Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus dawsoni) was a proposed series of extinct hominid, providing the 'missing link' in the evolutionary chain between apes and modern man. The remains were 'discovered' by Charles Dawson between 1910 and 1912 and taken to the British museum. In 1953 it was discovered that the fossils had been faked, the jaw bone discovered being that of a modern ape which had been stained to appear to be a fossil, and in 2003 it was discovered that Charles Dawson was the perpetrator of the fraud - other 'fossils' which he had stained with intent to deceive having been discovered - which he did for financial benefit, and to progress his career so that he might join the Royal Society. Research Piltdown Man
The Royal Society is a discussion and philosophical organisation organised in 1660 and constituted by Charles II as The Royal Society of London, with the aim of 'improving natural knowledge'. Research Royal Society
Originally, statistics was the branch of political science dealing with the collection, classification, and discussion of numerical facts relating to the condition of a State or community. Now it is the study of numerical data, their classification and analysis. It embraces every department of activity and knowledge to which numerical comparison can be applied, but properly applies to social facts, and its greatest use is in economics and public administration.
The usefulness of statistics is seriously reduced by the ease with which they may be slewed. For example: statistically air transportation is safer than travelling by motor car when comparing accidents over the distance travelled, that is per mile travelled. However, when one compares the statistics of fatalities over the number of journeys made, irrespective of distance, then travelling by aeroplane is ten times more likely to be fatal than travelling by motor car (according to the British Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents).
A further example of how statistics can be slewed is in the popular use of averages, properly the mean average. The reliability of a mean average in establishing the general value of a group of values is strongly dependant upon the large number of elements being compared. For example, if a government wishes to show that the average wage being paid to workers is far higher than it really is, they need only to include a few extraordinary high wage values in the set of figures to offset the more prevalent low values. For example, take a set of 1000 elements each of which has a value between 18,000 and 20,000. Obviously the mean average will accurately describe a value between 18,000 and 20,000. Now add a single value of 500,000 to the set and the mean average will rise by over 450, and yet the most common value will remain the same, between 18,000 and 20,000.
Careful selection of values for inclusion in statistics can also be used to slew the results. A survey of members of the public sounds objective, and gives the impression of being representative of the populace. However, a survey of the public in which only men wearing business suits are selected will in all likelihood produce very different results to a survey in which equal proportions of men and women of varying ages, ethnic origins, and modes of dress are sampled.
Similarly, a survey on morality carried out among adults leaving church on a Sunday morning, should be expected to reveal a different result to a survey carried out among adults leaving a night club in the early hours of a Sunday morning, and yet both could be honestly described as a survey of adults.
The willingness with which the general public accept the findings of statistics, and the difficulty in establishing the objectivity of otherwise of such findings, has long been a powerful weapon in the arsenal of propaganda used by politicians and by advertising firms. Research Statistics
The Talgai skull is a fossil humancranium found in 1884 in the Darling Downs squatting district near Talgai, South Queensland, Australia. The fossil attracted no attention until the Sydney meeting of the British Association in 1914. A report presented by Dr S A Smith of Sydney to the Royal Society in 1918 showed the skull to belong to a male of about sixteen years old who was contemporary with Pleistocene marsupials now extinct. The skull's brain capacity was larger than that of modern Australian aborigines, and the enormous palate, while resembling that of the anthropoids more closely than any human jaw yet discovered, most closely resembled the palate of the recently extinct Tasmanians. In 1920 Dubois reported that two skulls found by him in Java in 1890, more primitive than the Australoid, supported the Queensland evidence that early man migrated from Asia into the Australian region in the distant past. Research Talgai Skull
The Wildlife Trusts partnership is a royal society for nature conservation, comprising a network of 47 independent British wildlife charities and more than 100 urban wildlife groups, patroned by the Prince of Wales, which cares for more than 2400 nature reserves, covering an area of 76200 hectares in the British Isles ranging from remote islands off the Scottish coast to restored industrial sites in the heart of London. The Wildlife Trusts' President is Professor David Bellamy, and Vice Presidents are Sir David Attenborough, Professor Chris Baines (who is also President of the Urban Wildlife Partnership), Sir John Burnett, Professor GL Lucas, Professor David MacDonald, Julian Pettifer, Sir James Swaffield, Professor Robert Worcester and Dame Miriam Rothschild. Research Wildlife Trusts
Abraham Cowley was an English poet. He was born in 1618 at London and died in 1667. He was one of the metaphysical school of poets who followed John Donne in his use of far-fetched conceits. He published his first volume, Poetic Blossoms, at the age of fifteen. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1636, but was ejected as a royalist in 1643, and removed to St John's College, Oxford. He engaged actively in the royal cause, and when the queen was obliged to quit England, Abraham Cowley accompanied her. He was absent from his native country nearly ten years, and it was principally through him that the correspondence was maintained between the king and queen. On the Restoration he returned with the other royalists, and obtained the lease of a farm at Chertsey, held under the queen, by which his income was about 300 pounds sterling per annum. Abraham Cowley's poems have failed to maintain their ancient popularity, but he still holds a high position as a prosewriter and as an essayist. He took a considerable interest in science, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. His chief works are: Love's Riddle, a pastoralcomedy; Davideis, a scriptural epic; Naufragium Joculare; The Mistress, a collection of love verses; Pindarique Odes; Liber Plantarum; etc. Research Abraham Cowley
Abraham Demoivre was a French mathematician. He was born in 1667 and died in 1754. He settled in London after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and gained a livelihood by becoming a teacher of mathematics. His chief works are: Miscellanea Analytica; The Doctrine of Chances, or a Method of Calculating the Probabilities of Events at Play; and a work on Annuities; besides Papers in the Transactions of the Royal Society, of which he was a fellow. Research Abraham Demoive
Alexander John Ellis (born Alexander Sharpe) was an English philologist. He was born 1814 and died in 1890. A distinguished graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, he was elected to the Royal Society in 1864, and was long an influential member of the Philological Society, being more than once its president. Though phonetics was the subject in which he most highly distinguished himself, he was equally at home in mathematical and musical subjects. His chief published work is Early English Pronunciation (in five parts) between 1869 and 1889; but his publications in the form of books, pamphlets, papers, and articles on phonetics, music, mathematics, etc, were numerous. Research Alexander Ellis
Sir Alfred East was a British painter and etcher. He was born in 1849 at Kettering and died in 1913. He studied art at Glasgow School of Art and at Paris under Tony Fleury and Bouguereau. He became a landscape painter of pronounced individuality, though with a strong sympathy with Jean Corot. Sir Alfred East was elected ARA in 1899 and RA in 1913. In 1906 he was chosen as president of the Royal Society of British Artists and in 1910 was knighted. Research Alfred East
Sir Benjamin Collins Bartholemew Brodie was an English surgeon. He was born in 1783 and died in 1862. He was the leading surgeon of his day, and attended George IV, and was sergeant-surgeon to William IV. and to Queen Victoria. He was made a baronet in 1834; from 1858 to 1861 was president of the Royal Society, and was connected with many other scientific and learned societies. He published a number of works all connected with his profession. Research Benjamin Brodie
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Abbreviations
Research Piltdown Man
