We were excavating a rather deep and hot trench in which Father Teilhard, in black clothing, was especially energetic; and, as we thought he seemed a little exhausted, we suggested that he should leave us to do the hard labor for a time while he had comparative rest in searching the rain-washed spread gravel. Very soon he exclaimed that he had picked up the missing canine tooth, but we were incredulous, and told him we had already seen several bits of ironstone, which looked like teeth, on the spot where he stood. He insisted, however, that he was not deceived, so we both left our digging to go and verify his discovery. There could be no doubt about it, and we all spent the rest of that day until dusk crawling over the gravel in the vain quest for more.
I also have some doubt about Teilhard’s flint, for it is the only Piltdown item indubitably found in situ. All the other specimens either came from gravel heaps that had been dug up and spread upon the ground or cannot be surely traced. Now in situ can signify one of two things (and the records do not permit a distinction). It may mean that the gravel bed lay exposed in a ditch, cliff, or road cut—in which case, anyone might have stuck the flint in. But it may mean that Teilhard dug into the layer from undisturbed, overlying ground—in which case, he could only have planted the flint himself.
Again, I regard this argument only as suggestive, not as definitive. It is the weakest point of all, hence its place at the bottom of my list. Perhaps Teilhard was simply a particularly keen observer.
Conclusions
What shall we make of all this? I can only imagine three conclusions. First, perhaps Piltdown has simply deluded another gullible victim, this time myself. Maybe I have just encountered an incredible string of coincidences. Could all the slips in the letters have been innocent errors of an aging man; the comme par exprès merely a literary device; the failure to use his best argument a simple oversight; his conspicuous silence beyond a few fleeting and unavoidable mentions only an aspect of a complex personality that no one has fathomed; his profound embarrassment just another facet of the same personality; the elephant and hippo Dawson’s property…? I just can’t believe it. Coincidences recede into improbability as more and more independent items coagulate to form a pattern. The mark of any good theory is that it makes coordinated sense of a string of observations otherwise independent and inexplicable. Let us then assume that Teilhard knew Piltdown was a hoax, at least from 1920.
We are left with two possibilities. Was Teilhard innocent in the field at Piltdown? Did he tumble to the hoax later (perhaps when he deciphered the inconsistencies in Piltdown 2)? Did he then maintain silence out of loyalty to Dawson who had befriended him or because he didn’t wish to stir a hornet’s nest when he was not completely sure? But why, then, did he try so hard to exonerate Dawson in the letters to Oakley? For Dawson had used him and played on his youthful innocence as cruelly as he had deceived Smith Woodward. And why did he write a series of slips and half-truths to Oakley that embody, as their only pattern, an attempt to extract himself alone? And why such intense embarrassment and such conspicuous silence if he had guessed right but had been too unsure to say so?
Alan Ternes, editor of Natural History, made the interesting suggestion that Teilhard, as a priest, might have heard of the hoax through a confession by Dawson that he could not subsequently reveal. I have not been able to ascertain whether Dawson was Catholic; I do not think that he was. But I am told that priests may regard statements of contrition by other baptized Christians as privileged information. This is the most sensible version I have heard of the hypothesis that Teilhard knew about the fraud but did not participate in it. It would explain his silence, his embarrassment, even the “comme par exprès.” But, in this case, why would Teilhard have tried to construct such an elaborate and farfetched theory of Dawson’s innocence in his first letter to Oakley? Confession may have required silence, but surely not sheltering by falsehood. Any why the slips and half-truths for his own exoneration in the subsequent letters?
This leaves a third explanation—that Teilhard was an active coconspirator with Dawson at Piltdown. Only in this way can I make sense of the pattern in Teilhard’s letters to Oakley, the 1920 article, the subsequent silence, the intense embarrassment.
This conclusion raises two final issues. First, to cycle back to my introduction, conspiracies have a tendency to spread. Once we admit Teilhard into the plot, should we not wonder about others as well? In fact, several knowledgeable people have strong suspicions about some young subordinates in the British Museum. I have confined my work to Teilhard’s role; I think that others may have participated.
Second, what about motive? However overwhelming, the evidence cannot satisfy us without a reasonable explanation for why Teilhard might have done such a thing. Here I see no great problem, although we must recast Piltdown (at least from Teilhard’s standpoint) as a joke that went too far, not as a malicious attempt to defraud.
Teilhard was not the dour ascetic or transported mystic that his publications sometimes suggest. He was a passionate man—a genuine hero in war, a true adventurer in the field, a man who loved life and people, who strove to experience the world in all its pleasures and pains. I assume that Piltdown was merely a delicious joke for him—at first. At Hastings, he was an amateur natural historian, with no expectation of a professional career in paleontology. He probably shared the attitude toward professionals so common among his colleagues—there but for the vagaries of life go I. Why do they have the fame, the reputation, and the cash? Why do they sit at their desks and reap rewards while we, with deeper knowledge born of raw experience, amuse ourselves? Why not play a joke to see how far a gullible professional could be taken? And what a wonderful joke for a Frenchman, for England at the time boasted no human fossils at all, while France, with Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, stood proudly as the queen of anthropology. What an irresistible idea—to salt English soil with this preposterous combination of a human skull and an ape’s jaw and see what the pros could make of it.
But the joke quickly went sour. Smith Woodward tumbled too fast and too far. Teilhard was posted to Paris to become, after all, a professional paleontologist. The war broke out, and Teilhard had to leave just as the last act to quell skepticism, Piltdown 2, approached the stage. Then Dawson died in 1916, the war dragged on to 1918, and professional English paleontology fell further and further into the quagmire of acceptance. What could Teilhard say by the war’s end? Dawson could not corroborate his story. The jobs and careers of other conspirators may have been on the line. Any admission on Teilhard’s part would surely have wrecked irrevocably the professional career he had desired so greatly, dared so little to hope for, and at whose threshold he now stood with so much promise. What could he say beyond comme par exprès.
Shall we then blame Teilhard or shall we forgive him? We cannot simply laugh and forget. Piltdown absorbed the professional attention of many fine scientists. It led millions of people astray for forty years. It cast a false light upon the basic processes of human evolution. Careers are too short and time too precious to view so much waste with equanimity.
But who among us would or could have come clean in Teilhard’s position? Unfortunately, intent does not always correlate with effect in our complicated world—yet I believe that we must judge a man primarily by intent. If Teilhard had acted for malice or in hope of reward, I would have no sympathy. But I cannot view his participation as more than an intended joke that unexpectedly turned to a galling bitterness almost beyond belief. I think that Teilhard suffered for Piltdown throughout his life. I believe that he must have cried inwardly as he watched Smith Woodward and even Boule himself make fools of themselves—the very men who had befriended and taught him. Could the anguish of Piltdown have been on his mind, when he made the following pledge from the trenches during World War I?
I have come, these days, to realize one very elementary fact: that the best way to win some sort of recognition for my ideas would be for me myself to attain, in the trust possible sense of the word, to a “sanctity
” that will be manifest to others—not only because of the particular force God would then give to whatever good is in my aspirations and influence—but also because nothing can give me more authority over men than for them to see me as someone who speaks to them from close to God. With God’s help, I must live my “vision” fully, logically, and without deviation. There is nothing more infectious than the example of a life governed by conviction and principle. And now I feel sufficiently drawn to and sufficiently equipped for, such a life.
Teilhard paid his debt and lived a full life; may we all do so well.
17 | A Reply to Critics
I CAN’T FEIGN either sad scholarly surprise or the wounded indignation of a friendly critic branded as a dishonest miscreant. I knew what would happen when I published the preceding essay. I have not been so certain of swift retribution since I hit that glorious game-winning triple one sunny afternoon in 1950 (on my stickball court, home runs cleared the opposite building, but triples went through the third story windows). If hell has no greater fury than a woman scorned, then true believers know no greater disillusion than a God humanized. Teilhard was an international cult figure during the late 1950s and 1960s. His star burns less brightly today, fickleness being the norm in matters of fashion, but a core of devotees still waves his banner and stands ready to crush underfoot any suggestion that Teilhard’s behavior may have been less worthy (or more human) than the most rarefied notion of ethereal saintliness. Nothing I say will call off their dogs of war, but may I reiterate for others more disposed to listen: honest to God, I am not out to destroy Teilhard. I think that he was a complex and fascinating man—far more inspiring as a real human than as the piece of celestial cardboard touted by his devotees. Also, though it is obviously not for me to say, I really do forgive him if he did what I suspect. He was young; he did not act for profit, either monetary or personal; he suffered; he maintained steadfast and admirable loyalty to all involved; he made no excuses.
Having thus unburdened, I shall proceed, in formulating this reply, to ignore most of the personal and vituperative commentary directed at me. I shall also withhold comment upon the larger volume of supportive and friendly letters—except to say, “Thanks so much for understanding what I tried to do.”
The serious negative commentary came in two waves. For six to nine months after my article appeared in August 1980, I received replies that provided no new information, but gave different interpretations (upholding Teilhard’s innocence) to the same data I presented—usually with arguments that I had anticipated and (at least to my own satisfaction) countered in the original article. The three most interesting pieces in this mode—by Professors Dodson, Washburn, and von Koenigswald—were published along with my response in Natural History for June 1981. I have not reprinted them here, both because I do not wish to burden this volume with too much of my own private passion in this matter, and because I do not feel that either the comments or my response added anything substantive to the debate. But people with a special interest in the subject, particularly those who do not share my opinion, should consult this exchange and not take my word for it.
In the second wave, rebuttals based on new information finally began to appear. I shall discuss here every substantive point that has come to my attention. I believe that the intense scrutiny devoted to my case has so far failed to weaken it—though readers must judge for themselves whether this claim merely reflects my own blind egoism, or a judicious account of the situation.
OTHER INTERPRETATIONS OF TEILHARD’S LETTERS TO OAKLEY
As one of my two strong points, I argued that Teilhard made a crucial slip in dates when he claimed that Dawson had pointed to the site where he had already discovered the remains of Piltdown 2. But, in the “official” chronology, this second find occurred in 1915, while Teilhard was mustered into the French army in 1914 and never saw Dawson again. I discussed three “innocent” interpretations of this slip in my original article, and gave my reasons for preferring a fourth reading—that Teilhard knew about Piltdown 2 because he had either planned or discussed this future episode with Dawson before he left.
Mary Lukas, a biographer of Teilhard and my most persistent critic, offered a first substantive rebuttal in immediate reaction to my article. She charged that Kenneth Oakley and I and all who ever read the Oakley letters had uniformly misinterpreted them. She claimed that Teilhard was referring not to the second Piltdown site—the one that supposedly yielded fossils in 1915—but to a second pit at the first site (which could have been excavated by 1913). But this cannot be because each of three times that Teilhard mentions this second find, he refers to it explicitly as the place “where the two small fragments of skull and the isolated molar were supposedly found in the rubble.” Only one place yielded two skull fragments and a molar: the second site, “discovered” by Dawson in 1915. Since Lukas has since written several pieces attacking my hypothesis, but has never raised this charge again, I assume that she now recognizes its invalidity.
Ms. Lukas’s major article appeared in the Jesuit journal, America, for May 23, 1981. It is primarily a detailed—and quite correct—argument for a different substantive point. In short, she spends most of her article demonstrating that Dawson probably took Teilhard to the site of Piltdown 2 in 1913. She characterizes my case in the following words:
Since in his letter to Oakley Teilhard seemed to demonstrate that he had prior knowledge of Dawson’s plans by admitting he had seen the second Piltdown site before anyone else claimed to have seen it, Teilhard, Mr. Gould continued, must have been guilty with Dawson at Piltdown.
Having thus portrayed my case, and then demonstrating that Dawson did show the second site to Teilhard, Lukas concludes her rebuttal:
Teilhard could well have seen Site 2, the plough field of Sheffield Park, just at the time he would later tell Oakley he thought he had: in the summer of 1913.
I trust that careful readers of the original essay will realize that Lukas completely misrepresents me, and that I have never doubted that Dawson showed Teilhard the site of Piltdown 2 in 1913. I said so explicitly in my original article: “Teilhard did visit the second site with Dawson in 1913, but they did not find anything. Dawson ‘discovered’ the skull bones at Piltdown 2 in January 1915, and the tooth not until July 1915.”
It is a clear matter of public record that Dawson showed the second site to several people before 1915, not only to Teilhard in 1913, but also to Smith Woodward several times in 1914 (as also mentioned in my article). But these trips led to no fossil discoveries. The bones of Piltdown 2 were “officially” unearthed in 1915, after Teilhard left England to join the French army. Yet Teilhard claimed knowledge of the finds before his departure. Lukas has spent a great deal of effort demonstrating something that everyone knows and admits—and that has no relevance to the case.
If these two claims worried me not at all, a third raised in April 1981 initially seemed far more serious. Indeed, I was quite willing to recant this part of my argument (and thus seriously compromise the entire case), if the claim could be substantiated as made. In short, Dr. J. S. Weiner, one of the original Piltdown debunkers and author of a fine book setting out the case for Dawson’s complicity (The Piltdown Forgery, Oxford University Press, 1955), presented a lecture at Georgetown University as part of a celebration for the centenary of Teilhard’s birth. He brought with him a previously unpublished letter from Dawson to Smith Woodward dated July 3, 1913. Reports of the lecture (I was not invited and did not attend) held that the letter spoke of fossil finds—not merely fruitless visits—at the second site in 1913. In fact, the 1913 letter supposedly reported the discovery of a skull fragment that later became part of the Piltdown 2 material. Now, if Dawson actually “found” material at Piltdown 2 in 1913, he might well have mentioned it to Teilhard (why not, since he had already written to Smith Woodward), and my case would evaporate. (I could not, after all, charge Teilhard for his claim that he had seen all three items of Piltdown 2, when Dawson had told him of the sku
ll fragment alone. A clear memory of some fossil material from Piltdown 2 could easily be conflated, forty years later, with the entire later find.)
Thus, I approached the archives of the British Museum (where the original letter resides) in February 1982 with a strong sense of trepidation and humility. But I soon found that the July 3 letter does not speak about the material of Piltdown 2 at all; the smoking gun turned out to be a red herring. The letter reads:
My dear Woodward
I have picked up the frontal part of a human skull this evening on a plough field covered with flint gravel. It is a new place, a long way from Piltdown, and the gravel lies 50 feet below level of Piltdown, and about 40 to 50 feet above the present river base. It is not a thick skull but it may be a descendant of Eoanthropus. The brow ridge is slight at the edge, but full and prominent over the nose. It was coming on dark and raining when I left the place but I have marked the spot…. [Dawson’s italics]
Now the material of Piltdown 2 does include two fragments of skull, one a frontal—and one is considerably thinner than the distinctive and remarkably thickened skull pieces of Piltdown 1. But the thin fragment of Piltdown 2 is an occipital, not a frontal (that is, a piece of the back, not the front, of the skull). (It is also cleverly cut to imitate the thinnest portion of the Piltdown 1 skull, and therefore not to arouse suspicion for its differences.) The frontal fragment of Piltdown 2 is as thick as the skull material from Piltdown 1—indeed (in restrospect) it is part of the same skull used to construct the original forgery. Thus, the thin frontal fragment described by Dawson in 1913 is not part of the Piltdown 2 material. In fact, Dawson himself recognized the differences in his 1913 letter and speculated that the thin frontal fragment might be a “descendant of Eoanthropus” (Eoanthropus was the official taxonomic designation of Piltdown man).
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