The goals of the man (or men) behind the Piltdown Man hoax stemmed from a complicated melting pot of early 20th century sociopolitical, economic, and scientific contexts. All of the Western European powers besides England could claim that they had an important paleoanthropological find that contributed to the greater scientific understanding of human development. These finds were used as a source of nationalistic pride, and the discoverers would gain respect from public and scientific communities alike. The Piltdown Man hoax was driven by national pride, a desire to uphold the “brain-first theory” of human evolution, and the prospect of fame and credibility for the perpetrators.The Piltdown Man was intended to give England a key find in the race to support theories of human evolution. In the case of the Cardiff Giant, the motivation for the hoaxers is mainly just money (with a touch of atheistic vindication thrown in). The Cardiff Giant was essentially created by businessmen and entertainers to make money, and didn’t pretend to be overly scientific, while the Piltdown Man claimed (for decades) to be very genuine. People wanted to believe in the Piltdown Man because its existence would have supported their ideas of brain-first human evolution, and because it would have put Britain on equal footing with the other European powers. Belief in the Cardiff Giant was driven by biblical literalism, and a public Victorian-esque fascination with “curiosities”. The Piltdown Man hoax impacted genuine scientific conversation surrounding human evolution for 30+ years, though it garnered sceptics as early as seven years after the discovery. It was housed in the most respected official museum in the United Kingdom, and was vetted by the Keeper of Geology. On the other hand, the Cardiff Giant never garnered any serious scientific support, and instead was mostly a source of entertainment for the public (and revenue for the hoaxers) rather than any sort of real evidence of giants. I think that both hoaxes exemplify the self-corrective nature of science. In the case of the Piltdown Man, the hoax could still be operating today if the knowledge framework of science was set up differently. For example, if it were considered rude or unethical to ask to examine someone else’s find and draw conclusions from it, archaeologists would be unable to “check each other’s work” in the way that they do today. Even though the Cardiff Giant was never accepted into the greater scientific canon, it still demonstrates that science corrects itself. Multiple trained, respected scientists across different disciplines publicly commented that the giant was an obvious fake. The fact that these men looked at the find and gave logical evidence against it to newspapers shows a dedication to the ways of knowledge-gathering that fall under the scientific umbrella.