Henry Osborne, president of the American Museum of National History, proclaimed that the fossil remains were "without question" was proof of the evolution of ape to man. A monument to the discovery was erected at Barkham Manor to Charles Dawson, the founder of the fossils of this missing link.
The New York Times proclaimed "Darwin Theory is Proved True," and Nature, one of the most influential scientific journals in the work, announced that the Piltdown Man was an improvement proof of Darwin's theory. Textbooks included the Piltdown Man as evidence that Darwin was right.
As late as 1950, Nature was citing "New Evidence on the Antiquity of Piltdown Man" and announced that fluorine tests made it even more likely that the Piltdown Man was a single creature. From 1912 to 1953, college textbooks would treat the Piltdown Man as scientific evidence of Darwin's theory. The bulk of the scientific community accepted the Piltdown Man as true.
But in 1953, there arrived conclusive proof that the Piltdown Man was a complete hoax. It represented nothing more than a collection of fossil bones from different creatures which fulfilled the Darwinian fantasy of many scientists seeking a secular god in nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment