Paleontologists Just Took a Closer Look at Renowned Fossil from 1930s, Realize Science Has Been Fooled for Nearly a Century
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
In 1912, Charles Dawson, an eccentric amateur paleontologist and anthropologist, proclaimed the sensational discovery of skull fragments claiming it was the “missing link” between apes and humans.
The find, from a quarry in Piltdown, England, purportedly represented a human-like cranium with an ape-like jawbone, dating back about 500,000 years, according to Popular Mechanics.
For over 40 years, the Piltdown Man was hailed as a crucial piece of evidence in human evolution — until it was exposed in 1953 as an elaborate hoax. It was a meticulous forgery, with the bones artificially aged by bleaching to create the illusion of human and ape characteristics coexisting.
Other fossil hoaxes litter the paleontological landscape.
A single tooth found in Nebraska was touted as belonging to an early human ancestor — until it was revealed to be from a pig species. The so-called “Archaeoraptor,” hailed as a missing link between dinosaurs and birds in 1999, turned out to be an ingenious forgery cobbled together from ancient bird and dinosaur fossils.
And the fakes keep on coming. Here’s the latest one:
A new study revealed that a remarkable fossil discovery in the Italian Alps of a small lizard-like creature supposedly killed 280 million years ago, with its soft tissues incredibly preserved as a carbonaceous film, is, in fact, a fake, according to Forbes.
Put the “pseudo” label where it belongs. Fossil that Scientists have studied for 90+ years turns out to be fake.
They even named it “Tridentinosaurus antiquus” and claimed it was a reptile from a time before dinosaurs.
However, the recent analysis revealed that the black… pic.twitter.com/FQtsYjTKdc
— Ancient Hypotheses (@AncientEpoch) March 6, 2024
Dubbed Tridentinosaurus antiquus, it was hailed as the oldest “mummy” fossil ever found in the region and a window into the biology of prehistoric reptiles.
Some scientists even went so far as to theorize that the creature was killed during a volcanic eruption by a pyroclastic surge 280 million years ago.
Why 280 million and not 324 or 536 million?
Your guess is, apparently, as good as theirs.
Now, findings from a team led by Valentina Rossi at the University of Cork have revealed that the supposed soft tissues in the famed fossil are likely not original but rather an elaborate historical forgery.
Their first clue came from ultraviolet light analysis, which showed that the entire specimen was coated with an unknown UV-reactive material like a lacquer or varnish, meant to enhance the fossil’s appearance.
Additionally, subsequent chemical analysis using X-rays found no traces of the original organic matter underlying the coating.
The team had hoped to extract insights about the animal’s anatomy, coloration and physiology from pristine soft tissues. Instead, their high-tech probing exposed an ancient con.
The hindlimb bones do appear genuine, and bony scales called osteoderms were identified, hinting at the animal’s lizard-like appearance. Footprints and tail drag marks from that era also confirm similar reptilian creatures existed but it is not the unique find they believed it was.
“Fossil soft tissues are rare, but when found they can reveal important biological information,” Rossi explained, adding, “We had to study this fossil in detail to reveal its secrets — even those that perhaps we did not want to know.”
The truth is science does not know what it does not know.
And yet, scientists continue to insist that they are right against all odds, until they are proven wrong.
In his 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore cited scientific claims that global sea levels could rise a staggering 20 feet in the “near future” due to climate change.
However, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tells a different story. NOAA reports that since 1880, global mean sea level has risen just 8-9 inches. Even looking at the more recent period of 1993-2021, sea levels have only increased by 3.8 inches. At this gradual rate of sea level rise observed by NOAA, it would take approximately 1,136 years for the oceans to rise 20 feet globally, according to Fox News.
Whether it’s prehistoric history or predicting climate change, scientists could use a little, or large, dose of humility when speculating.
Rather than making absolute assertions about events hundreds of millions of years in the past, or dire climate calamities to come, researchers would do better to admit that their predictions are just educated speculation.
The history of science is replete with examples of widely accepted ideas and “established facts” being subsequently overturned or heavily revised in the face of new information.
For people of faith, our trust doesn’t rest in the scientific community’s fallible predictions and ever-changing guesses but in the infallible Word of God.
However much has been learned, there will always be more mysteries to unravel, puzzles to solve and frontiers of the unknown to explore.
Humans will never have all the answers to the mysteries of the universe — that domain belongs solely to its Creator.
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