Did anyone catch the episode on the Piltdown Man hoax on Nova the other night?-an excellent piece on the biggest hoax in the history of paleontology. Here's a link to the episode synopsis. I highly recommend taking a look when/if it reruns.

Piltdown link at Nova

Yes Rams - Nova's shows are always top shelf. Excellent program.

In it's history, Nova has also had excellent shows on debunking Eric Von Daniken and the Bermuda Triangle stuff.

Von Danken... I read half of his "chariots of the Gods" before getting board. The pages I did read I filled in-between the margerns with my notes and things (he didn't even get gilgamesh straight)
But no, I must have missed the nova episode on piltdown... I'd like to have seen it. If anybody knows when it'le come on again let us know.

the sad part is that the piltdown man is still taught in many textbooks. i remember a college professor using piltdown as part of her evidence (early 90's).

but heck, i was just an engineering student taking the anthro class as a GE requirement. i wasn't going to challenge her.

the word has been out for a while, but it is easy to reject things that don't support your beliefs.

kinda like when an ex-girlfriend in highschool said she was "just friends" with that other guy. I BELEIVED HER!!!! :doh:

kinda like.......bigfoot.

Anyone who teaches (or taught in the '90s) Piltdown as a genuine fossil should be booted ou of their job. Might as well teach that the Earth is flat and has a big cheese-wheel moon swinging around it as the sun revolves around them both. :doh:

But the earth IS flat and the moon Is a green cheez wheel with the sun orbiting... j/k

Woah!
You might just be right...

I found it on the internet... so it MUST be TRUE

Please say you are joking...or that you fell asleep in anthro class and dreamed it. Oakley and Weiner demolished Piltdown circa 1953. Forty years is a long time to catch on...even for an anthro prof.

-Vern