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 Homo Floresiensis: Antiwedge, now 9 specimens
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard

3192 Posts

Posted - 10/11/2005 :  12:09:35  Show Profile Send BigPapaSmurf a Private Message
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4331252.stm

So much for the really small disease. I think this is my favorite science story of the year, its just smurfy I tell ya.

"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History

"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini

filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 10/11/2005 :  12:51:12   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4331252.stm

So much for the really small disease. I think this is my favorite science story of the year, its just smurfy I tell ya.


Ya beat me to it, BigPapa! I found it just a few minutes ago.

It's one of my favorite science stories too, and not just for the interesting, probably new species of smurf hominid. Evidence has at least hinted at these people being users of fairly sophistigated tools, so it opens up a lot of questions as to exactly how 'big' the hominid brain has to be to show creativity and indeed, sapience.

Looking forward to a lot more info on these creatures.


"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard

USA
3834 Posts

Posted - 10/11/2005 :  13:33:58   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send beskeptigal a Private Message
I'm not sure evolving smaller due to resources should be called a 'disease'.
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 10/11/2005 :  15:34:21   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message
quote:
I'm not sure evolving smaller due to resources should be called a 'disease'.


The anti-evolution crowd were calling the few samples of Homo floresiensis humans, just sickly or midget humans.

Anything to discredit reality that disagrees with their fantasy you know.

(edited to add:)

Microcephaly is the condition that some legit(as in actual scientists) critics contend is responsible for the small size of these remains. They believe the cave was home to an extended family who had some members suffering this condition over the centuries.


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
Edited by - Dude on 10/11/2005 16:41:18
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pleco
SFN Addict

USA
2998 Posts

Posted - 10/11/2005 :  17:11:27   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit pleco's Homepage Send pleco a Private Message
If they find more fossils outside the general area, hopefully that will dispel the "disease theory". I wonder, then, what the ID/Creationists crowd will come up with next? The bible only mentions giants, not hobbits ;-)

by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart.
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 10/11/2005 :  19:05:04   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Dude

quote:
I'm not sure evolving smaller due to resources should be called a 'disease'.


The anti-evolution crowd were calling the few samples of Homo floresiensis humans, just sickly or midget humans.

Anything to discredit reality that disagrees with their fantasy you know.

(edited to add:)

Microcephaly is the condition that some legit(as in actual scientists) critics contend is responsible for the small size of these remains. They believe the cave was home to an extended family who had some members suffering this condition over the centuries.



Anything that looks sorta like a human, but not quite, is of course a deformed human. Or a deformed primeape, it depends on the day of the week.

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 10/11/2005 :  19:52:20   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message
quote:
Anything that looks sorta like a human, but not quite, is of course a deformed human. Or a deformed primeape, it depends on the day of the week.


Some of the critics are legit scientists....


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard

3192 Posts

Posted - 10/12/2005 :  10:18:18   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send BigPapaSmurf a Private Message
Right, I think it was mentioned that their are legit critics^...


Anyway the imoprtance in the new info is that they were found in an 80,000 year difference in dating... No family home is 80,000 years old.

"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History

"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini
Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 10/12/2005 10:19:00
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Starman
SFN Regular

Sweden
1613 Posts

Posted - 10/13/2005 :  00:32:29   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Starman a Private Message
More on Flores from Carl Zimmer, Hobbits again
quote:
The key conclusion of the paper is that these fossils look a lot like the original Hobbit bones reported last year. The new jaw, for example, has the same peculiar roots on its teeth as the old one, and both also lack a chin. If the original Hobbit was just a pathological human, the authors argue, then all of these new individuals would have to be pathological too. And the fact that these fossils span 80,000 years makes it even harder to hold the pathology argument.
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llDayo
New Member

USA
24 Posts

Posted - 10/14/2005 :  08:04:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send llDayo a Private Message
9 specimens? If we can get one to throw a curveball we could start up a "minor" league baseball team :D
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 10/14/2005 :  10:22:30   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by llDayo

9 specimens? If we can get one to throw a curveball we could start up a "minor" league baseball team :D

Or p'raps a "Little" League...

I am reminded that the blather about neandertalisis being a human{s} with rickets and not another species at all continues to this day among some the more hysterical.

I have forgotten the name of the Indoneasian scientist, the one who all but kidnapped the fossils, but as I recall he was making the microcephaly claim before even examining the specimins. Very poor scholarship.

I find the microcephaly hypothisis a lot harder to entertain than the one of it being a new species. But I think that not enough is known yet to reach a defninate conclusion. We'll know soon enough.

Who's on first?
I dunno.
Oh, he's on third.....




"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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