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Fraud Friday: The Fake Fossil Finder w/ Adam Conover - Scam Goddess | Wave AI Podcast Notes

Fraud Friday: The Fake Fossil Finder w/ Adam Conover

Fri Aug 29 2025

In this week's Fraud Friday, Laci is joined by Adam Conover (Adam Ruins Everything) to discuss amateur British archeologist Charles Dawson, who committed one of the greatest frauds in all of archaeological history. Plus, “Yellowstone” actress Q’orianka Kilcher has been charged with two felony counts of workers’ compensation fraud. Stay Schemin’! (Originally Released 09/19/2022) CONgregation, catch Laci's TV Show, Scam Goddess, now on Freeform and Hulu! Did you miss out on a custom signed Scam Goddess: Lessons from a Life of Cons, Grifts and Schemes book? Look no more, nab your copy here on PODSWAG Follow on Instagram: Scam Goddess Pod: @scamgoddesspod Laci Mosley: @divalaci Adam Conover: @adamconover Research by Kaelyn Brandt SOURCES: https://www.livescience.com/56327-piltdown-man-hoax.html https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/feb/05/piltdown-man-archaeologys-greatest-hoax https://people.com/tv/qorianka-kilcher-insurance-fraud-case-everything-to-know/

Summary

Scam Goddess Podcast — Fraud Friday: The Fake Fossil Finder w/ Adam Conover

Date: August 29, 2025
Host: Laci Mosley
Guest: Adam Conover

Episode Overview

In this Fraud Friday classic from the Scam Goddess vault, comedian and host Laci Mosley welcomes Adam Conover (Factually, Adam Ruins Everything, The G Word) to dive into the wild world of archaeological fraud. Together, they dissect the story of Charles Dawson and the infamous Piltdown Man hoax — one of the most spectacular scientific scams in history. Along the way, Laci and Adam riff on their own real-life brushes with scams, discuss the pressures of workplace capitalism, and reflect on the broader implications of gullibility, bias, and fraud throughout history.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Scam Confessions and Everyday Hustles

Timestamps: 02:36–10:33

Adam’s LA Scam Story:
Adam recounts being scammed by a man in LA who promised to fix the scrape on his car, only to make it worse and pressure him for extra cash.

"He jumps out of whatever van he was in, pulls out some kind of weird solvent... just makes the whole thing look worse." — Adam Conover [03:25]
Both Laci and Adam reflect on the awkward social pressure of such situations, and the prevalence of hustle culture in LA.
On Internalized Capitalism:
Adam and Laci discuss how people end up paying for bad services out of politeness, and segue into a broader point about feeling pressured to “do the right thing” at work or during scams.

"You pay somebody to fuck it up more. But I would have done the same thing as it would have felt awkward. I'm like, well, thank you for your service." — Laci Mosley [04:22]

Listener Scam: The Paid-For-My-Own-Overtime Scheme

Timestamps: 10:33–20:41

Listener Letter Breakdown:
A fan (“Mortimer O’Houlihan”) writes in about sneaking extra hours on the weekend at work and forging an email to get them compensated — only for Adam and Laci to note the real scam is a toxic employer:

"Mortimer, this is a horrible story... You're getting scammed. That you unfortunately are the one getting scammed." — Adam Conover [17:06]
- Laci and Adam emphasize how companies exploit "internalized capitalism," making employees feel guilty for demanding their due rights or payment.
"If you need anything from them, they like, 'Oh, hello. No, we're a business.' Everyone wants to be Olive Garden when they need something from you." — Laci Mosley [18:48]

Historic Hoodwinks: The Piltdown Man Hoax

Timestamps: 23:42–53:41

Introducing the Piltdown Man:
Laci presents the story of Charles Dawson, an amateur British archaeologist who claimed to find the “missing link” in Sussex, England in 1912.
- Adam and Laci riff about how archaeologists’ work is often misrepresented as glamorous.
"They're always doing makeup on the bones, you know what I mean? They're just feeding the bones... giving them a nice blush and foundation." — Adam Conover [24:53]
The Anatomy of a Scientific Scam:
- British scientists, desperate to have an early-human find like other countries, accept Charles’ fraud uncritically.
- A single vocal critic, David Waterson, is ignored because the find fits what the community wants to be true.
"It's really hard to convince people a hoax isn't true when they want it to be true." — Adam Conover [40:16]
The Details of the Fraud:
- Dawson’s “discovery” included wrongly matched human skull fragments, filed orangutan teeth, and a “cricket bat” bone implant, all to make the supposed skeleton distinctly British.
"So now they're just making anything up. They like, oh, my God. The first man, he was definitely British. He was super white. He loved cricket and tea." — Laci Mosley [41:15]
- Despite evidence to the contrary, scientists and the public believe the Piltdown Man for decades because it confirms national pride and biases.
Decades Later: The Reveal
- Only after new scientific methods in the 1940s–50s was the hoax uncovered: the bones were a jumbled mix, jaw and skull from different (and much later) species, and artifacts were faked.
- The scam endures as a warning about scientific bias, groupthink, and the dangers of letting personal or national ambitions blind reason.
"40 years is like a long time to be taken in by a fraud. When all the scientists of the world were working on this, I am a little bit embarrassed for them, honestly." — Adam Conover [53:01]
- Discussion broadens into how every era has its own “accepted truths” that may one day be revealed as scams.

Memorable Quotes & Moments

"My fans already have personalities, very fine personalities, but their personalities are enhanced and improved by watching the show." — Adam Conover [25:52]
"A lot of history is revised by, you know, whoever was the most evil and murdered everybody." — Laci Mosley [53:41]
"A lot of people do it. They like to make their own conjectures... but I don't participate in that, you know, so they would get me with this. I would be like, yeah, it looked like a old brain to me... Looks good." — Laci Mosley [49:17]

Scammer of the Week

Timestamps: 55:25–59:38

Spotlight: Actress Q’orianka Kilcher, charged with two counts of worker’s comp fraud for allegedly collecting disability payments while working on TV (“Yellowstone”).
Both Laci and Adam sympathize and highlight the disparity in public outrage over small-scale scams versus celebrity or corporate fraud.

“We do not need to put this beautiful woman in jail. Like that is very ghetto.” — Laci Mosley [58:43]

Epilogue & Takeaways

Awareness and Skepticism:
Fraud persists where there’s desperation, bias, and lack of oversight. The story of the Piltdown Man is a reminder to stay curious, skeptical, and aware of our own biases — whether it’s at work, in history, or reading the headlines.
Workplace Realities:
Sometimes, the real scam is the system itself. Demand what you deserve, and don’t let “internalized capitalism” make you complicit in your own exploitation.
Comedy as Critique:
Laci and Adam use humor to deflate pomposity and expose frauds — whether historical or current — while encouraging compassion for those caught up in scams.

Where to Find More

Adam Conover:
Listen to the Factually podcast for in-depth interviews with experts on a huge variety of topics.

“You will learn, you will laugh. It’s a great time.” — Adam Conover [59:54]
Laci Mosley:
@DivaLaci on all social platforms, Scam Goddess podcast for weekly fraud-filled fun.
Submit your own scam stories to scamgoddesspod@gmail.com.

⚡️ Notable Moments & Timestamps

Adam’s LA scam story: [02:36–06:58]
Listener scam & workplace hustle discussion: [10:33–20:41]
Piltdown Man hoax story start: [23:42]
The 'cricket bat' bone absurdity: [41:15]
Scientific community finally exposed: [47:55–53:41]
Scammer of the Week segment: [55:25–59:38]

Closing Tone

Funny, fast-paced, irreverent, and thoughtful — combining real history, laughter, and hard truths about scams, systems, and our own willingness to believe.

"Congregation, stay scheming!" — Laci Mosley

Loading summary...

Transcript

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Laci Mosley (0:31)

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Laci Mosley (0:37)

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Laci Mosley (0:48)

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Laci Mosley (1:02)

What's poppin, Congregation? It's your girl, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess. Welcome to an episode of Fraud Fridays where we release older episodes from the Scam Goddess vault. That's right, Fraud Fridays is where we bring back your favorite episodes from behind the Paywall. Enjoy this episode from behind the Paywall and as always, stay scheming. Scams cause robbery and Frau Scam Cause robbery and fraud Scam Goddess. What's poppin Congregation? It's ya girl, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess. And we're back with another installment of Scam Goddess, the podcast all about robbery, fraud and those who practice it. Sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them. But someone I definitely do not hate. And I'm very. What, yes. Excited for on the podcast. I really, truly am. This is a great get. Huge get. I've been on many a zoom with this man for many years. So what's one more zoom? Guys, we have an amazing guest for the show today. He's the host of the podcast. Factually, he's the creator and host of Adam Ruins Everything, with all past episodes streaming now on HBO Max. Plus check out his new documentary entitled the G Word streaming now on Netflix. Congregation, please welcome Adam Connor over to the show. What's up, Adam? You about to ruin scams?

Laci Mosley (34:14)

Cause, you know, shout out to the South Africans, the ones Of y' all who aren't racist anyway. Anyways, so the story finally broke in Manchester Guardian in November of 1912. An article called the Discovered skull. By far the earliest trace of mankind that has yet to be found in England. So, you know, we know about Lucy in Africa. I don't know. Had Lucy been discovered by this time? Someone looked that up for me. But that was considered to be, like, the oldest human remains that we had found. So now England's like, we got old bones, too? No, we just found a dude. He hella dude. Like, we're in the race. So in the ensuing weeks, Arthur continued to release details that were generally approved by the scientific community. Only one scientist, anatomist David Waterson, voiced doubt. So he had one hater, and it was David, okay? And David was like, I don't know, y'. All. Something ain't looking funny in the light. But they were like, shut up, David. We finally got some discovery. Shut up, David. So David, you get. You absolute git. David in it, okay? Shut up. So Lucy was discovered in the 70s. So at the time, this is, you know, the most popular thing, I guess, you know, for medical science or not medical science, but, you know, for science and research science or whatever. So he noted, this is David. He noted that the cranium looked human, but the jawbone looked like a chimpanzee. So David was like, I don't even think this is a human skull, y'. All. Like, he was like, it's not giving human. No one else agreed, mostly because there had not been any recent major findings in Great Britain, and paleontologists were all desperate for a major discovery, which that desperation. We talk about that a lot when it comes to a scam. How bad do you need it? And if you need something really badly, you have to really assess why you are willing to take certain risks. Because if you're letting that need drive you, then you're ignoring the red flags and the things that don't make sense. You know what I mean? Like, homeboy was like, that skull had a banana in his hand. And everybody's like, no, it's a human. Shut up, David. Cause, like, paleontology and, like, archaeology are careers that I feel like just like marine biology when you're a kid and people are like, what do you want to do when you grow up? It's like the most arbitrary shit, but you've seen it in books, so you're like, yeah, I want to be a marine biologist or archaeologist. But it's like, to a certain extent, if they don't make any major discoveries or findings, then that funding is going to go down because we just. We paying y' all to play in the dirt, bitch. We got real problems.

Laci Mosley (37:36)

A lot of them, truly. And also, that's the thing about why people shouldn't be so rich. Once you get to a certain point of wealth, you just start collecting ra. Oh, these are pins. This is the pin that Abraham Lincoln used. Who fucking told you that lie? Like, you just start collecting shit because you don't know what to do with the money. Cause you shouldn't have that much fucking money. That's why. So, you know, they're rich as hell. They're out here playing in the dirt for funsies, getting their lives. So other countries had found plenty of evidence of early humans, but there hadn't been no such great discoveries in Britain, to both embarrassment and frustration. So all the other countries are finding the gold and the mummies and they're digging up all the dead. And the UK's like, we got spotted dick and the worst breakfast you've ever tasted, but no scientific discoveries. So this is their chance. One French paleontologist was even noted to have called British paleontologist Chaser de Caillou. What does that mean? Or pebble hunters, Not y' all throwing shade in the Paleo community, it's like, bitch, they over there digging up rocks, like, ghetto. So I understand the desperation. They're like, no, we got something. We on the map. So the Pinto skull, or, excuse me, the Piltdown skull, gave Britain a foothold in the discovery of early man. The skull also served to support a specific theory of evolution upheld by English paleontologists that growing brains was what drove human evolution. Their theory was that our brains would have expanded early in our evolution, and fossil skulls, such as the one found in Piltdown, would support that. Right. So this is also supporting. Now you're taking information and confirming your own biases with it instead of looking at that information objectively, because you're like, we gotta get on the map, y'. All. Okay. All we're known for right now is incest. And, like, really old monarchies are just like, cousins. Fuck it. Like, we gotta have something revolutionary, like, first man. Cool. So it had a huge brain case, but primitive teeth, erroneously implying that cranial expansion happened early in mankind's evolution. So, in truth, brains came late to humanity. But finding the largest early human skull appeared to Britain's sense of nationalism, and thus the history was heavily interrogated, or was not heavily interrogated. Cause again, they're like, we wanna win, we need a W. So despite distant whispers, the excavations continued, and England celebrated the discovery. So they were like, shut up. Shut up. Yeah, we know a monkey. Like, I heard the skull say, oh, no, you didn't. Let us have this.

Laci Mosley (55:25)

Yeah. And also be aware of that in documentaries about people's lives. If someone is alive and they do a movie about their life or a story about their life or they're involved in it, I always take that with a grain of salt because I'm like, if you're alive, you don't skirt. Skirt over all the real tea because you're still here. Like, you don't want people to know that. If you're not going full Quincy Jones, I don't want it, you know, so it's just something to be aware of. Like, look at everything. Look at people's motivations for why they're doing things. I hate to make y' all all suspicious all the time, but we do need to be suspicious all of the time. But that doesn't mean don't. That doesn't mean don't let a man pull you over in the street who says that they can fix your car and make yourself late to work. Cause maybe it works out and he fixes your car. You know, it could work. You know, try it sometimes. But, guys, we had to go to the saddest part of the episode. The end. This is where I have to let Adam go. But before he goes, we're gonna do Scammer of the week real quick. This is where we just highlight a charlatan who's worthy of our praise. Or maybe not. Today we're talking about Yellowstone actress Koreanka Kilchar. She's 32 years old and she's been charged with two felony counts of workers compensation fraud. The actress collected over $96,000 in disability benefits, even though she was working on Yellowstone for several months. To during the period she said that she was too injured to work. She self surrendered and was arraigned in May and pleaded not guilty to the charges. I would have pleaded not guilty, too. I'm sorry. She reportedly injured her neck and shoulder in 2018 while filming Dora and the Lost City of Gold, a live action adaptation of the children's TV show Dora the Explorer. She saw a doctor a few times over the course of the year, but then stopped going to treatment and did not respond to the insurance company handling her claim. In 2019, she went back to the insurance company and requested treatment, saying that she had been such severe neck pain since the injury occurred that she had to turn down work. Based on her statement, she was paid a temporary total disability benefit of $96,838 between October 2019 and September 2021. Despite her statement, she was found to have worked on Yellowstone from July 2019 to October 2019. The investigation is still going. If convicted, she could face up to five years in state prison and a $50,000 fine for each count that she's charged with. I'm on your side, sis.