First, 2 apologies- 1. I'm sorry for the continued lack of spacing, I'm having keyboard issues. 2. I made an overstatement by saying that the Hobbit is 'bowling over our current models of human evolution.' I'll be mindful of that in the future. I also want to restate that the Hobbits discovery does not demand that we give credence to BF. I don't want to come off as a bf'er trying to use the Hobbit as superficial support for BF because that just doesn't work. However, I do think the Hobbit's discovery brings us to a place where the unlikeliness of a creature like BF existing somewhere in our world decreases and seems less far-fetched than it once was. I realize that seems contradictory so I'll do my best to try and get across where I'm coming from.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In an earlier post I used HF in a hypothetical situation mentioning ebu gobo and orand pendek (I like UrsulaV's orang whatsit better). For the record let me just say that Correa Neto and others have quite aptly shown here that, as much as bf advocates continue to try, submiting myths as evidence, while maybe tempting, is an excercise in futility. It's at least somewhat problematic when trying to correlate the Hobbits with gogo and whatsit considering that the Hobbits were highly intelligent, possessed technology of high quality, and it seems may have also possessed language. I hope I did not give the impression of trying to make such a correlation.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Though I earlier overstated myself the discovery of the Hobbits is, nonetheless, of immense significance to the anthropological community and has been challenging many commonly held ideas. Some here have stated HF has little impact on our family tree and that may well be true considering only our direct lineage. Metullus likened it to finding a long lost cousin, unlooked for but not unexpected. While I agree with Metullus on many other points he raised, here, I'm inclined to disagree. IMO, finding the Hobbits is not the fortuitous discovery of a long lost cousin but rather the discovery of a very recently (most likely) departed, very weird cousin, the finding of which came out of the blue. On top of that the extent of the weirdness of said cousin has yet to be established. We have not even established if this weirdness came about solely on and was limited only to Flores or began prior to the arrival and they may have gone elsewhere. I have found nothing yet that has indicated that any aspect of the discovery of HF was expected, but maybe I'm wrong.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This brings one to wonder if there had been any other weirdo cousins lurking about out there. To me this certainly puts the family tree in a new light and makes me wonder just how many variant branches there may be.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------But, here is where it comes back to bigfoot for me. I've held out for the possibility of such a creature and tried to be open minded but it seems increasingly difficult. I got BF problems, lots of BF problems (why do I feel like that's gonna come back and bite me in the a$$). I can sum them up mostly as this- A lack of good, solid evidence coupled with the global nature of BF phenomenom indicates to me (and, let's be honest, most everyone else) a social construct at work. That being said, while the door for BF is closing on me it has not yet shut. A little hairy man running around until recently and maybe (BIG maybe) even in to historical times makes a big hairy man in a similar context not so impossible. For the Meldrums and the Krantzs with there Giganto this, midtarsal that, and all the BF websites till Kingdom come there's a lot of talking out the bottom going around. But maybe, just maybe, in the seed of the monster social contruct there was at least at some point, somewhere, maybe even now, some element of truth. Like finding some mushy bones in Bai Lingua Caves we find some large, abnormal looking jawbone on a mountain or in a forest somewhere in the PNW or China similarily recent and a whole new set of possiblities are opened up. For me it would be those who pounce on it and say, "Here, Skoftic #$%&! MUWAHAHAHA!! Here's your friggin' bigfoot!" who would be the truly ignorant.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If I seem a little shizo on BF, it's because I'm still trying to separate the BS and I'm not sure social construct and hoaxing explains everything. This does, however, seem the right place to do it.
