Ira Block/National Geographic
Some scientists say this skull, smaller than those of modern humans, is from a newfound species.
Posted on 05/19/2006 3:09:39 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Ira Block/National Geographic
Some scientists say this skull, smaller than those of modern humans, is from a newfound species.
Not all scientists agree that the 18,000-year-old "little people" fossils found on the Indonesian island of Flores should be designated an extinct human-related species. Some expressed their opposition in news interviews and informal symposiums, but papers arguing their case were rejected by major journals.
snip...
In today's issue of the journal Science, researchers led by Robert D. Martin of the Field Museum in Chicago present evidence they say supports their main argument, that the skull in question is not that of a newfound extinct species, but of a modern Homo sapiens afflicted with microcephaly, a genetic disorder characterized by a smaller than normal brain and head size.
The researchers said the evidence used in previous studies to rule out microcephaly was flawed. They noted that the analysis was primarily based on comparisons with a brain cast made from a poorly preserved skull of a 10-year-old who was microcephalic, not one from an adult.
"Quite simply, it could not have been a worse example for such a study," Dr. Martin, a primatologist, said in a telephone interview, speaking of the fossil skull that was examined. "It tells us nothing snip...
Dean Falk, an anthropologist at Florida State University, published a study in Science last year that was said to show that the Flores specimen's brain, though about one-third the size of a contemporary human's, was probably organized in a way consistent with fairly advanced behavior.
It could have been a separate species, Dr. Falk concluded, one that was capable of making the stone tools and other technologies associated with the discovery site.
"We stand by our original interpretation," she said yesterday by telephone.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
They got so big eating little people.
Well said. Insecurity takes many forms......
Yep...usually researchers are a bit kinder to each other. He could have said that "...the examples they used for comparisons may not have been the best choice." Or something like that...but who knows? There may have been some history between them.
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It seems to me it would end at least some of the basic controversy.
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