The Piltdown man hoax was directed towards the scientific community, while the Cardiff Giant was created by non-scientists to fool the general public. Religion was a large part of most people’s lives, so it was relatively easy for people to be convinced about the realness of the Cardiff Giant. Newell’s cousin wanted to prove how easily the public were influenced. During the 19th century, the public was obsessed with humans with deformities and special abilities, circuses with “freak shows” started to gain popularity. Newell were able to use the freak show phenomenon to their advantage, by making a presentation out of it.
The Piltdown man hoax was designed to upstage previous discoveries. During the time of the hoax, there were constant new discoveries of human relatives all over Europe, except in England. The objective had a focus on upstaging other discoveries, and attempt to make it appear as though there was more prehistoric context in England then there actually was. Most of the previous discoveries were more fragmented while the Piltdown skull had more full pieces.
The Cardiff Giant was successful because the concept of the giant and the news of the “discovery” was able to travel faster than any scientist could have checked and reported on the validity of the giant. America does not have a lot of prehistoric discoveries, so the Cardiff Giant was the first alleged prehistoric discovery. Much fewer people had proper science education especially with an archaeological focus.
The Piltdown man was successful because with all the discoveries being made, there were a lot of missing links that scientists were eager to connect. There had not been strong connections made between all of the discoveries. At this time, human evolution was also still in the process of becoming a strong theory so there was still a lot of research and connections to be made. Since the hoax was orchestrated by scientists in the field, they knew exactly what the field was searching for, and found a way to make connections between the findings, while making England appear as a place to find prehistoric material. The Piltdown man was able to be so successful in fooling the scientists because during the time period it would have been very hard to disprove it. They did not have the forensic capabilities or knowledge that we have today. In modern days, with our technology the Piltdown man would not have been nearly as successful.
I really liked some points that you included in your blog post. I appreciate how you compare the two hoaxes with their time and location aspects. Like you mentioned, both “discoveries” happened in times where they were very relevant. The Cardiff Giant was in a time and place that was obsessed with oddities, which helped give the Cardiff Giant its rapid growing popularity. The Piltdown Man was in a time where there were plentiful human evolution related discoveries in Europe, except for England. So when the Piltdown Man was “found”, it became another great discovery that filled in the missing links of previously believed hypotheses and changed the knowledge scientists had on human evolution. Also you mentioned how two different types of people orchestrated the two events, but both were still successful in fooling the public. While scientists were behind the Piltdown Man hoax, the Cardiff Giant hoaxers were common people just trying to prove a point. Although in both cases, the hoaxers had pre-conceived ideologies that they were trying to prove and support, and in order to do so had to fake their evidence and findings. I also appreciate how you point out that in modern times, the Piltdown Man, and I believe the Cardiff Giant as well, would not have been as successful. In these time periods, the public was pretty naïve and lacked the scientific knowledge to be able to spot a trick like these. Today, we are much more advanced in scientific terms and have the ability to find the hoaxes before they are published to be true.
I enjoyed your post, I found it very interesting that you included the 19th-century’s obsession with ‘freak shows’. In several ways, the Cardiff Giant capitalized on that period’s interests, by combining their love for deformity and what they perceived to be taboo or unusual, and their devotion to religion. I also liked that you mentioned how the success of the Cardiff Giant hoax was in a large part due to the fact that without technology and lesser access to transportation, the public was able to spread the Cardiff Giant hoax around thorough word of mouth long before scientists or historians could ever confirm or even speculate about its authenticity.
I also found it fascinating and rather amoral of the lengths that English scientist went to fabricate the Piltdown Man and trick not only the public but their own colleges. Not only showing obvious amoral character but also a concerning lack of scientific integrity. It also speaks to Englands need to remain at the head of the pack so to speak.
The motives behind the Cardiff Giant are also fascinating because this elaborate albeit rather poorly conceived hoax all spurred from an argument its’ mastermind had with a priest, and his desire to prove the people’s willingness to believe anything that would confirm their religious beliefs. It begs the question if this was his primary motive or if he was mostly motivated by the opportunity for financial gain as he was rather quick to exploit the Cardiff Giant for money.
You have made a lot of really interesting observations and claims that are new to me. Starting with your very first sentence, this point is one I actually have not thought about until now. Reflecting upon both hoaxes, I see how you came to this conclusion and I would have to agree that the Piltdown man hoax was directed more towards the scientific community. Also, at the end of the first paragraph you bring up a really interesting fact about the time period of which the Cardiff Giant hoax takes place. I think the growing popularity of “freak shows” during this time is a really important piece of information when understanding how and why the Cardiff Giant gained the public’s interest so fast and was so widely known.
I really like your idea that the Piltdown man was such a successful hoax because during that time “there were a lot of missing links that scientists were eager to connect”. It would be interesting to see how successful the hoax would be during a different time period when the scientific community was not searching for this missing link and if the hoax would be revealed/ questioned much sooner, because in my opinion, I believe it would. I also agree with your claim at the end of the fourth paragraph regarding the Piltdown man’s success. If during the time of the “discovery” there was technology capable of testing the artifacts for certain chemicals and materials, the hoax would have been revealed much sooner than it had.