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Scientists Hope To Settle "Hobbit" Debate

Posted by kdawson on from the little-men dept.

Several readers wrote in with news of the debate around the identity of an ancient woman whose diminutive skeleton was found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004. Fox News reports that Australian scientists have discovered a subterranean chamber that may contain DNA proof that will settle the question of whether "the Hobbit," as the specimen is called, actually is a representative of a new branch of the human family, or not. The find's discoverers named the putative new race Homo floresiensis. Others in the anthropological field question this identification, arguing that the meter-tall Hobbit was a modern human who had something wrong with her. In a paper just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with one of the original discovery team as co-author, researchers say they have compared the Hobbit's skull to those of modern humans with various ailments such as microcephaly, and that the Hobbit is different.

5 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Is it just me by and+ladders · · Score: 3, Interesting

    or does anyone else find it striking that Foxnews.com has an "Evolution and Paleontology Center" (http://www.foxnews.com/science/evolution/). Certainly, W doesn't approve of this.

  2. Re: Get with the answers already! by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    > "As an aside, I'm also quite interested to see what the bible-thumpers eventually come to make of all of this." Bible thumpers will make of it what they make of every instance of evolution: God's hand at work. A 3 foot (or whatever it is) tall homonid isn't going to change their minds, given that there are many examples of evolution right in front of their eyes that they refuse to accept.

    Actually, lots of them already dismiss Neanderthals and older species as humans with arthritus. Some make the blanket claim that the whole lineage represents just two species, cleanly divided into humans and apes.

    I was amused to hear an anthropologist offer the same argument against this specimen...

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  3. Hmm... by SinGunner · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wouldn't it be interesting if we hadn't likely killed off all these competitors in prehistory and some were left around. What kind of rights would neanderthals get? Surely they wouldn't be treated like animals. And if they were still around, I think religion would be a very different thing.

    1. Re:Hmm... by steelfood · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Eradication is a natural consequence of resource competition. The difference between other animals and humans/humanoids is that we are genetically coded to have a high ability to adapt. While most animals adapt on a timescale spanning multiple generations, we adapt to the changing environment within our lifetimes. Thus, we were able to out-adapt our competition, using up the resources they also need and thus eradicating them.

      Subjugation was what created society in the first place. Domestication of plants is agriculture. It's a component of our adaptibility, that we can use other forms of life to further our own survival. And, we do it to other humans all the time. Civilization itself can be summarized as the subjugation of the masses by a few, albeit a little unfairly.

      This whole concept of equality is a very new thing, and it's still being refined today.

      Most likely, we wiped them out because they couldn't adapt to us as quickly as we could to them. Or, to put it another way, humans entered their environment, and they couldn't adapt to this change quickly enough. So they died and we survived. It's a cold point of view, but natural selection is a logical process, not an emotional one.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
  4. Re:Get with the answers already! by sorak · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "As an aside, I'm also quite interested to see what the bible-thumpers eventually come to make of all of this." Bible thumpers will make of it what they make of every instance of evolution: God's hand at work. A 3 foot (or whatever it is) tall homonid isn't going to change their minds, given that there are many examples of evolution right in front of their eyes that they refuse to accept.

    Well, one of the more the mainstream evangelical views (among people not yelling at each other on news networks) is that time is relative to god, and, therefore, it is possible that by 7 days, the Bible meant "7 eras of unknown duration" (seem a little like "the meaning of the word 'is'" to me, but o.k.). This view can be used to justify belief both in God, and Dinosaurs, as well as hobbits. Someone else posted that if "The Hobbit" is a missing link, then we just have to find the next missing link. Good call. That's exactly what many mainstream evangelicals will claim. They will say "that's nice. You did all your laboratory hoopajoob and said that he's similar, but how do you know he evolved into us? Well, prove it by finding the missing link between him and us."

    The nuttier view is that either god or the devil buried "the Hobbit", along with all kinds of other half-decayed bones, in the earth, on the day it was created, and that either god or the devil created beams of light that appeared to have hit an object millions of light years away, millions of light years ago, and were in mid transit to earth. I've never met anyone in person who could explain that view. The nuttiest Christian I ever met would just get pissed off and claim that the evidence was all made up and that evolution was all a big conspiracy.