missing link. Fame and fortune awaited the scientist who found the link proving Darwin right: that man evolved from a monkey.
In 1912, success! In a gravel pit near Piltdown in East Sussex, there was found the cranium of a man with the jaw of an ape.
Evolution skeptics were pilloried, and three English scientists were knighted for validating Piltdown Man.
It wasn t until 1953, after generations of biology students had been taught about Piltdown Man, that closer inspection discovered that the cranium belonged to a medieval Englishman, the bones had been dyed to look older and the jaw belonged to an orangutan whose teeth had been