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Scientists Hope To Settle "Hobbit" Debate
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.
Another one of Tolkien's races has been discovered: Trolls, it seems, are native to the slashdot community.
Others in the anthropological field question this identification, arguing that the meter-tall Hobbit was a modern human who had something wrong with her.
Maybe she just hobbitually ate a poor diet.
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What?
Tell that to string physicists.
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.
There really isn't much debate about it. There's dogma about only Homo Sapeins surviving past the Neaderthal extinction then the facts on the other side. The skull looks exactly like a Homo Erectus including the brain case. There are no Homo Sapein skulls no matter how diseased that match it. The brain case scans were the smoking gun. The only thing different from Homo Erectus is the size. She's well below the size range for an adult Erectus so there was a form of downsizing involved since it's unlikely she's an off shoot she's most likely a decendant of Homo Erectus. The fact all the other bones in the cave were of the same size and represent several indiviuals should put to rest it was a disease. I tend to doubt they had a leper colony for individuals with that disease. Her brain size is also proportionally small for an Erectus but the structures are all correct just smaller. It's probably a result of a poor diet that lead to the downsizing. There's resistence to changing the history of hominids but outside of dogma the test thus far have left little doubt the skeleton is not Homo Sapein and most likely a downsized Erectus.
National Geographic had a whole hour long special on this subject that I watched about 4 or 5 months ago. As the article below states, there was MORE than one set of bones found, while the girl mentioned in today's articles was the only COMPLETE skeleton, there was several other partial bone sets recovered that were equally comparable in size. Also in the documentary they rebuilt the skull and sent it to several specialists, who confirmed that it was in fact not a case of microcephallis. So todays articles seem like old news, AND they're confusing everyone by not mentioning the other bone sets recovered on site. What I haven't seen anyone address is whether they could have been premordial dwarfs... but considering how few of those there are in the world, the likelyhood of several being found in the save small island seems rare, but not unpossible. ~Mentions multiple skeletons... http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/10 27_041027_homo_floresiensis.html
and the video description
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/channel/blog/20 05/03/explorer_hobbit.html
Y'know, instead of snarking you might actually considering reading the articles, including the paper detailing the "hobbits". There are some very, very good reasons to think that this is a new form of human. For one, there are multiple specimens - not just one. For another, as detailed in the summary, the structures don't mimic other forms of dwarfism in modern humans. Island dwarfism has been observed in many different species - there really isn't any reason to think humans should be exempt from this.
Most notably, a few of those arguing against it have tended to do so for religious, and not scientific reasons, which is always a huge warning sign that their opinions should be treated with caution.
Skepticism is a good trait to have - but when you are irrationally skeptical to the available evidence, to the point of closemindedness than you are no better than somebody who is overly gullible.
For a relatively balanced opinion on the debate surrounding LB1, you could go to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis). Perhaps after reading that, you could reserve the snark and unwarranted insult of the investigating scientists, and actually learn a little about how science is conducted.
Either way, I don't think we've heard the Ent of this discussion.
>"The idea is that basically, instead of species evolving slowly over time into new species, speciation can occur rapidly (on a geological time scale) and then the new species will remain relatively stable until the next quick burst of change."
That is a good summary. Your other comments are rather off the mark, particularly the idea that there is no advantage to a "half-fin half-leg" and so on. Given that you don't have a background in biology, that's understandable. A good explaination of the theory is here at the talk.origins newsgroup site. A less techinical one is here at the Wikipedia site.
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