Hobbits' Brains Shrank Due To Remote Home

Hugh Pickens writes "The 'hobbits,' dubbed homo floresiensis, caused a worldwide sensation when they were discovered five years ago, when some scientists claimed that the 18,000-year-old human-like fossils found on the Indonesian island of Flores represented an entirely new species. Now researchers at the Natural History Museum in London believe that the creatures' small brains could have developed to reduce the creatures' energy needs, crucial for surviving in an isolated area with limited resources. 'It could be that H. floresiensis' skull is that of a Homo erectus that has become dwarfed from living on an island, rather than being an abnormal individual or separately-evolved species, as has been suggested,' says palaeontologist Eleanor Weston. 'Looking at pygmy hippos in Madagascar, which possess exceptionally small brains for their size, suggests that the same could be true for H. floresiensis, and the result of being isolated on the island.' Although the phenomenon of dwarfism on islands is well recognized in large mammals, an accompanying reduction in brain size has never been clearly demonstrated before."

Comments

18,000 - amazing

[Tablizer]

that the 18,000-year-old human-like fossils found on the Indonesian island ... "It could be that H. floresiensis' skull is that of a Homo erectus that has become dwarfed from living on an island...

An 18,000 year old specimen of Homo Erectus would indeed be an amazing find if true. They were thought to have died out a little less than a million years ago. Thus, 18k is a huge leap. Also, being 18k old may mean that we can extract DNA from it or another like find, and learn more about Erectus, and maybe someday even recreate one ("Erectus Park"). Homo Erectus was a very successful species of proto-human (relatively speaking) and probably the first proto-human to spread deep into Europe and Asia.
   

Re:Evolution Determines Intelligence

[MightyMartian]

I don't think you quite understand what genetic diversity means in this case. In this case it means that making claims about Africans as if they were a homogeneous group is ludicrous. We're talking about several distinct populations in sub-Saharan Africa that have more genetic distance between them than every other single human population in the world. Even if there were some populations in Africa that were genetically predisposed to be less intelligent (and there's no evidence whatsoever for that), that would hardly reflect on the other major genetic lineages in the area.

So yes, genetic diversity plays directly against "black people are dumber" sorts of racists. There is no "black" race to begin with, save as a ethno-cultural artifact.