It seems that man is never satisfied to except his stature in nature. He is always wondering where he came from and always trying to find evidence of that link, the missing link.

PILTDOWN MAN
On of the most famous discoveries was that of Piltdown man. It was felt that this was one of the most important discoveries of human lineage in all history. The year was 1912 and the location was Piltdown in England. Charles Dawson claimed he had found a skull that proved man's evolution. No one at the time suspected that the skull that was found was a hoax. It had been constructed by adding fossil pieces of a human skull and the jaw of an ape. The hoax fooled everyone until in 1953 the fraud was discovered. The teeth in the jaw were discovered to have been filed down to resemble human teeth.

NEBRASKA MAN
This find took place in 1922 in western Nebraska. Dr. Henry Fairfield Osborn of Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History found a tooth in ancient earth deposits. His determination was that this tooth had characteristics of man and ape. He believed that this tooth contained the story of evolution of man from ape. Newspapers ever constructed what this pre man looked like. Years later the tooth was found to belong to a pig. Was this an embarrassment to the scientific community, I think so, but sometimes the best thinking of the times is wrong and this was one of those cases.

Dinosaur/Bird
In 1999 a fossil of a link between birds and dinosaurs was revealed to the public. It was such a monumental find that National Geographic Magazine acknowledged its importance by stating "a true missing link in the complex chain that connects dinosaurs to birds.". But its importance in the scientific community was short lived. A Chinese paleontologist stated several months later that he thought that the fossil was made up of different animals. When the fossil was X-rayed it was found to contain several different layers of sediment and therefore had to be a fraud. The fossil had been purchased for $80,000. This was surely a case of Caveat Emptor or let the buyer beware.

Giant Human Footprints
In the late 1930s there was an area of Texas know as the Paluxy River limestone bed where there were many dinosaur foot prints embedded. The people from the nearby town used to cut them out and sell them. This was fine until some began to manufacture foot prints. Not satisfied with dinosaur foot prints they began to make giant human foot prints. These foot prints fooled many people and scientists and still fools unsuspecting people today.

The Sea Monster
In 1845 a man named Albert Kock decided to call himself doctor and took the bones of several whales and constructed a sea monster fossil. It was said to be over 110 feet long. Once finished he put in on display in England and the U.S. To his surprise he was exposed in both countries as a fraud.

The Feejee Mermaid
The Feejee Mermaid was brought to America by Dr. J Griffin. He said he purchased it in South America. Supposedly he was on his way with it to a museum but agreed to display it in New York. It attracted huge crowds. P.T. Barnum, not to miss this golden opportunity, had it moved to his American Museum. The entire thing was a fraud. Griffin was an old friend of Barnum and they had thought up the entire event to drum up interest in the so called mermaid. The mermaid was really a monkey's body with a fishes tail. Both dried out. When Barnum would advertise the mermaid he would show a beautiful girl. This was more P.T. Barnum showmenship than scientific fraud.

A Fossil Dig
Photo Source: US Department of Energy

There are some people that say that all evidence of evolution is nothing more than a big lie. Even a person of only average intelligence has to wonder how can science predict an evolutionary trail from only a few pieces of bone? Most of the time there isn't even a complete bone set. There are two problems here, one is overzealous scientists trying to prove evolution by any means and some people who wouldn't believe evolution even if it were proven because they believe that evolution is against their religion. I am not saying either one is right but I am saying to those certain scientists that they are destroying science. If true evidence is ever found, it might not be believed. For those people that think evolution is against their religion because they believe that God created us in his own image, it might still be possible even if evolution is proved. Think of this, maybe man was only an animal without a soul and evolved to a point where he was in the image of God, and at that point he was given a soul. Since the bible say God created everything, he would have created the animal that became man. This was just a little food for thought, please don't yell if you disagree, you have all the right in the world to disagree. If you want to contact me with your opinion that's ok, just click HERE.