'PILTDOWN MAN' WAS A HOAX

In 1912, Charles Dawson, a well-known doctor and also an amateur paleontologist, claimed to have found a jaw bone and skull fragment in a depression near Piltdown, England.  Although the jaw bone resembled an ape jaw, the teeth and skull resembled those of human beings. The fossils were given the name “Piltdown Man,” dated at 500,000 years and were put on display in the British Museum as the most significant evidence of so-called human evolution. A great many scientific papers, analyses and illustrations were produced over the next 40 years. Some 500 academics from different universities wrote doctoral theses about Piltdown Man. 1

On a visit to the British Museum in 1935, the well-known American paleoanthropologist H. F. Osborn said, " . . . Nature is full of paradoxes . . . a discovery of transcendent importance to the prehistory of man." ". . Nature is full of paradoxes . . . a discovery of transcendent importance to the prehistory of man." 2  

But Piltdown Man was A HUGE FRAUD, a deliberately manufactured HOAX.

In 1949, Kenneth Oakley from the British Museum Paleontology Department sought permission to use the newly developed “fluoride test” on a number of ancient fossils. The Piltdown Man fossil was duly tested using the technique. The test revealed that there was no fluoride in the Piltdown Man jaw bone. This meant that the jaw bone had been underground FOR NO MORE THAN A FEW YEARS.  The skull contained a small amount of fluoride and must have been a few thousand years old.

Subsequent chronological research based on the fluoride technique revealed that the skull was no more than a few thousand years in age. It was also realized that the teeth in the jaw bone HAD BEEN ARTIFICIALLY WORN DOWN and that the primitive tools found beside the fossils were REPLICAS carved using steel equipment. 3

An Oxford professor of physical anthropology Joseph Weiner’s detailed analyses definitively confirmed this fraud in 1953. The skull was human, around 500 years old, while the jaw bone belonged to a newly dead orang utan!  The teeth had been added on and set out afterwards to give the impression of being human, and the insertion points had been planed down. All the fragments had then been stained with potassium dichromate in order to give an aged appearance. This staining disappeared when the bones were placed in acid. Le Gros Clark, from the team that exposed the hoax, was unable to conceal his amazement and said:

"The evidences of artificial abrasion immediately sprang to the eye. Indeed so obvious did they seem it may well be asked-how was it that they had escaped notice before?" ⁴ 

The science writer Hank Hanegraaff referred to this astonishing state of affairs as follows: As Marvin Lubenov explains, “The file marks on the orangutan teeth of the lower jaw were clearly visible. The molars were misaligned and filed at two different angles. The canine tooth had been filed down so far that the pulp cavity had been exposed and then plugged.” 5

The evolutionist biologist Keith Steward Thomson made this comment about the Piltdown Man lie, “The Piltdown man forgery of 1912 was one of most successful and wicked of all scientific frauds.” 6 

Following this surprising and, for Darwinists, embarrassing discovery, Piltdown Man was hastily removed from the British Museum where it had been on display for some 40 years. The Darwinist deception was so enormous that a hand-made fossil had fooled the whole scientific world and all mankind for 40 years.  This would inevitably go down as one of the blackest marks in the history of evolution. Professor of Anthropology Pat Shipman described the impact of this fraud:

“The Piltdown fossils, whose discovery was first announced in 1912, fooled many of the greatest minds in paleoanthropology until 1953, when the remains were revealed as planted, altered – a forgery.” 7

The journalist, writer and philosopher Malcolm Muggeridge described the position that Darwinism, propped up by hoaxes such as Piltdown Man, had placed all humanity in as follows:  “I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsly and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.”⁸ 

The Piltdown hoax, committed, at least in the perpetrators’ eyes, in order to eliminate belief in Creation and to convince people of the lie that human beings came into existence spontaneously and with no responsibilities, is actually a stratagem of the antichrist.  But Allah’s glorious creation and matchless works are so apparent and manifest that with today’s science there is nowhere they cannot be seen. These empty endeavors across the world on the part of the antichrist just humiliate him and his followers and clearly reveal the failure of the Darwinism lie. Allah, our Almighty Lord, tells us in verses how He created human beings and makes this sublime creation absolutely clear:

He Who has created all things in the best possible way. He commenced the creation of man from clay; then produced his seed from an extract of base fluid; then formed him and breathed His Spirit into him and gave you hearing, sight and hearts. What little thanks you show! (Surat as-Sajda, 7-9)

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1 Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1980, p. 59.

2 Stephen Jay Gould, "Smith Woodward's Folly", New Scientist, April 5, 1979, p. 44.

3 Kenneth Oakley, William Le Gros Clark & J. S, "Piltdown", Meydan Larousse, Vol. 10, p. 133.

4 Stephen Jay Gould, "Smith Woodward's Folly", New Scientist, April 5, 1979, p. 44

5 Hank Hanegraaff, Fatal Flaws "What Evolutionists Don't Want You To Know", W Publishing Group, 2003 p. 34

6 Keith Steward Thomson, "Piltdown Man: The Great English Mystery Story", American Scientist, vol. 79, 1991, p. 194 - Nicholas Comninellis, Creative Defense, Evidence Against Evolution, Master Books, 2001, p. 197

7 Pat Shipman, "On the Trail of the Piltdown Freudsters" New Scientist, vol. 128, 1990, p. 52 - Nicholas Comninellis, Creative Defense, Evidence Against Evolution, Master Books, 2001, p. 197

8 Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, Grand Rapids MI, Eerdmans, 1980, p. 59 - Nicholas Comninellis, Creative Defense, Evidence Against Evolution, Master Books, 2001, p. 253-254