Java man: Discovered by Eugene Dubois in 1891, all that was found was a skullcap, three teeth and a femur. The femur was found 50 feet away from the skullcap a year later.
Orce man: Found in the Spanish town of Orce in 1982, hailed as the oldest fossilized human remains in Europe. A year later officials admitted the skull fragment was not human but came from a 4 month old donkey. (Knoxville News-Sentinel, 1983)
Neanderthal: The first remains were found in France in 1908. Considered to be ignorant, ape-like, stooped and knuckle-dragging, the evidence now suggests that Neanderthal was human. His stooped appearance was because of arthritis and rickets. They are now recognized as skilled hunters, believers in an after-life, and one skeleton's right arm had been amputated above the elbow.
'Embryonic Recapitulation' asserts that the human fetus goes through stages of evolutionary history as it develops. Ernst Haeckel proposed this theory in the late 1860's. He made detailed drawings of embryonic development of eight different embryos in three stages of development. His drawings and data were shown to have been fabricated. He blamed the artist without admitting that he was the artist.
Brontosaurus never existed. The skeleton was found with the head missing. A skull found three miles away was added. The body actually belonged to a Diplodocus; the head was from an Apatosaurus.
Piltdown Man:
In 1912, doctor and amateur paleoanthropologist Charles Dawson said that he had found a jawbone and a cranial fragment in Piltdown, England. The jawbone was ape-like, the teeth and skull were like man's. Allegedly 500,000 years old, they were displayed as proof of human evolution. For more than 40 years, scientific articles were written on "Piltdown man", many interpretations and drawings were made, and the fossil was presented as evidence for human evolution. More than 500 doctoral theses were written on the subject.
In 1949, Kenneth Oakley from the British Museum's Paleontology Department used fluorine testing to date the fossils. A test on the fossil proved that the jawbone did not contain any fluorine. It had been buried only a few years. The skull contained a small amount of fluorine showing that it was not older than a few thousand years.
The teeth belonged to an orangutan, had been worn down artificially. The "primitive" tools discovered with the fossils were imitations that had been sharpened with steel tools. The skull belonged to a 500-year-old man, the jaw belonged to a recently deceased ape! Teeth had been added, molar surfaces were filed to resemble man's. These pieces were stained with potassium dichromate to make them look old. The stains disappeared when dipped in acid. Evidence of artificial abrasion immediately sprang to the eye. "Piltdown man" had been displayed for more than 40 years.
Nebraska Man: One Pig Tooth
In 1922 the director of the American Museum of Natural History declared that he had found a fossil molar tooth belonging to the Pliocene period in Nebraska. This tooth allegedly bore characteristics of both man and ape. A debate began over this fossil. Some interpreted this tooth as belonging to Pithecanthropus erectus, others claimed it was human. It was given a "scientific name".
A picture drawn on the basis of the tooth was published in the Illustrated London News magazine on July 24, 1922. Evolutionists were disappointed when it was revealed that this tooth belonged neither to an ape or a man, but to an extinct pig. The Nebraska man's head and body were drawn. He was pictured with his wife and children.
In 1927, other parts of the skeleton were found. According to these newly discovered pieces, the tooth belonged neither to man or ape. William Gregory announced the truth, "Hesperopithecus: Not an Ape or Man." The drawings of Hesperopithecus haroldcooki and his "family" were removed from evolutionary literature.
The African Native In a Cage
Some evolutionists believed that "half-man half-ape" creatures were alive in parts of the world. Pursuits for "living transitional links" led to unfortunate incidents. Ota Benga was captured in 1904 by an evolutionist in the Congo. His name meant "friend". He had a wife and two children. Chained and caged, taken to the US, evolutionists displayed him to the public at the St Louis World Fair as "the closest transitional link to man". They took him to the Bronx Zoo and exhibited him as "ancient ancestor of man" along with chimpanzees, a gorilla and an orangutan. Dr William T. Hornaday, the zoo's evolutionist director gave speeches on how proud he was to have this "transitional form" in his zoo. He caged Ota Benga as if he were an animal. Ota Benga eventually committed suicide.