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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
 Posted - 01/30/2007 : 02:34:59
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BBC:Hobbit cave digs set to restartquote:
Archaeologists who found the remains of human "Hobbits" have gained permission to restart excavations at the cave where the specimens were found.
Indonesian officials have blocked access to the cave since 2005, following a dispute over the bones.
More on this issue from Carl Zimmerquote:
It's been a quiet winter on the H. floresiensis front, but for some odd reason a few pieces of intriguing news have come up in just the past couple days.
National Geographicquote:
Although he declined to give specifics, Potts said forthcoming studies on other parts of the skeleton will "make for a compelling story that sides with the Falk [Separate species] camp."
The Sydney Morning Herald quote:
MODERN humans wiped out the hobbit-sized people who lived on the Indonesian island of Flores, research suggests.
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2007 : 03:01:10 [Permalink]
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I love new discoveries regardless of the science field.
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2007 : 04:28:03 [Permalink]
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I love this stuff, too. The wild fights will eventually lead to wonderful scientific knowledge. Right now, we are looking at the process, which often resembles the nauseating doings inside a sausage factory. Pay it no attention, so you can enjoy the sausage later.
Teuku Jacob, the boss of Indonesian anthropology, seems to be a bungling incompetent, who should be ignored by the world of science, after destroying the fossils.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2007 : 05:31:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
Teuku Jacob, the boss of Indonesian anthropology, seems to be a bungling incompetent, who should be ignored by the world of science, after destroying the fossils.
And closing the cave for more than a year.
More:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16876005/
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2007 : 11:03:10 [Permalink]
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Yeah, that, too. One has to wonder if Jacob's got some kind of religious or political axe to grind in all this, with destroying what was found, and then delaying further work.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2007 : 05:15:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
Yeah, that, too. One has to wonder if Jacob's got some kind of religious or political axe to grind in all this, with destroying what was found, and then delaying further work.
Jacob is a supporter of the multi-regional "theory", the discoverers have a strongly "Out of Africa" bent. John Hawks points out:quote:
The real split in the field is not between lumpers and splitters or between multiregional evolution and a recent African origin. The real split is between populationists and typologists. Not all populationists are multiregionalists, but the hypothesis is more often accepted by those who consider variation within populations as an important product of evolution. A populationist is less likely to accept the idea that a singular fossil is representative of its population (or species), because no single individual can be representative of a range of variation. It is that perspective that leads to skepticism about the Liang Bua fossil.
Of course Jacob might also feel that the Aussies were on his turf.
Jacob and the other skeptics does not seem to mind using some rather shitty arguments in the BBC Horizon Video : "The Mystery of the Human Hobbit". Still they also have some valid points, so we will have to see what the evidence says.
More from Afarensis blog - Homo floresiensis: The Chamber Beneath Ling Bua |
"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2007 : 06:01:47 [Permalink]
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Thanks for that, Starman. That gives me a key to understanding Jacob's problem with the diggers, which I'd felt, but could not figure out. It's fine for Jacob to strongly oppose their theory, but wrong for him to sabotage them. The dude seems to like throwing his weight around, even to the detriment of science.
I'm watching the video now.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 01/31/2007 : 07:37:25 [Permalink]
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I really enjoyed that video. I'm now more neutral about this than ever. Need more bones!
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
 Posted - 03/29/2007 : 05:47:06 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
Need more bones!
How about a trapezoid ?
From john hawks weblogquote:
The primitive carpal morphology of H. floresiensis is not consistent with hypotheses of a congenital or developmental abnormality afflicting a modern H. sapiens. Rather, the evidence is more consistent with hypotheses that H. floresiensis is descended from a hominin ancestor that migrated out of Africa prior to the evolution of the shared, derived carpal morphology characteristic of H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis.
In english, the trapezoid bone in the human and neanderthal hand differs from other homids and other primates. The trapezoid bone of LB1 does not look like it belong to a Homo sapiens or Homo neanderthalis |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2007 : 07:00:24 [Permalink]
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Neat, Starman!
Well, we knew early (pre-Homo Neanderthalensis/pre-Homo sapiens) hominids came out of Africa, early on. Makes sense, especially in the weirdness of island evolution, that some got real small. But it's especially interesting that the Hobbits may have lasted so long. Could be that their small size and specialized niche made them less competitive with Homo sap, and that this saved them for many thousands of years. And maybe they were part-time tree dwellers, and that helped them to hide.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2007 : 10:06:57 [Permalink]
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| Not all island pygmies need to be evolved by natural selection, sapiens like creatures may have used choice to selectively breed smaller offspring, like some tribes do today with height or extreme weight, etc.. |
"...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 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2007 : 13:15:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Not all island pygmies need to be evolved by natural selection, sapiens like creatures may have used choice to selectively breed smaller offspring, like some tribes do today with height or extreme weight, etc..
Ah, interesting thought! So, when animals choose their mates based upon size or appearance, is that selective breeding, rather than natural selection, too? That word, "natural" is a slippery one, ain't it?
At what point does a species begin to free itself of "natural" selection and begin to do some of the "other" kind? Does it ever?
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/29/2007 13:18:59 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 03:41:54 [Permalink]
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| It sure is I debated myself on the wording and it still was a problem... Really all I meant was that sentient creatures may recognise the need for smallness and actively choose to breed for it. |
"...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 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 04:29:19 [Permalink]
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The problem is really not in your wording, BigPapa, but in our present general understanding of words like "natural" and even "sentient." There are lots of behavior in "lower" animals that exhibit actions similar to humanity: Slave-owning ants, groupers communicating with morays to form cooperative hunting partnerships, birds communicating with a wide array of warning signals and cries, spear-wielding chimps. There's practically nothing that primitive man did that other animals didn't, aside (perhaps) from chipping stone.
Maybe it's the human brain's great breakthrough that it brought many of these behaviors together at one time. But it seems reasonable that some fairly "simple-brained" organisms may be selecting mates in a way that impacts their own evolution to some degree.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/30/2007 04:30:33 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 04:50:19 [Permalink]
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Actually it is in the wording since you are not getting my point at all. There is a difference between envionmental pressures which drive island miniturization and the idea that an intelligence can analyse the issue and decide that small bodies would be in their best interest. Both have the same outcomes, but the path to realization is very different.
I have a great respect for animal intelligence and do not overestimate humans. I however do not think that slave-owning ant are intelligent in a comparable way to primates. Those behaviors are not reached by individual contemplation. |
"...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 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2007 : 14:32:07 [Permalink]
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Oh, I understood your good point, BigPapa. I also agree about both your reasons that an island species might become smaller.
I was just getting myself distracted, as I do so often with ideas, by this idea of "intelligent selection." (Careful with that term!) Please accept my apology for both my distraction, and for any impression that I was contradicting you. Indeed, you simply unintentionally got me thinking on a separate tract.
What I was thinking is not that ants, for instance in any way our equals intellectually, but that their and other "lower" animals' behaviors, even when purely instinctual, may be affecting their own, and other species' evolution in ways that haven't been looked into. Birds such as the chickadee and nuthatch have mobbing behavior toward predators. The nuthatch also seems to decode and react to the varied warning cries of the chickadee. Black-capped chickadees even falsely give warning cries in some cases, to frighten away competitive species from good feeding areas. These behaviors, some of which may be learned (culturally transmitted), are bound to have a selective, evolutionary impact to some degree, even though that was not a consciously intended effect.
Likewise, the early history of the dog may have seen unintended selective breeding by humanity of wolves who became more and more tame, and acceptable on the peripheries of human camps and settlements. Since the dog is likely to have been the first domestic animal, humans had no breeding theory to go by. Both instinctual and learned, culturally transmitted behaviors in early dogs -- and by humans near whom they lived -- must have contributed to their survival and evolution.
My main point being: There may not be such a fine line between selective breeding and natural selections we have thought. This may be the case in many species, even unexpected ones.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 03/30/2007 14:32:34 |
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More Hobbitry
