Homo floresiensis Supporter’s Challenge
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 25th, 2006
One of the arguments from the Homo floresiensis debunkers (such as from Dr. Jacob pictured here) has been that the little-people are merely representatives of the local people and/or microcephalics in the local population.
Here’s a new challenge from Peter Brown, shown photographing Homo floresiensis (LB1) below, who speaks directly to these critics, via Cryptomundo:
"For those wanting to know more about modern people on Flores, Teku Jacob has a number of mesolithic skeletons from Liang Bua (excavated more than 20 years ago) in his laboratory. You would think that if modern humans on Flores had the same features as H. floresiensis these would have been the first port of call. Not surprising that they have not been mentioned."
See also Peter Brown’s and others’ earlier remarks on the media circus regarding the new "technical report" attack on Homo floresiensis.
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This is from a review in a recent Nature of “The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors” by Ann Gibbons:
“But to complicate matters further, palaeoanthropology is often seen as a sort of zero-sum game, with the result that published specimens are often vigorously defended from the eyes of rival scientists, making it impossible to test the published assertions. What other branch of science keeps its primary data secret?”
If things have really reached this state in palaeoanthropology, it is not easy to see how they can assert it to be a science but deny the status to cryptozoology.
I was not aware, or perhaps had forgotten, that Teuku Jacob was sitting on such specimens. Considering his vigorous participation (and one might even say, instigation,) in this controversy, such secrecy would appear to be intellectually dishonest, unethical, and scientifically indefensible. Show us what you have, Teuku.
The idea that the H. floresiensis specimens are microcephalic is preposterous. Microcephaly only stunts the braincase, not the entire head. The large round eye sockets and other features are also unlike sapiens.
wasn’t there recently a scientist taken to court over lying about cloning experiments? It happens all the time.
It’s quite cut throat in the world of academia. People will do anything to stop their theories being challenged .
I guess everyone’s got a skeleton in their closet.
Another volley. Nice serve. I am going to step out and get some popcorn..maybe a large soda..Ive got tickets for that Bigfoot movie…whoa..that one hit the net..
Peter Brown should find another skull. Stat.
Chymo: As noted in the referenced posting (link above), the Indonesian government has closed all excavations that might reveal further examples of Homo floresiensis. Considering Dr. Jacob has great influence in paleoanthropological policy in Indonesia, this seems more a politically-motived rather than scientific-based decision.
Loren please keep us updated on this subject. Thanks Todd!!!
there have been many reports of great discoveries that later became known as false. I believe there are 2 main reasons for this: 1)the person believes they will be the one to prove something, and is willing to lie to do it 2)in need of funding, but there’s no $ without something to study