Intergalactic Mega-Genius Scientists Tell the World About Piltdown Man!
Mighty wind-filled utterances, bursting with expertise and qualified professional insights, were everywhere to be found for a time back when 'Piltdown Man' was 'discovered' in 1912. Well, not the whole man, sadly. But some portions of a small human's skull, an orangutan jaw bone, some teeth, and some primitive tools, all found pretty close together in some gravel. It wasn't until the 1950's that it became accepted by the anthropological community that it was only an intentionally planted fraud. The cleverly reshaped jawbone and some teeth were from an orangutan it was eventually decided, and some skull fragments from a modern human. Yes, sadly it turned out to be an intentional fraud. Again, the whole charade was comprised of some fragments of bone strategically placed with a few other items in a gravel bed near the town of Piltdown in East Sussex, England, planted by an amateur anthropologist named Charles Dawson it is suspected, who was the original 'finder'. Perhaps he lacked fame and excitement in his life. He soon got a bit of both. It was named Eoanthropus dawsoni (note the name Dawson embedded in there...very gratifying for Mr. Dawson!) by actual, genuine, highly trained anthropologists with university degrees who had met to discuss the amazing find, which oh, by the way, was oh so competently dated to about 500,000 years of age...you know...the Middle Pleistocene age. So Mr. Dawson got his name in the books for a while...and in the news papers.
No doubt many a scientist in the 1950's let everyone know that they ALWAYS HAD BEEN SKEPTICAL that it wasn't real, truth be known. And it is a matter of record that there actually were some early skeptics in the scientific community. Yet the combined brain cells of every anthropologist who considered the matter took 40 years to decide that, yep, it was an orangutan and some tossed in teeth and tools. But yes, of course they were qualified to steer your children away from faith in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You can be sure that no one or at least hardly anyone lost their college degree in anthropology for having spouted vast streams of pride and imagination bloated knowledge about Piltdown man or his living and survival habits, and there were sketches depicting how the old fellow would have looked...you know, the old fellow that actually never existed, the orangutan. If drawing creatures from their jawbone and a few human skull fragments is a legitimate skill, why doesn't it look more like an orangutan?
Were many people misinformed by these scientists about whether they should believe in God or evolution? You may be sure that many were. But for the scientists, the great tragedy was only that they were made to look like silly dummies that just make things up for a living when they go to work in the morning. The anthropologists involved probably thought it wasn't fair to them because you can nearly always get away with making up imaginary stories about 'ancient man' if you are a scientist educating the poor dumb masses about the history of the Earth and its life forms. Yes, they all got to keep their degrees in anthropology. Yes, they got to continue teaching your children. There are no real consequences for being ludicrously wrong when you are in the anthropological fairy tale business. There were consequences, without doubt, though. Consequences to innocent listeners who believed them.
Some people, especially young people of the time, probably surrendered their faith in God and adopted faith in the scientific view of how the universe came to be because of this 'amazing find'. After all, Piltdown Man was described as possibly being the long sought 'missing link' between ape and man for a while at least. That would be powerful proof of evolution being the creative force which had originated life on Earth, using the secret magical scientific sauce of 'unimaginable numbers of years' as its skillful helper in the mighty attainment. You see, what isn't possible in a few thousand years is magically possible over hundreds of millions of years. Just ask any scientist, not a one of whom has seen anything like that actually take place under actual observation. But you don't have to explain the mechanics of a thing that happens over the course of 'hundreds of millions of years'. That's when the magic happens. It's like saying Abara Cadabara. And you don't have to speak in careful detail about how the odds against life forming itself were overcome. You just say "hundreds of millions of years" and all the other scientists nod wisely, knowing it is so because it sure as 'you know what' can't happen over a few thousand years! So, in their brains, it must have happened over hundreds of millions of years. Yeah, that's the ticket. It is their great secret sin as a group. They grossly misinform people about history, but it gives them a paycheck from their local college or university, and we all need a paycheck to survive. And it's a fun club to belong to, after all. You can go dig up bones in the sunshine, perhaps at some exotic location. Then you can go sit at your microscope and make up fairy tales to peddle to children. It's a great gig, on this side of the grave, anyway. What judgement will there be on the other side of the grave for those who, like such scientists, steer souls towards unbelief in God? We will see, I guess.
In the sad annals of what happens when scientists decide to declare themselves historians there are many stories worth a good chuckle. I read a story from less than 30 years ago about an archaeology department that flew a team to the Isle of Thera in the Mediterranean to look for archaeological remains of some ancient civilization there. Thera has been a candidate for the location of the storied Atlantis in some circles, so a Theran dig could be an exciting one! They actually found a beautiful stone patio at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean, an obviously ancient patio as they could plainly see because of their vast expertise because of their college degree in the subject. They carefully removed the dirt from it during that dig season but didn't finish. They went back the next season and began work again. That is when neighboring native citizens of Thera came by and let them know that a house had once stood there, but it had burnt down. Some of them had actually known the people who had lived at the burnt down house. Well, no worries. Again, no one got their credentials recalled. Just a little embarrassment, that's all.
Perhaps that is worth a chuckle, or perhaps the shedding of tears. These are our highly trained experts. They will dig up some new thing, dream up an ridiculous or perhaps plausible fictionalized story surrounding it, then begin to spout their non-sense to any ear, television show, periodical, or hostage group of college students that they can corner, all the while glowing with the knowledge that they have now made a name for themselves by locating or identifying an amazing new discovery. Many scientific finds have been turned into these embarrassing historical sagas and no small number have been exposed as being entirely off base. But good luck trying to embarrass any scientist anywhere for having misinformed a great number of people, especially young people. They simply do not care. They just launch into an oxygen deprived speech about the nobility of the 'scientific method'. When their 'find' is exposed as something totally different than what they said it was they simply feel sad for themselves, and mumble remarks about science always getting it right eventually because of the nobility of the 'scientific method'. Nothing much more. For a moment it had given them glory, but now all that is gone. They do not lose their teaching position, even if they are uproariously wrong. No one who wrote their Master's Thesis on a fraudulent find loses their college degree. They still get to keep it and go on portraying to the world that they are great intellectual masters of that topic, shaming such dim intellects as might still believe in Jesus and His Holy Father as the author of life.
In sharp contrast, an inept lawyer can be disbarred, an inept realtor can lose their license, doctors and dentists can lose their license for malpractice, and there is an immensely long list of certified professionals who can lose their certification if they show themselves to be appallingly unfit to perform in their area of proclaimed expertise. But a scientist who is comically, woefully, uproariously wrong and off the mark may get away with it completely even if they have thereby greatly misinformed others. There are no real consequences for the scientists that dreams up an absolutely incorrect explanation of the past...of mans' historical origins for instance. And this group...scientists...are the group working so hard to convince everyone that God and Jesus are a myth, yet proclaiming a Universe that threw itself together by accident and produced amazingly complex features that work in concert...even amazingly complex life forms? Well yes, scientists are also in that group. The group being held up to each new crop of youngsters as a wellspring of absolute truths. And honestly, nothing is sadder. The number of misled souls that end up being in Hell because science convinced them that there is no God is looking likely to exceed in number any other group of Hell's residents at this point. "Science, as history teacher " is looking like it will become Satan's all-time most successful tool for the theft of humans' salvation.