What do Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and John Howard have in common with the Piltdown Man? They all managed to sell a hoax that lasted for decades, before it was exposed as completely false. But wait, their hoax is still central to transglobal neoliberal capitalism’s stranglehold on us all, whereas Charles Dawson’s 1912 forged ‘missing link’ skull from East Sussex became a lesson in how dangerous it is to let preconceptions override evidence.
Hoaxes that gush for winners and trickle down for losers By Robbie Lloyd