From the article:
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When one debates creationists (admittedly a questionable, yet often
very satisfying, habit), one is bound to run up against the infamous
Piltdown forgery. This is the case of an alleged missing link between
humans and so-called lower primates, that was found in England (near
Piltdown, in fact) and announced to the world on December 18, 1912.
The announcement was made by Arthur Smith Woodward, a paleontologist
of the British Museum of Natural History, and Charles Dawson, a local
amateur paleontologist, the actual discoverer of the fossils. The
problem is-as creadonists never tire to point out-that the "Dawn Man
of Piltdown" (scientific name Eoanthropus dawsoni, in honor of its
discoverer) turned out to be a fake. Moreover, it took scientists four
decades to find out! see what happens when one takes the doctrine of
evolution on faith, as one's secular religion? QED.

Many scientists are rather embarrassed by the Piltdown debacle,
somehow managing to feel guilty and indirectly responsible for
whatever goes wrong in their chosen profession.

And yet, as I shall endeavor to explain, Piltdown should be presented
in all introductory biology textbooks as a perfect example of how
science actually works! Let us briefly see how the hoax unfolded. A
complete and engaging version of the story can be found in the 1955
classic, The Piltdown Forgery by J.S. Weiner (one of the scientists
who eventually uncovered the truth), recently re-issued by Oxford
University Press with a new introduction and afterword.
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Read it at http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=115705




J. Spaceman