Piltdown Hoax

The Piltdown hoax was an Archaeological site in England, which was discovered in 1908 by Charles Dawson. The scientific community was shocked at the findings as this was a crucial period for evolution. At the site, a fragment of what appeared to be an ancient human skull was found along with animal fossils.  Perhaps most astonishing find was a jawbone, apparently to the same skull found earlier. The jawbone was surprise because it did not look human, it actually looked more like it belonged to an ape. This remarkable find appeared to fit as the last piece to human evolution puzzle, the “Missing Link”.

The hoax was discovered after Word war two. A new technology, chlorine testing allowed scientist to measure roughly date fossils. When they tested the Piltdown fossils,  the results returned was the fossils were relatively young. It would of made sense, if the remains were millions of years old, however they turned out to be more like hundred thousand. Another evidence on how the findings were a hoax was the fact that the teeth were filed down, the were scratch marks, as if some-one purposely wanted to shape these to a desired shape. Finally the jawbone was tested as well and even more surprisingly it dated back only to less than one hundred years.

Charles Dawson died before the hoax was discovered.  Father Tielhard who was an original member of the findings, was very quiet when the hoax was unraveled.  There were other scientists prior to announcement of the hoax,  who were coming up with mixed results after re-examining the bones. For example in 1913 David Waterson stated that  the skull was of a human and the jaw belonged to an ape. A german anthropologist by the name of Franz Weidenbreich who studied evolution studied the remains and he came to similar conclusion that the skull was perhaps of a fossilized ape and that the jaw appeared to be of an orangutan with filed down teeth.

Scientists are indeed humans, and all humans make mistakes. The faults the come into play for this scenario was simply lack of knowledge. Without the tools and technology they could not have tested the age more accurately. This negatively impacted the scientific process because at the time it formed a falsiable hypothesis which couldn’t be tested wrong. Those who were skeptic, kept silent and choose not to speak out against such prominent figures of the time such as  W.J.  Sollas.

In 1953, Scientists launched full scale analysis of the remains. It included radiological dating methods. Pieces were broken off which could of shown that the jawbone did not belong to the skull. They also removed the pieces that would of shown that the bones did not match directly. Furthermore, evidence showed that the front part of the jaw was broken off which proved to be of an ape and not human like specie.

I think it is possible to remove the “human” factor from science at least to a certain extent. A good example of this would be computers. Large, complex calculation no longer have to be handworked and result in human miscalculation, instead computers accurately calculate a desired data for us. I would like to remove the human factor as much as possible to prevent such incident as the Piltdown hoax from wasting the scientific community’s time.

The moral of the story for me was to be very skeptical when approaching new discoveries from an unverified source.  One can be duped purposely to believe something that is not true and waste precious time. Most importantly, I would limit myself from jumping to conclusions no matter how good the outlook my project to be.

Comparative Primate Blog Post

A) A thorough description of the environment in which the primates lives.

Lemurs are native to Madagascar. They spend most of their time in the trees.  There are different breeds of lemurs such as ring tailed lemurs (pictured), brown lemurs and sifakas. Majority of lemurs are diurnal which means they are awake during the day and asleep during night. Lemurs diet consist of plants and insects.

Spider monkeys are new world monkeys who are typically found in tropical forest of Central and South America.  They live high up in the canope so they can find food (fruits , plants and seeds) easily.

Baboons are extremely adaptatious primates that can be found in various settings. For example Saudi Arabia and Africa.  Like most primates an essential part of their survival is source of water and a safe place to sleep.

Gibbons are extremely arboreal.  They are primarily found in tropical forest of Asia such places as China, India and Indionesia.

Chimpanzees natural habitat is African rain forest. They can be very adaptive as well and can also be found in wetlands, bamboo forests and swam forests. Chimps spend a lot of time in the trees.

B) A description of your specified character trait for that primate. (Sociality and Mating patterns)

Lemurs live a group setting, composed of males and females. In the group there is usually a dominant female who leads them  to food sources. Males in the group normally leave when they mature.  In a social group blood relatives stay close together and groom each other. They can become hostile towards strangers. Adult females are also more dominant than males and show it by biting, chasing and grabbing their male partners.

Spider monkeys are very alert. During the day they break up into smaller groups to gather food . Males tend to stick with each other for lifetime. A group of spider monkeys is led by a female who plans for days food course. Because they lack thumbs, grooming Is not common. Females attract males by their unusual long labia which most often is mistaken for penis.

Mating

Spider Monkeys mate year round. Females choose a male from the group to mate with. Both sexes sniff each other to check readiness to breed. For the first 4 months after a baby is born, it cling to its mothers belly. Males are completely free from parental obligation.

Baboon females are generally close to their mothers, sisters and aunts. They groom, rest and sleep by each other’s side.  They don’t behave similarly with non relatives. For most females they inherit dominance from their mother.  Males dominance on the other hand is entirely based on size and aggression. The bigger in terms of size the males are the more dominant and higher ranking they become.

Mating

High ranking males produce more offspring than low ranking males. They achieve this by spending more time close to female partner, grooming her and frequent copulation.

Gibbons

Sociality

Gibbons live as a family which usually consist of a male, female and a younger offspring. A family is territorial and the couple sing songs in the mornings. There is a balance of power between adult males and females who live together.

Mating

When an offspring nears maturity, the parents evict it to prevent from inbreeding. The mature offspring then embarks on a journey to find a partner, if successful then the couple seek to settle in a territory and defend it.

Chimpanzee

Sociality

Chimps cohabit in communities which vary in size At times the community has gatherings which is considered a social event because the members play, breed and groom. Generally there is adult male who is considered a leader of the community.

Mating

Because chimps live in a mixed gender community the females breed with many males. The males normally treat all offspring as their own. Chimps are considered adults by age 15. The gestation period is usually around 9 months, exactly like humans. This is because chimps are our closest relatives having in common over 98% of our DNA.

C) A discussion on how the primate’s trait expression has been influenced by its environment, i.e., how can the trait be viewed as an adaptation to the primate’s environment.

Lemurs

Compare to other primates lemurs have a longer snout which increases their ability to smell. However unlike other primates they have a smaller brain.  This explains why the dominant female, that has greater sensibility than rest of her group is first to choose a mating partner.

Spider Monkeys

They use their tails to aide them climb trees. They hunt in groups which explains they’re social and matting patterns.

Baboons

Excellent at adapting to various environments such as rainforests and coastal areas. This allows the males to mate with females regardless of what territory or conditions they are in. Without having to worry about food, because Baboons are not picky eat eaters, males can attract females by grooming and spending time with them.

Gibbons

Thanks to their long arms and ability to hook their hands over branches to help them swing from one branch to another. It is in the same environment (treetops) that Gibbons generally mate. Because Gibbons tend to stick around with same partner it understandable why parents evict their sub-adult offspring from their territory to decrease chances of inbreeding.

Chimpanzee

The fact that Chimps tend to live in communities might explain how they're social and mating pattern. Chimps follow a social order from their hierarchy thats influenced largely by females in that subgroup. The males guard their territory and females mate with multiple males.

Summary

Summarize your findings, evaluating the level of influence the environment has on the expression of physical and behavioral traits.

The environment plays a crucial role on physical and behavioral traits of these primates. For example most of these primates if not all are considered endangered species due to humans hunting them, altering or destroying their living habitat. Take Spider Monkeys for example, where the males tend to stick with each other most of their life and hence are likely to be close relatives. With an increase in humans hunting them and destroying their habitat, it will be extremely difficult for the monkeys to find food, shelter and partners. More importantly their endangerment also influences their mating patterns as they are know to break up into smaller groups during the day and the females disembark or abandon their families to join other groups. Therefore altering a natural environment places a stress on these primates to adapt in order to be successful at life's essential ingredients and produce offspring that carries a more dominant trait for adapting into more challenging environments.

Analogy/Homology Blog Post

1) A. Two different species that possess the homologus trait are butterflies and dragonflies.

B) Dragonflies and butterflies possess two pair of wings.  The butterfly's wings are made up of two large pairs of wings eachpossessing a forewing and a hindwing.  The veins in the wings nourish them with blood.  Butterflies can’t fly if the temperature of their body falls below 85 degrees and therefore need to sun themselves in order to warm up.  Some butterflies can fly up to 30 miles per hour. 

Dragonflies have two pairs of wings that are transparent, rigid, straight, and have few veins.  They do not fold or bend.  Unlike butterflies, dragonflies are experts at flying.  They can reach speeds up to 90 miles per hour! They can fly sideways, backwards, hover, turn at right angles and of course fly straight

C) The ancestors of modern dragonflies are called Protodonata which were among the 1st winged insects on Earth. The reason we know their ancestor possessed this trait is thanks to fossil records.

D)

2) A. An of example of analogous traits would be the fins of whales and the fins of fish.

B. Both whales and fins each possess at least 1 fin. The primary function of their fins is to guide them during their swim.

Fins located in different places on the fish serve different purposes, such as moving forward, turning, and keeping an upright position.

c. The common ancestor of these two species did not possess this analogous trait. The reason being Whales developed their fins independently.

D.

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