I've been meaning to follow up on the discovery of little people in Indonesia once the Nature article was available. I'm also interested in how the creationists are spinning this discovery. In a previous thread, I predicted that they would (a) attack the dating and (b) claim the "hobbits" were either just apes or just humans.
So far, the Discovery Institute has not gotten around to this issue - the seem to be spending all their time on the National Geographic evolution issue.
However, Answers in Genesis has not disappointed. Their latest article on the discovery is here.
As I expected, AiG is claiming the discovery is just a human of unusual size. They are also making a number of inflammatory accusations against the Australian scientists, accusing them of unethically failing to credit the Indonesian investigators.
This accusation seems easy to deal with. The Nature paper is authored by Brown, Sutikna, Morwood, Soejono, Jatmiko, Saptomo, and Due. Of the group, only Brown and Morwood are Australian - all of the other five authors of this key paper are associated with the Indonesia Centre for Archaeology in Jakarta. R. P. Soejono is one of the Indonesians AiG claim is complaining about the Australians taking credit. He is credited as one of the team leaders in many Western news accounts and as one of two principle investigators by the paper itself. The Indonesian team has been credited with preserving the remains, which were found in very fragile condition.
It does not appear that the Indonesian team has been denied credit for the discovery. I cannot find any comments by Soejono criticizing the Australians or the announcement anywhere. It's possible he's a victim of typical creationist quote mining and lack of context. Unfortunately, I cannot find any source for the remarks AiG is referring to, and AiG does not provide any source.
The Nature paper gives a great deal of anatomical information; unfortunately, I am not anywhere near knowledgeable enough to really understand a lot of these details. Broadly speaking, though the paper needs to establish several points: that the remains are not an australopithicine, that they are not an abnormal H. sapiens, and that they are related to but not the same species as H. erectus.
This first point is important to scientists, because of the very small size of H. flores - it is well outside the usual size range for any Homo species. A lot of the anatomical analysis is meant to show that these remains are properly classified as genus Homo. However, the creationists are unconcerned about that: they instead claim that H. flores, H. sapiens, and indeed H. erectus are all the same species (this last claim is mentioned, for example, in AiG's original article on H. flores).
AiG claims that H. flores is an Indonesian pygmy. Brown etc discuss this possibility specifically. To quote the article:
AiG provides an old picture of a European man stand next to a "negrito," one of the pymgies AiG believes is related H. flores. Comparing the heights of two and using the height of 186cm given in the caption, I estimate the pygmy to be around 140cm tall. This is an imprecise estimate, of course, but considering LB1 is estimated to be about 100cm, this is a considerable difference.
On the issue of dates, between the two articles AiG mentions that a range of ages is given for the discovery, insinuating that the range of ages reflects uncertainty in the date. However, they sweep that aside by asserting various much younger dates (as recent as 500 years) without providing any supporting data or argument at all.
Brown et al state:
Amusingly, AiG references a page by Thinking Anglicans in order to reference a blog comment from someone claiming to be an anatomy professor at a medical school who reiterated the PMD claim that the Nature authors had already rejected. The actual blog entry being commented ironically turns out to elaborate on a point which seems to irritate AiG as much as secular evolution does:
So far, the Discovery Institute has not gotten around to this issue - the seem to be spending all their time on the National Geographic evolution issue.
However, Answers in Genesis has not disappointed. Their latest article on the discovery is here.
As I expected, AiG is claiming the discovery is just a human of unusual size. They are also making a number of inflammatory accusations against the Australian scientists, accusing them of unethically failing to credit the Indonesian investigators.
This accusation seems easy to deal with. The Nature paper is authored by Brown, Sutikna, Morwood, Soejono, Jatmiko, Saptomo, and Due. Of the group, only Brown and Morwood are Australian - all of the other five authors of this key paper are associated with the Indonesia Centre for Archaeology in Jakarta. R. P. Soejono is one of the Indonesians AiG claim is complaining about the Australians taking credit. He is credited as one of the team leaders in many Western news accounts and as one of two principle investigators by the paper itself. The Indonesian team has been credited with preserving the remains, which were found in very fragile condition.
It does not appear that the Indonesian team has been denied credit for the discovery. I cannot find any comments by Soejono criticizing the Australians or the announcement anywhere. It's possible he's a victim of typical creationist quote mining and lack of context. Unfortunately, I cannot find any source for the remarks AiG is referring to, and AiG does not provide any source.
The Nature paper gives a great deal of anatomical information; unfortunately, I am not anywhere near knowledgeable enough to really understand a lot of these details. Broadly speaking, though the paper needs to establish several points: that the remains are not an australopithicine, that they are not an abnormal H. sapiens, and that they are related to but not the same species as H. erectus.
This first point is important to scientists, because of the very small size of H. flores - it is well outside the usual size range for any Homo species. A lot of the anatomical analysis is meant to show that these remains are properly classified as genus Homo. However, the creationists are unconcerned about that: they instead claim that H. flores, H. sapiens, and indeed H. erectus are all the same species (this last claim is mentioned, for example, in AiG's original article on H. flores).
AiG claims that H. flores is an Indonesian pygmy. Brown etc discuss this possibility specifically. To quote the article:
I, of course, do not have the expertise to evaluate these claims, but I'm certain they will receive considerable attention from experts. The most important point, however, is that brain capacity in H. flores is much smaller than in H. sapiens. This is true not only in absolute terms, but also in proportion to their size. Their relative brain capacity falls at the low end of the Homo genus and the high end of Australopithicus.
AiG provides an old picture of a European man stand next to a "negrito," one of the pymgies AiG believes is related H. flores. Comparing the heights of two and using the height of 186cm given in the caption, I estimate the pygmy to be around 140cm tall. This is an imprecise estimate, of course, but considering LB1 is estimated to be about 100cm, this is a considerable difference.
On the issue of dates, between the two articles AiG mentions that a range of ages is given for the discovery, insinuating that the range of ages reflects uncertainty in the date. However, they sweep that aside by asserting various much younger dates (as recent as 500 years) without providing any supporting data or argument at all.
Brown et al state:
This seems straightforward: the AMS date lies between an upper and lower bound established by a seperate dating method.
This refers to seperate remains. The Stegodon molar clearly establishes an upper bound; it was recovered deeper than the remains in question. I'm assuming that the recovery near a disconformity suggests that the remains may have been pushed into older material by some process, but I'm not sure that's what they're really trying to say. In any case, the date of LB1 is clearly well established by two seperate methods, with the AMS method providing much tighter bounds.
Amusingly, AiG references a page by Thinking Anglicans in order to reference a blog comment from someone claiming to be an anatomy professor at a medical school who reiterated the PMD claim that the Nature authors had already rejected. The actual blog entry being commented ironically turns out to elaborate on a point which seems to irritate AiG as much as secular evolution does: