Both the Cardiff Giant and the Piltdown man have interesting stories behind them, but stand for two different reasons. The Cardiff Giant had motives purely for ideology, or lack thereof, and money. On the other hand, Piltdown man was a ploy to revive a sense of nationalism and a desire for fame. The Piltdown man also had an ideology but it was trying to prove a different point. The Cardiff Giant was trying to prove that those who believed in the bible were gullible and will believe anything. Being an atheist, George Hull was determined to prove that an ideology merely existed on people believing anything that resembles something written in the bible. He used the David and Goliath story as a background to the creation of the Giant. The Piltdown man was trying to prove a scientific ideology, the brain centered paradigm. One of the biggest motivations for the Piltdown man was to give England a sense of nationalism. England was not known for any huge archaeological find, and certainly not one that helped with tracking our human past. All of the motivations for both Cardiff Giant and Piltdown man were fairly successful. George Hull and Stub Newell gained fame and fortune from the curious find, and Charles Dawson lit a nationalistic fire for England, while people believed it. The marketing of the Cardiff Giant in Newells “museum” prompted many people to believe what he was preaching about, which assumably answered that people will believe anything.
Personally, the statement about “objective” scientists rings more true to me. Scientists, and technology, at this time were not the most advanced. Which means that scientists didn’t truthfully know the most about everything. However I will say they knew a fair amount and knew what they thought was the full extent. But even so, people who even had a lick of scientific knowledge were still observing these two objects and believed it. Charles Dawson was an antiquarianist, someone who could easily be called a local historian, or even, an amateur scientist. Despite this, people were still very supportive of his findings. It wasn’t until a few years later when skeptics of the Piltdown man were academically able to voice their concerns on the topic. Only until chemical dating was relevant was the Piltdown man able to be considered a hoax. Nearly 40 years went on and Dawson and company were able to successfully complete their agenda of putting England on the “map” for human finds. Though these people were not diligent scientists in the field, being able to convince enough people that the finds were genuine and real shows that humans are able to manipulate anything to ensure the result they are looking for.
Rebekah, I really love how in depth you went in your closing statement. I truly did not take into consideration just how loose the title “scientist” may have been at the time while creating my own blog post. It is disappointing for sure that scientists and citizens of the time were more inclined to believe such falsified information. I am sure this holds true due to the lack of scientific and technological advancements of the time, but I am also positive it is primarily due to the desire to believe in “bigger” things. I opened my own blog post by stating that man’s greatest weakness is certainly the desire to believe in things that are outside the natural realm. Biblical literalism certainly was more prominent during the time of the “discoveries” of the Piltdown Man and Cardiff Giant, though it is still odd to see the people of the time integrating individual belief with science. It is alarming to learn of how easily science/scientific findings could be so easily manipulated by a couple of reputable men claiming they found the “next big discovery”. It genuinely makes me wonder if there are findings out there today that were falsified and just happened to slip through the cracks. Even so today, people will believe things without facts simply due to their own desires and beliefs.