response to empirical evidence, or does the
interpretation of the evidence change as a result of the currently popular narrative? This is a
serious problem in the philosophy of science—to what extent are observations in science driven
by theory? Quite a bit as it turns out. The scientific method of purposefully searching for
evidence to falsify our most deeply held beliefs does not come naturally. Telling stories in the
service of a scientific theory does, and there is, perhaps, no better example of this than the
discovery of Piltdown man, followed by the revelation decades later that it was all a hoax. It is a
bitter and hard-won lesson in the realities of how science really works.
In the annals of evolutionary theories there is one enduring and unsolved mystery that
continues to this day to compel writers to speculate in the best of “whodunnit” modes, and
that is the Piltdown hoax—the set of ancient hominid bones found in England that would turn out
to be the invention of a clever scam artist. There is no finer example of how cultural forces,
psychological expectations, and the power of belief led even the most intelligent and educated
evolutionary scientists of the first half of the twentieth century to be duped for decades. One
recent Piltdown chronicler, John Walsh, calls it “the science fraud of the century.” . . . Why is this
such an enduring myth and why is the case still not closed?
As a narrative story, the Piltdown discovery—a big brain atop an apelike jaw—fit the
scientific and cultural expectations of the day in that it conveniently supported the prevailing
theory . . . that humans first evolved a big brain and only later such features as bipedalism and
tool use. Afterall, it was argued, it was our singular ability to think in abstract ways, to plot and
strategize and communicate complex ideas, that allowed us, in this progressivist model, to take the
great leap forward in evolution above and beyond our simian ancestors. Their bodies may have
been similar, but their brains were not. Exceptional encephalization was what set us apart. Further,
since it was believed that the most advanced races of today (white) can be found in northern
climes (Europe and Asia), fossils of our ancestors would most likely be found here, and
certainly not Africa . . . Indeed, out of Germany came a treasure trove of fossils, starting with the
breathtaking finds from the valley of Neander [in 1856], giving the name to the most famous of all
our ancestors [i.e., “Neanderthal Man”]. Out of France [in 1869] came our most recent and
advanced relatives, the Cro-Magnons, with their cave paintings, clothing, jewelry, and complex
tool kits that allowed them to develop what could genuinely be called culture. Additional fossils
were discovered in Holland, Belgium, and scattered areas of Asia and Southeast Asia, including
significant finds at Peking (“Peking Man”) in China and at Java (“Java Man”) in southeast Asia.
It seemed everyone was getting in on the great human fossil hunt; everyone except the
English, that is. Was it possible that humans did not evolve in England? Were Englishmen
nothing more than a recent migration from the continent, a backwater of human evolution?
If only an ancient hominid could be found here. And what a coup it would be that if that hominid,
unlike many of the finds coming from elsewhere, clearly showed a humanlike brain sitting atop
more primitive primate features, especially a jaw. Seek and ye shall find, build it and they will
come—pick your metaphor. The British got what they were wishing for in 1912.
On February 15, 1912,
a British lawyer
named Charles
Dawson, who devoted
every moment of his
spare time to amateur
archaeology,
presented to the
renowned Keeper of
Geology of the British
Museum of Natural
History, Arthur
Smith Woodward,
several cranial
fragments that
appeared to be of an
ancient hominid.
Dawson told Smith
Woodward that in 1908 workmen had unearthed fragments from a gravel pit at Piltdown in Sussex
[in southern England], accidentally smashing them with their pick. The skull fragments were
modern in appearance, with a large, thick casing, yet they were found in deep, ancient layers,
indicating great antiquity. On June 2, 1912, Smith Woodward, Dawson, and a youthful
paleontologist and Jesuit priest named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, . . . went to the pit to continue
the dig. There Dawson made another find—the lower jaw of the skull, including two molars, very
ape-like in structure but indicating humanlike wear. Additional digging uncovered stone tools,
chipped bones, and fossil animal teeth that placed the ancient hominid well back in evolutionary
history. The December 5, 1912 edition of the most respected British science journal, Nature, ran a
short news item of the find:
Remains of a human skull and mandible, considered to belong to the early Pleistocene period, have
been discovered by Mr. Charles Dawson in a gravel-deposit in the basin of the River Ouse, north of
Lewes, Sussex. Much interest has been aroused in the specimen owing to the exactitude with which
its geological age is said to have been fixed.
On December 8, 1912, Dawson, under the auspices and
endorsement of Smith Woodward, announced his great find
at the meeting of the Geological Society of London. A few
skeptics voiced their doubts, but one of the crucial pieces of
evidence that might have addressed their concerns—the
jaw—was mysteriously (and conveniently as it turns out),
broken in just the right places to preclude resolution. In its
December 19, 1912 edition, Nature ratched up the excitement
by proclaiming this as the singular find in the history of
British paleontology: “The fossil human skull and mandible
to be described by Mr. Charles Dawson and Dr. Arthur Smith
Woodward at the Geological Society as we go to press is the
most important discovery of its kind hitherto made in
England . . .” The authors went on to explain just why this
specimen was so important: “At least one very low type of
man with a high forehead was therefore in existence in
western Europe long before the low-browed Neanderthal
man became widely spread in this region. Dr. Smith
Woodward accordingly inclines to the theory that the Neanderthal race was a degenerate
offspring of early man and probably became extinct, while surviving modern man may have
arisen directly from the primitive sources of which the Piltdown skull provides the first
discovered evidence.”
Newspaper headlines soon followed. On December 19, the Times of London announced:
A PALEOLITHIC SKULL
FIRST EVIDENCE OF A NEW HUMAN TYPE
The New York Times followed suit, identifying the deeper, theoretical issues involved in the find:
PALEOLITHIC SKULL IS A MISSING LINK
MAN HAD REASON BEFORE HE SPOKE
DARWIN’S THEORY IS PROVED TRUE
. . . That summer Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, with a background in paleontology and completing his
theological training at a Jesuit seminary, conveniently (some say suspiciously) near Piltdown, found
an apelike lower canine tooth, but worn in a very humanlike fashion. The following summer, as the
great nations of Europe cascaded toward their destiny of total war, Dawson added to the trove a
fossilized thigh bone from an elephant and what appeared to be a stone tool, and a fairly advanced
one at that. In 1915, at another pit two miles from Piltdown, Dawson uncovered two more hominid
skull pieces along with another tooth similar to previous finds. Now there could be no doubt as to
both the authenticity and the significance of the fossil collection, and for four decades the finds
when largely unchallenged. Humans evolved not only in Europe and Asia, but in England too,
and these ancient hominids first evolved big brains then the other hominid features, as
evidenced by the Piltdown fossils, cementing the progressivist narrative plot: big brains
bipedalism  tool use . . .
The scientific world was ecstatic that this new find had confirmed what they always believed
must be true about human evolution—our large brain had lifted us above our simian
ancestors. And it was an Englishman no less, no trivial matter in this jingoistic era on the eve
of the Great War where France and Germany had already produced a number of fossils attesting to
their role in humanity’s rise out of the detritus. It was too good to be true.
Unfortunately for those who allowed their skeptical facilities to be overcome by cultural
expectations . . . it was too good to be true. In 1953, scientists Kenneth Oakley, J. S. Weiner, and
W. E. le Gros Clark announced that new dating techniques had proven the skull fragments to be of
modern origin, as was the orangutan jaw, all stained, chipped, and filed to look ancient. The flint
artifacts were worked with modern tools, the fossil animal teeth were from locals elsewhere, and
everything was carefully placed in the Piltdown pit. It was all a hoax—four decades worth!
[308-313]
Regardless of the solution to this unsolved mystery, Piltdown provides two valuable lessons in
the nature of science:
1. Science is subject to bias. The head of the Institute for Creation Research, Duane T. Gish,
wrote of Piltdown in 1978 that “The success of this monumental hoax served to demonstrate
that scientists, just like everyone else, are very prone to find what they are looking for.” Well,
sure, that much is true; but this is the very reason that science is constructed to be selfcorrecting. It has built into it methods to detect not only hoaxes, but both conscious and
unconscious biases. This is what sets science apart from all other knowledge systems and
intellectual disciplines. If it were not for this self-correcting mechanism, in fact, science could
not have made the remarkable progress it has over its 500-year history. Its greatest weakness, in
fact, is its greatest strength.
2. Science is self-correcting. It is critical to emphasize that in the Piltdown hoax, as with all other
scientific hoaxes and errors, it was scientists who exposed the hoax and science that corrected
the mistake and moved forward with more and better research . . .
Still, Piltdown is a painful reminder of the fact that intelligence and education is no
prophylactic [i.e., protection] against fraud and flimflam. In Piltdown we saw some of the
most highly decorated and respected scientists in the world taken in by someone who was at
most an amateur hoaxer. It shows that humans are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals, who
seek and find patterns that fit a meaningful story. Once the pattern is found and a story
developed around that pattern, additional confirming evidence (or clues of a hoax) are
ignored . . . Piltdown shows that scientists—even world-class scientists—are not immune. [317319]
Further Reading:
The Piltdown Conspiracy (1983), by Stephen Jay Gould
Piltdown Man (BBC: Archaeology)
Piltdown Man is revealed as fake (PBS: Science Odyssey)
1) Why were the Piltdown fossil finds of the 1910s considered important, especially to many
Englishmen?
2) How does the Piltdown Man hoax illustrate that scientists are influenced by both internal
& external considerations? How did it, as Shermer claims, “fit with the scientific and
cultural expectations of the day”?
3) What does the story of the Piltdown Man, according to Shermer, illustrate about the
nature of science and scientists? Do you agree or disagree with Shermer? Explain.