Piltdown Hoax

Piltdown Hoax 

In 1912, in the small village of Piltdown, Charles Dawson was digging in a gravel pit and came upon some ancient human bones. He invited one of the best geologists in England, Arthur Smith Woodward and Pierre Teilhard soon join Dawson to investigate the findings together. The findings showed a cross between a human and a monkey which would prove a stage of evolution in between humans and monkeys. When Woodward made the findings known this had a big effect on the scientific community, for example, it proved Arthur Keith's theory of humans having big brains before they walked upright. Scientists in England rejoiced because they too have ancient human fossils just like the rest of the great countries.  

Every great scientist is human and we all make mistakes. The mistake they made at Piltdown was they were only looking for remains of a human at a different stage in evolution. They did not question what they were finding. 

They discovered during the experimentation phase of the scientific process using several instruments that it was a hoax. After WWII scientists invented a fluorine dating test where they would measure the amount of fluorine in the object and be able to calculate how old it was. They discovered that the remains were only 100,000 years old, the material had all been stained, and the teeth had been filed down. 

It would be possible to remove the human factor by only using computers, but it would not benefit the scientific community. Even though computers would not make mistakes you cant beat a humans intuition, and gut feelings about things. If there was one thing we could learn from the Piltdown incident it would be you cant always trust your superiors for evidence. 

Diet Traits in Primates

Diet Traits in Primates

Chimpanzees 

Chimpanzees live in African rain forests, grasslands, and woodlands. They do walk on all fours, but live and sleep in trees. Chimpanzees are usually fruit and plant eaters, but also consume, insects, eggs, and meat. They have a very broad diet that consists of hundreds of foods. They are even known to be smart enough to shape and form tools using sticks to get to insects and other prey. In chimpanzees they have adapted to having a very wide variety of foods in their diet.

Orangutans

Orangutans live in Sumatra and Borneo rain forests. With their long arms they are well suited to live in the trees where they build nests using leaves and branches. Since the rain is so harsh they often build umbrellas out of large leaves to protect them from the rain. During the daylight hours they search and gather for their food which consists of fruit,leaves,bark,insects, and on rare occasions meat. 

Mountain Gorillas

There are only 700 Mountain Gorillas left in existence and they live in the Virunga Mountains in central africa, Rwanda,Uganda,and the Democratic Republic of Congo. A silver back gorilla that commands them tells them when it is time to eat their vegetarian diet of roots, shoot, fruits, wild celery, bark, and pulp.

Baboons

Baboons live in either Africa or Arabia. Baboons have become destructive to farms as they have become destructive to most farms because of the Baboons diet of crops, grasses, seeds, barks, roots, and they also have a taste for meat. 

 

Spider Monkey

Spider monkeys are found in Central and South America and can also be found as far north as Mexico. Spider monkeys find food in the tree tops and survive on nuts, fruits, leaves, bird eggs, and spiders. Living in the trees they have adapted to the food up there. You can see this because none of their food groups exist on the floor. 

Homologous and Analogous Traits

Homologous Traits

Many animals throughout the animal kingdom have similar homologous structures. humans and bats derived from a common ancestor because they have the same bone structure, but is used for a different purpose. 

As you can see the bat and the humans have the same bone structure. As humans we use our arms and hands to do pretty much everything. Bats have the same bone structure but use it to fly. 

This tiny shrew like creature called the ancestral placental animal is the common ancestor between these mammals. 

Analogous Traits

Many animals have similar structures but no common ancestor. They develop similar structures through evolution in their harsh climate. 

The analogous trait that is similar between these two species is their fins. They could not possess a common ancestor because their bone structures are not similar what so ever. 

Protein synthesis

GACCAGTACACGTGGTGCCAAGGTAGTGTTAGCTCATCGATCTTT