Comments on: Whose Brain Is It Anyway? (The Further Hobbit Adventures)

By: Bill Prange

Bill Prange — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 23:33:34 +0000

I recall reading that the finding of a Neanderthal with a whithered arm was considered exciting evidence that Neanderthals had the social inclination to support a disabled member of their group rather than letting him or her perish.
It would seem that a microcepalic individual in an early stone age culture would be a serious burden on the group - rather more than one with a whithered arm. Could the argument be made that it is unlikely that a microcephalic would survive for long in such a situation?

By: Jason Malloy

Jason Malloy — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 04:53:18 +0000

Comment from Maciej Henneberg:

“The new mandible does not differ much from the one of LB1 which falls into modern human range in both metric and descriptive characteristics. This also includes those features that are suggested to be species-specific for H. floresiensis: receding chin, large crowns of premolars and Tomes’s roots of premolars. Receding chin and Tomes roots occur among modern Australomelanesians (Tomes roots at a frequency of about 20% - not a rarity!) while enlarged premolar crowns were described in 3 American living patients (Sheldon Peck in December 2004 issue of “Dental Anthropology”) and in August I have seen another one in a Polish living patient described at the 13th International Symposium on Dental Morphology (proceedings to be published early in 2006). When studying pictures of mandibles do not forget that Europeans are not the standard for “modern humans”, especially not for those in southeastern Asia.”

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 13:00:54 +0000

Hi Carl

On our public broadcaster’s weekly TV science show here in Australia there was a brief interview and update on the Hobbits and the new bones. Seems the scientists involved in the dig are coming around to Peter Brown’s view that the Hobbits were actually derived from Australopithecines due to the strange dental root structures and limb proportions.

If so and the tool use is confirmed for the Hobbits then it really throws the cat in amongst the pigeons for everything we thought we knew about brain size and tool use. But I guess our experiences with captive chimps and Caledonian crows should have caused a rethink of that truism many years ago.

By: Jason Malloy

Jason Malloy — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 07:32:20 +0000

Comment from Ralph Holloway:

“For whatever it is worth, the Weber et al stuff proves nothing. None of the so-called 19 microcephalics studied by Weber et al have the shape of LB1. Microcephalics do not have large cerebral lobes over-riding small cerebellar lobes, and that is what LB1 has. The size issue cannot be used to claim microcephaly as pathology. However, I think Falk is wrong concerning the area 10 region.“

By: Emanuel Klein

Emanuel Klein — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 22:46:07 +0000

Would anyone comment on the signifcance of the establishment of Homo floresiensis as a new Homo
species to Creationist’s contention that there is
no evolutionary fossils showing other human species besides Homo sapiens?

Does the alleged softness of the Hobitt’s remains
signify that the find is not a true fossil?

By: Greg Peterson

Greg Peterson — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 20:29:03 +0000

Realizing that an argument from statistics may be scientifically lame, I wonder what the odds are that the one brain case that’s been found would be that of a microencaphalic. There seems to be some analogy here to notion that if you hear hoofbeats in Central Park, think horses, not zebras. But what’s the horse and what’s the zebra? Which is actually more surprising–that the so-far sole representative of a human tribe would be an anomaly, or that the whole “tribe” would be anomalous, and this single sample a representative one? I write this because I really don’t know.

By: Anaitys-t

Anaitys-t — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 17:46:12 +0000

I’d wonder why the teeth are considered “too valuable” to be drilled, when DNA evidence could potentially be the key to determining how “valid” the Hobbit-hominid theory is, and therefore how “valuable” or at least “novel” the fossil bones are in the first place. How can the tooth be more “valuable” than the DNA evidence without the DNA evidence? Realizing it can be a long-shot to get viable DNA, that seems like circular reasoning used to reach an excuse not to try it. Also, of course, it’s hard to say what the DNA would reveal, it’s possible similar mutations to those causing microencephaly might be central to a phenotype such as this, arguments will still be made by both groups in both directions.