The Fossil Record And Hominid Development

The dodo record offers no genuine missing believe in the hominid evolution. Even those dodos, which allegedly validate the opening night that man and ape evolved gradually over time from a common etymon, elicit suspicion of authenticity. An incident causing such(prenominal) suspicion was the discovery of Piltdown Man. In 1912 Charles Dawson discovered a fogey with an “ape-like call on the carpet, but a human cranium“ near Piltdown, England.[i] The glob responded with enthusiasm. One British newspaper reported, “One of the most historic prehistoric finds of our time has been made.[ii] Triumph turned to disgrace, however, when from 1949 to 1953 a infinite of tests were conducted on the fossil to examine its legitimacy. Investigators discovered that “the cranium and lower jawbone were not the same age or paleolithic at all, and the dentition had been filed to make a much human teeth in an apes jaw. The bone tool was modern, and even the fossil rhino tooth and other bones came from elsewhere and were artificially stained to match.”[iii] Thus, the “ more interesting lesson to be learned from Piltdown Man is that scientists, like everyone else, get into be fooled into seeing what they want to see.” [iv] The fossils of Ramapithecus, which “were discovered in N India and in E Africa, beginning in 1932,[v] further mark this lesson. After the initial verdict that Ramapithecus was the last common tooth root between apes and humans, this fossil endured a series of tests to confirm that conclusion. The supporters of Ramapithecus were in short silenced, because “the most damaging blow was the realization that, because of a elemental error in interpreting anatomy, the upper jaw of Ramapithecus had been hypothesise incorrectly.”[vi] The search then ensued for Ramapithecus’ correct location in the fossil record. “Ulimately, enough Sivapithecus remains were found to validate the cr edence that what had been called Ramapithecu! s was completely a smaller...If you want to get a wide essay, identify it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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