Hobbits Actually Did Exsist....

Heard it NPR .... It is amazing that there is/was an island where little people hunted little elephants

Very interesting.

It wasn't until I realized that my 41.5" 4 year old daughter would have towered over these people that I began to really grasp just how small they were....

You know, maybe I'm just being super critical here, but I'd really like to know how in the world they can claim this is a hominid from 18,000 years ago. I can think of many things which this might be in the modern world, eg. human child, young dwarf, one of the above suffering from some disease that malforms the skeletal structure, possibly just another primate with a similar bone structure. Also, how complete is the specimen found? It's happened before that scientists have made unsupportable claims. I'd like to see the original work on this, and not just the fluff fed to "regular" people, with a sensational little storyline about hobbits and such every now and again.

Kyle? said:

You know, maybe I'm just being super critical here, but I'd really like to know how in the world they can claim this is a hominid from 18,000 years ago. I can think of many things which this might be in the modern world, eg. human child, young dwarf, one of the above suffering from some disease that malforms the skeletal structure, possibly just another primate with a similar bone structure. Also, how complete is the specimen found? It's happened before that scientists have made unsupportable claims. I'd like to see the original work on this, and not just the fluff fed to "regular" people, with a sensational little storyline about hobbits and such every now and again.

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Nature is running a special on the discovery. More detailed information is available here.

http://www.nature.com/news/specials/flores/index.html

really interesting, very nice from a scientific point of view, but we should know about it in the books, but a lot of documentation should have been burned (no, not on CD), we know about pics in caves where they show how they hunted but nothing about small people? what if it was a normal but pretty small teenager? I like the Ötzi better, no, not DJ Ötzi...

Unfortunately, I work with a few people who deny that any humans existed - earlier than about 5,000 years ago. And they are determined that this nonsense should be taken out of the textbooks their children read in school.

Sad. Can you guess who they are voting for?

Kyle? said:

You know, maybe I'm just being super critical here, but I'd really like to know how in the world they can claim this is a hominid from 18,000 years ago. I can think of many things which this might be in the modern world, eg. human child, young dwarf, one of the above suffering from some disease that malforms the skeletal structure, possibly just another primate with a similar bone structure. Also, how complete is the specimen found? It's happened before that scientists have made unsupportable claims. I'd like to see the original work on this, and not just the fluff fed to "regular" people, with a sensational little storyline about hobbits and such every now and again.

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Not super critical, just super underinformed!

They found 7 of these skeletons, all of the same basic stature. Their brains were around a quarter of the size of ours, like a grapefruit. The differences are not subtle, so different that some are even questioning whether they should be grouped with humans!

I agree that science stories like this give no real meat and do themselves a disservice when tossing in pop references like "hobbit". The best of these discoveries usually end up in National Geographic or Discover Magazine if you like a little more depth, but great pictures/illustrations and accessibility to the lay person. - j

jayscheuerle said:

Not super critical, just super underinformed!

They found 7 of these skeletons, all of the same basic stature. Their brains were around a quarter of the size of ours, like a grapefruit. The differences are not subtle, so different that some are even questioning whether they should be grouped with humans!

I agree that science stories like this give no real meat and do themselves a disservice when tossing in pop references like "hobbit". The best of these discoveries usually end up in National Geographic or Discover Magazine if you like a little more depth, but great pictures/illustrations and accessibility to the lay person. - j

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They used the word hobbit because the scientists named the most complete skeleton (a 30ish year old female) "Hobbit."

Doctor Q said:

A very interesting story. I think the discoveries were made in 2003 so they had time to study this before we all got the sound-bite version in the news.

One report said there is no proof that they don't still live somewhere on the island, although the evidence that they were wiped out by volcanic ash seemed convincing.

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The real interesting story would be if they did actually find them still alive. Must have been a remote island that it took them this long to make this find.

Fascinating, thanks for this! This is truly hot of the presses, as well! I'll definitely be following this story as it develops, this type of thing always intrigues me. Hopefully we'll see an in-depth article on it in a future edition of National Geographic - I always enjoy reading those every month.

Cool.

Maybe JRR Tolken was more knowledgable than some thought.

TEG

Mini elephants though... hmmm... Tolkien talked of giant elephants he called oliphants. Volcano... Mount Doom?

Some other hobbits obviously went "into the west" with the elves..

Q: If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes on the planet?
A: They gave some of the apes a choice.

Anyway, I hope this starts some new debate about evolution. Not that stupid "creationism vs evolution" debate, but some real investigation into why some species stuck around and some didn't.

It's just my opinion, but I think the theory of evolution has more holes in it than my laundry day underwear. On the other hand, it's the best theory we've got right now. Hopefully this new discovery will help the research... umm... evolve.

The latest National Geographic has a very interesting article about Darwinism.

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0411/feature1/index.html

Long, but very interesting Wired article as to the creation vs. evolution debate.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/evolution.html

yellow said:

The latest National Geographic has a very interesting article about Darwinism.

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0411/feature1/index.html

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Yes, I know, I'm looking forward to reading it, it's sitting on my desk - I still have last month's edition to finish first though! And then before I know it, next month's edition willl arrive in the mail... So much excellent reading and so little time!

Mr. Anderson said:

The planet is constantly changing - so its more adaptation driving evolution.
D

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My problem with evolution is the numbers don't add up. In less than 10^10 generations, random changes in the genetic code of single celled organisms led to incredibly complex systems like eyesight, hearing, locomotion, balance, breathing, etc - not to mention human thought.

That's like saying that if I take DOS 3.1, copy it with some random changes, I'll eventually end up with Mac OS X. Well, yes, I will. But if I could make ten copies of DOS every second with random changes, and then I pick the one that's closest to the code of Mac OS X, discard the rest, then make ten copies of that one (ten children), etc, etc, how long would it take to get Mac OS X? I haven't done the math, but I bet if you did, you'd find that the Sun would burn out long before you got to System 7.

tristan said:

That's like saying that if I take DOS 3.1, copy it with some random changes, I'll eventually end up with Mac OS X. Well, yes, I will. But if I could make ten copies of DOS every second with random changes, and then I pick the one that's closest to the code of Mac OS X, discard the rest, then make ten copies of that one (ten children), etc, etc, how long would it take to get Mac OS X? I haven't done the math, but I bet if you did, you'd find that the Sun would burn out long before you got to System 7.

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Worst... analogy... ever...

tristan said:

Q: If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes on the planet?
A: They gave some of the apes a choice.

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we DID NOT EVOLVE FROM APES.

what evolutionary theory says is that apes, humans, and other humanoids (erectus, florensis, africanus) all descended from the same ancestor.