by Anthony Carpi, Ph.D., Anne E. Egger, Ph.D. Figure 1: Charles
Dawson (right) and Smith Woodward (center) excavating the
Piltdown gravels. In science, as in all professions, some people
try to cheat the system. Charles Dawson was one of those people
- an amateur British archaeologist and paleontologist born in
1864. By the late nineteenth century, Dawson had made a number
of seemingly important fossil discoveries. Not prone to modesty,
he named many of his newly discovered species after himself. For
example, Dawson found fossil teeth of a previously unknown
species of mammal, which he subsequently named Plagiaulax
dawsoni. He named one of three new species of dinosaur he found
Iguanodon dawsoni and a new form of fossil plant Salaginella
dawsoni. His work brought him considerable fame: he was elected
a fellow of the British Geological Society and appointed to the
Society of Antiquaries of London. The British Museum conferred
upon him the title of Honorary Collector, and the English
newspaper The Sussex Daily