THE most elaborate and successful scientific hoax this century (that we know of) must surely be that of the Piltdown Man.
In 1911 at Piltdown Common in East Sussex a hugely important archaeological "discovery" was made. The fossilised skull of a creature at an intermediate evolutionary stage between ape and human was unearthed. The discovery was greeted with intense excitement in the scientific world.
It was important evidence in support of Darwin's theory of evolution and shed light on the precise pathway by which human evolution occurred.
Man was taken very seriously for 40 years, until 1953, the entire matter was conclusively shown to be an elaborate hoax.
The story of Piltdown Man is a sorry saga in the history of science. It is summarised in the book False Prophets by Alexander Kohn (Basil Blackwell, 1986).
The find at Piltdown consisted of a few pieces of cranium of an essentially human skull, a piece of lower jaw bone which appeared to be that of an ape and which had some well worn molar teeth, as well as some ancient remains of elephant, hippopotamus, deer and beaver. The unique find of a human brain case and an ape like jaw represented a "missing link" that fitted Darwin's theory of evolution.
The three people principally associated with the Piltdown find were Charles Dawson, an amateur geologist, Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of the Department of Geology at the British Museum, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a palaeontologist and Catholic priest.
Woodward and Dawson announced the find of the Piltown Man at a meeting of the Geological Society in London in December 1912. Their interpretation that the components of Piltdown Man were parts of the same individual, dating back to the early Ice Age, was not unanimously accepted. A number of people thought that the cranium and the jaw belonged to different creatures. However, Woodward and Dawson's interpretation was widely and generally accepted.
At the time of the discovery of Piltdown Man the only other remains of the evolving human race were the Java Man, found in 1891, and the Heidelberg Jaw found in 1907. Piltdown Man was the first important fossil human skull ever to be unearthed in England.
Important fossil finds were later made elsewhere in the world, for example in China, and a particularly important, find in 1925 by Raymond Dart and Robert Broom in Taung South Africa. Dart declared that his skull, Taung Man, was a "missing link" on the threshold of humanity.
The evidence in the fossil skulls found elsewhere in the world contradicted the interpretation illustrated by Piltdown Man. These other fossils generally showed a rather ape like brain case but a distinctly non ape type jaw bone.
However, the general and widespread acceptance of the Piltdown evidence ensured that the other work did not get nearly the attention it deserved. This particularly applied to the work of Dart in South Africa, whose claims were met with a measure of derision.
For 37 years after the Piltdown find the skull was considered to belong to the early Ice Age in accordance with the antiquity of the animal bones that accompanied it.
Then Dr Kenneth Oakley developed a method to determine the age of bones by their fluorine content. The amount of fluorine in fossil bones increases with their geological age. Oakley found that the fluorine content in the bones of mastodon and elephant from Piltdown was about 2 per cent, while that in the fragments of the Piltdown jaw was only 0.1-0.4 per cent.
This meant that the age of Piltdown Man was about 50,090 years rather than the previously estimated 500,000 years old.
Grave doubts were now raised about the actual authenticity of Piltdown Man. An in depth study was carried out by three experts, Drs Oakley, Washburn and Weiner. The results of this investigation were published in 1953 and clearly showed that the Piltdown discovery was a hoax.
The jaw was shown to be that of an orangutan with the teeth artificially stained and filed so as to resemble human teeth. Many of the bones that were found were artificially stained with chemicals in order to give them the same colour as the geological straturn in which they were found.
All the evidence showed that the cranium and the jaw could not have belonged to each other, and that their presence in the same geological layer was quite incompatible. The entire find was a planted forgery.
There is considerable evidence that Dawson was heavily involved in the hoax. Teilhard de Chardin was also involved, and apparently brought a doctored tooth from France to plant in the hole in Piltdown.
It is difficult to see how Woodward can be exonerated from any complicity in the hoax. There is also recent evidence published by the South African anatomist Phillip Tobias that Sir Arthur Keith was deeply involved in the hoax, possibly as a background mastermind.
The motivation would appear to be simply an attempt to achieve fame, thereby enhancing career prospects. Keith would also have been interested "evidence" for his preconceived theory - that human evolution was led by the very early development of a large brain.
Election as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in the UK is the pinnacle of recognition - of scientific achievement. Dawson failed to get elected on two occasions and was known to be bitterly disappointed by this. Piltdown Man would probably have achieved it for him, but in 1916 he fell ill and died.
Keith enthusiastically seized upon the Piltdown findings and trumpeted them abroad as important evidence in support of his own theories. His career blossomed and prospered. He became an FRS in 1912 and was awarded a knighthood in 1921. He died in 1955.
A very important motivational factor for all scientists is the achievement of recognition, lame perhaps and, certainly, career advancement. Unfortunately, there will always be a small minority of people who, if they cannot achieve these ends by fair means, will use foul.
The Piltdown hoax was a particularly bad case. Cleverly - doctored false facts were planted that could be easily interpreted in support of the conventional wisdom in the field. The general scientific community was only too willing to be convinced. It took 40 years to correct this matter because false facts can be particularly difficult to dispose of.
Charles Darwin put this matter well in his famous book Descent of Man: "False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm for everyone takes delight proving their falseness".