Piltdown man was a hoax, what does that mean for evolution?
In 1912 a skull was found near Piltdown, England. Part of a skull, which looked like a modern human’s, and a mandible, which appeared to be apelike, became known as Eoanthropus dawsoni and was thought to be 500,000 years old. In the early 1950’s it was exposed as a fraud.
Piltdown Man was a hoax, but the hoax was uncovered by scientists, not creationists. Even though it took forty years for it to be uncovered, it proves the correcting nature of science. Many scientists, especially outside of England, did not accept Piltdown Man uncritically. Piltdown man began to come under more suspicion as more and more fossils were discovered that contradicted it.
Creationists have hoaxes of their own, like the Paluxy River tracks. Piltdown Man is no longer used by scientists as evidence for human evolution, but many creationists still use the Paluxy River tracks. Please see here.
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