Is it true that the rancher and geologist Harold Cook discovered a human-looking tooth in Nebraska in 1917? Yes. But then what happened?
The tooth was passed along to Henry Fairfield Osborn, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History. Osborn identified it as an ape tooth, and quickly published a paper identifying it as a new species, which he named Hesperopithecus haroldcookii. He subsequently had 26 casts made of the tooth and sent them to institutions in Europe and the United States for review. The recipients of the tooth were immediately skeptical. British paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward was very skeptical, stating “The occurrence of a man-like ape among fossils in North America seems so unlikely that good evidence is needed to make it credible.”
But How did it get to the London News in the form of a human looking creature? It turns out a Illustrator for the London News (not a scientist) got hold of the story and concocted the ‘popular’ image. What was the response by the science community? How about this:
“such a drawing or ‘reconstruction’ would doubtless be only a figment of the imagination of no scientific value, and undoubtedly inaccurate.” (from Osborne, yes the same one who had identified it as a new species)
Forestier’s reconstruction of Nebraska Man was not reproduced in any scientific publication.
in 1925 Osborne and his colleagues went to the site of the discovered tooth to continue investigating. As they accumulated evidence, they became aware that, despite the tooth’s uncanny superficial resemblance to an anthropoid molar, Hesperopithecus was probably an extinct peccary. A retraction was announced in 1927.
So, what really happened here? A tooth was found. They surmised it was an ape of some kind. They did further research and discovered it was not an ape tooth. This is the VERY core of science, you make an hypothesis, then you research and gather information to back it up. The fact that one person made a wrong hypothesis in the 20’s is hardly a blow to science…
Today, with the evolutionary prehistory of humans firmly documented by African fossil discoveries beginning with Australopithecus in 1924, Hesperopithecus is irrelevant.