"A find heralded as the greatest discovery in anthropology for a century has degenerated into one of its greatest rows." (1)

"Until more skeletons of the purported 'new species' are discovered, I will maintain that a well-known pathological condition was responsible for the peculiar appearance of the skeleton." (3)

As described by scientists, the differences in both skull size and jaw structure between Flores Man and Homo sapiens can be explained in terms of microcephaly.

"The lone skull came from a woman who had microcephaly, a rare disorder that causes a tiny head and brain. Microcephaly causes the face to grow at a normal rate, but not the head. People wind up with a sloping forehead and no chin -- just like Hobbit." (5) (Hobbit: The nickname given to Flores Man taken from the film The Lord of the Rings.)

"Another week, and another spat between scientists over some old bones and claims to have found yet another new, further, different species of human. This time the controversy centres on the discovery of 18,000 year old bones belonging to a 3ft-tall type of human on Flores island in Indonesia.

 

... the scientists who dug them up had a paper in the journal Nature, declared them to be a new species of human, and given them a fancy-sounding Latin name: Homo floresiensis.

 

Then, in time-honoured tradition, other scientists lined up to dismiss the claim as premature. One leading expert on palaeoanatomy told the rival journal Science that the 18,000 year-old grapefruit-sized skull was similar to a skull found on Crete belonging to a 4,000 year-old specimen of boring old Homo sapiens with secondary microcephaly, a condition characterised by an abnormally small skull.

 

... Secondary microcephaly has a host of causes, from viral infection during pregnancy to injury or malnutrition shortly after birth. The specimens were found in an cave on an island. Who is to say that the island hadn't been swept by an viral epidemic 18,000 years ago that had caused an outbreak of the condition? Or perhaps the occupants had fallen prey to it elsewhere in the Indonesian archipelago, and been banished to Flores because of their odd appearance.

 

Nor is it inconceivable that those with secondary microcephaly could survive and even breed: the condition is not ineluctably linked to low intelligence. Indeed, neither is small brain size per se: the most important factor is the amount of grey matter. As this is not preserved in fossil remains, we have no idea whether those "hobbits" were bright, stupid or indifferent. What is clear is that palaeontologists are worryingly keen to base big claims on decidedly meagre evidence. It is a penchant that has not served them well in the past. In 1922, the American fossil expert Henry Fairfield Osborn made headlines by announcing the discovery of what he declared to be the first anthropoid ape ever found in America, which he named Hesperopithecus ("Ape from the Land of the Evening Sun").

 

The distinguished anatomist Professor Grafton Elliot Smith of London University went further, insisting that Hesperopithecus was nothing less than "the earliest and most primitive member of the human family yet discovered". And what was the basis of these dramatic claims ? A single fossilised tooth found in Nebraska.

 

Prof Smith's response to those doubting the wisdom of relying on so little evidence was remarkably similar to that now being wheeled out by the discoverers of the Hobbit-Men of Flores: "One would regard so momentous a conclusion with suspicion", Prof Smith opined, "if it were not for the fact that the American savants' authority in such matters is unquestionable".

 

Such bluster did not deter the American Museum of Natural History from searching for more evidence. It duly turned up in Nebraska, and revealed "Hesperopithecus" to be nothing more than an extinct pig. Prof Smith later distinguished himself by creating the popular image of Neanderthals as knuckle-grazing morons, while backing claims that skull fragments found in England in 1912 belonged to the earliest-known ancestor of H. sapiens. It later emerged that Smith's "typical" Neanderthal was actually a decidedly atypical male forced to stoop by severe arthritis. As for the skull fragments, they came from a quarry in Sussex known as Piltdown; need one say more.

 

None of this appears to have dulled the enthusiasm of palaeontologists for dangling ever more "species" off the family tree of mankind. All one needs is some unusual bone fragments plus a decent Latin dictionary and a place in palaeontological history is assured.

 

It all appears to hang on whether or not the bone fragments are deemed so "unusual" that they lie outside the limits of any known species. One shudders to think what conclusion palaeontologists would reach if presented with the bones of a modern-day pygmy and a Texan oilman." (6)

"Perhaps no area of science is more contentious than the search for human origins. Elite paleontologists disagree over even the most basic outlines of the human family tree. New branches grow amid great fanfare, only to wither and die in the face of new fossil finds." (7)

He Who has created all things in the best possible way. He commenced the creation of man from clay; then produced his seed from an extract of base fluid; then formed him and breathed His Spirit into him and gave you hearing, sight and hearts. What little thanks you show! (Qur'an, 32: 7-9)

Jun 30, 2005

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