Page 162 - The Evolution Impasse 2

160 Phylum (Plural: Phyla)

PHYLUM (PLURAL: PHYLA) PILTDOWN MAN FRAUD,
THE
Biologists clas si fy liv ing things
in to var i ous sep a rate groups. This In 1912, Charles Dawson, a fa -
clas si fi ca tion, known as tax on o my or mous doc tor and al so an am a teur
sys tem at ic bi ol o gy, con sists of hi er - pa le on tol o gist, claimed to have dis -
arch i cal cat e go ries. cov ered a jaw bone and part of a
Living things are first di vid ed in - skull in a grav el pit near the vil lage
to king doms, such as the plant and of Piltdown in England. Although
an i mal king doms, which are then the jaw bone re sem bled that of an
sub di vid ed in to phy la. ape, the teeth and skull re sem bled
In de ter min ing these phy la, each those of hu man be ings. These spec i -
of all the dif fer ent ba sic body types mens were giv en the name of
has been con sid ered. For in stance, Piltdown Man, an age of 500,000 was
ar thro pods (joint ed legs) are one es ti mat ed for them, and they were
sep a rate phy lum, and all the spe cies ex hib it ed in var i ous mu se ums as in -
in it have a sim i lar body plan. The con tro ver ti ble proof of ev o lu tion.
phy lum known as Chordata con - For some 40 years, they were the
tains all those spe cies with a cen tral sub ject of many sci en tif ic pa pers,
nerv ous sys tem. All the an i mals fa - anal y ses and re con struc tions. Some
mil iar to us, such as fish, birds, rep - 500 ac a dem ics from var i ous uni ver -
tiles and mam mals rep re sent a sub - si ties all over the world pre pared
di vi sion—ver te brates—of the phy - doc tor al the ses on the sub ject of
lum Chordata. Piltdown Man. 181
Among the dif fer ent an i mal phy - On a vis it to the British Museum
la there are very dif fer ent cat e go ries, in 1935, the fa mous American pa le o -
such as Mollusca, which in clude an thro pol o gist H.F. Osborn pro -
soft-bod ied crea tures such as oc to - claimed Piltdown "a dis cov ery of
pus, and the phy lum Nematode, tran scen dent im por tance to the pre -
which in cludes round worms. The his to ry of man," and add ed, "We
cat e go ries be neath phy la have bas i - have to be re mind ed over and over
cal ly sim i lar body plans, but phy la again that na ture is full of par a dox es
are al to geth er dif fer ent from one an - …" 182
oth er. In 1949, Kenneth Oakley of the
British Museum's

The Evolution Impasse II