Everyone expects scientist to be honest, devoted to the pursuit of the unknown irrespective of the biases and prejudices of the age. But this is only an idealized picture. Scientists do cheat the world, and such practices are most common in the Biological sciences according to two scientific studies published this year. One of these is a research paper published in the prestigious British science journal NATURE. Probably the majority of scientists never cheat, and that is why science and technology is progressing so rapidly. But what troubles everyone is the way these deceptions interfere with the growth of science. Quite often these false conclusions and faked results are blindly accepted by other scientists as true and then they build up their work on these non existent foundations. This happened quite often in Biology, and it is a regular phenomena in the researches dealing with the evolution of life on this planet.
The Piltdown Man fossil discovered in 1912 is one such example. This ape man was created from a few pieces of bones. Supposed to be a very important missing-link in the evolution of man,scientists all over the world published more than 500 learned papers on this single creature. They even erected a monument at the place of discovery to celebrate such an important discovery. But all of this proved to be worthless and misguided when they discovered after 40 years that this fossils was a fake. The fragments of bones came from two creatures instead of one -- a man and a baboon. And contrary to their claims, this fossil was not 500,000 years old !
Most of the students in our schools and college study the theory of evolution. Their textbooks tell them that the theory is based upon solid facts, and therefore only and ignorant person will doubt this theory. But this is not true. At least most of the Indian textbooks still base all their arguments on evidence which have been discredited a long time ago.
Piltdown man, which was exposed to be a fraud is still depicted in many of these books as a proof of evolution. The same is the case with the Neanderthal man, which has been demonstrated to be fully human with no ape connection. The embryological proof for evolution is still found in most of the books which teach evolution. But this so-called proof was disproved at the start of this century. Professor Haeckel, who proposed this proof, was tried by the Jena University Court, and there he accepted that in his pictures of embryo he had deliberately made many modifications. Further, he alleged that hundreds of the best observers and biologists of his time were involved in similar modification of the scientific data to suit their theories.
Pithecanthropus erectus, or what is commonly known as the Java Man, is also not fully objective. It was constructed on the basis of skeletal parts collected from three different places on a river-bed ! He kept hidden skulls now known as Wadjak 1 and 2 for 26 years so that by suppressing this fact his fossil-man might benefit. But finally when he came in competition with another scientist, he displayed these to the scientific community who he had put on a false trail so far. Interestingly, the men from whom these skulls have survived were probably healthier than we are, and they had larger brains than what we have today, showing that only degeneration has taken place. Interestingly, the man who did the Java Man deception was a staunch follower of professor Haeckel who had done the embryological deception.
Another fraud is called "Orgueil fall". A fragment of meteorite was discovered in southeast France in the last century. They demonstrated that this fragment from outside the earth contained organic material which could have come only from living beings, thus proving that life has originated spontaneously. The motivation behind all this was to counter the discoveries of Louis Pasteur, who demonstrated very convincingly that life does not arise spontaneously. The deception was discovered only after about a century of its alleged discovery. Scientists found that the meteorite piece was genuine, but that it was moistened in water and then organic material was affixed to it with some bonding material. It was then heated to give it the appearance of a stone which had heated up while passing through earth's atmosphere.
The theory of evolution is based upon a lot of half-truths and wishful thinking. Unfortunately, a large number of its proofs are fakes and deceptions. If learned scientist have to do this, it is easy to see that the theory stands on shaky ground. Dr. Johnson C. Philip is a scientist and an acknowledged blogging guru having a worldwide following.
