We are grateful to an article in the Times Educational Supplement for drawing our attention to a paragraph in one of our lesson plans which is open to misinterpretation and can be improved. This is a homework exercise on the problem of hoax fossils.
 
This subject is an interesting one, and sometimes neglected. For example, in this week’s issue of the leading science journal Nature, a correspondent draws attention to the ease with which past fossil hoaxes are forgotten:

I was surprised that you managed to discuss palaeoanthropological controversies in your Editorial "Rude palaeoanthropology" (Nature 442, 957–958) without mentioning Piltdown man. The discovery of this 'missing link' in 1912 caused a stir, during the period between the Neanderthal and Australopithecus africanus disputes that you mention. Debate about it continued until it was exposed as a hoax in 1953.
     Simon L. Goodman Nature 443, 394 (28 September 2006).

Our lesson plan did not refer to Piltdown man, but to more recent fakes from China. The most famous example is an “Archaeoraptor” fossil from the Liaoning Province. This appears to have a mix of dinosaur and bird-like features but scientists now believe that it is a fake, made from between two and five separate specimens. More details may be found in this BBC News report.

The problem is particularly prevalent in the commercial market for Chinese fossils. "Almost every one that I've seen on the commercial market has some reconstruction to make it look prettier," says Kraig Derstler, a palaeontologist at the University of New Orleans, quoted in New Scientist. In the same article, Larry Martin of the University of Kansas complains: "The whole commercial market for fossils has gotten riddled with fakery."

As coverage in TES has highlighted to us that these sentences in our lesson plan are open to misinterpretation, we are revising them and will post an update when we have obtained the original files from their author. We view hoax fossils as a comparatively minor problem in the study of origins, but one that may help pupils to consider the nature of scientific evidence and sociological aspects of science. This will be made clear in the revised lesson plan.