The debates surrounding an ancient skeleton refuse to die down
In the field dealing with human origins, old controversies find it difficult to die down. In October 2004, a team of paleoanthropologists announced the discovery of a new biological species of man, who lived until 17,000 years ago on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Homo floresiensis, also known as "the Hobbit", was an immediate sensation. The creature, which was about one meter tall, and whose brain volume was about a third of our own, was in many ways as primitive as our relative, Lucy, who was about 3.2 million years old. However, he is no less modern than "modern man", Homo sapiens, and probably created advanced stone tools and hunted large animals - activities that usually tend to be attributed to more intelligent human species. The skeptics, who noticed the conflicting evidence, immediately claimed that the bones belonged to an individual of Homo sapiens that had suffered from some disease and not to a new species. And the controversy that erupted around these bones continues to this day.
The latest attack came from the camp of the same researchers who cast the first doubt. Maciek Henberg of the University of Adelaide in South Australia and his colleagues claimed in an article published in August 2014 in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that the bones belonging to the most complete individual at the site, a female known as LB1, are typical of Down syndrome. Among other features, they base their claim on the small cranial circumference of LB1.
Members of the Hobbit team were quick to dismiss the Down syndrome claim. William L. Jengers of Stony Brook University says there is not a single known case (ancient or modern) of an individual with Down syndrome whose skull circumference is as small as that of LB1. Also, people with the syndrome do not have other distinct characteristics of LB1, such as a prominent face and a thick skull.
Even so, even if the new study does not prove that LB1 had Down syndrome, the possibility remains that she had another disease that produced her strange characteristics. According to biological anthropologist Thomas Sheinman of Indiana University in Bloomington, who specializes in the evolution of the brain, those who support the view that it is Homo fluoresciensis insist that scientists consider LB1 a representative of a new species, unless a specific developmental defect is found that can be attributed to it. But that position is "simply untenable given the anomalies [of LB1] compared to all the other fossil evidence [of man]," he says. "What we really need is more finds and some fossil trail that can show us how LB1 got to Flores" when it has retained Australopithecus characteristics for more than a million years, Scheinman says. In the ongoing excavations at the site in Flores, no additional small skulls have yet been found.
However, many branching and intersecting paths of many human-like species, many of which became extinct and left no modern descendants. Some of them competed with modern man and succumbed to him, and only a minority of them brought us this far.
Anthropologists are no longer a strange group of fossil hunters in the deserts of Africa. The best genetic, forensic and climatological technologies combine in an attempt to decipher the story of the human journey.
Opponents of evolution, jump like the inventor of a lot of loot at every new finding that adds to the uncertainty and obscures our origin. However, a careful reading shows two things: however complex and confusing the findings may be, they all continue to confirm the evolutionary theory. The complexity and confusion arise precisely from its correctness: a struggle with many vicissitudes of natural selection. Moreover, the complexity, the debates and the updating of opinions are not a drawback of the scientific method but, on the contrary, a source of its strength and reliability. Not a frozen and conservative Torah but a powerful approach that constantly examines and updates itself.
The article was published with the permission of Scientific American Israel
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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Avi Cohen
If it is a new species (that is, a species we did not know) there is no reason to assume that it is one of our ancestors. On the contrary - it is about the fact that the new species lived long after our species had stabilized. If anything, we are more likely to be an ancestor of this species.
Regarding the arrangement you mentioned, it makes sense that we are looking for our ancestors. The chance that a specific fossil is an ancient descendant of an existing creature is zero. And the whole issue of an ancient species is extremely problematic. The definition of a species is problematic, and we really have no way of knowing that two fossils are the same species or not.
It's a shame that the whole discussion here is diverted from the main topic and refers only to the last paragraph.
I would like to know if it really turns out that this is a new species of hominid, will it be considered one of our ancestors, or is it only a relative, a kind of evolutionary dead end?
In general, it seems to me that they are trying too hard to arrange the hominids in one vertical branch at the end of which is man. If we look at other species, there are branches and splits of the different branches also horizontally, and all the species did not necessarily evolve from each other...
Anonymous is right. The last two paragraphs are loose and refer to a broader topic, important in itself, which blatantly deviates from the topic of the article which is important in itself. Not that there is no connection. There is, but suddenly after the informative and important part, the phrase "human researchers are no longer a strange group" appears, etc. Who said she was weird? How does this continue the article? Indeed defensive and indeed unprofessional
The opponents of evolution will in any case object. They take antibiotics when they have a bacterial infectious disease, and antibiotics are strong proof of evolution because new strains are created that antibiotics have no effect on.
Fudge, which is spores against bacteria, is proof of evolution because the spore creates mutations that can fight the infected bacterial mutations. They have also long been eating genetically modified food. So denying evolution doesn't matter.
Pretty
anonymous
Your meaning is not clear, right?
An article explains exactly what the problems are. The pagans look for every "error" in the scientists' knowledge to show that the evidence does not justify the belief in the theory of evolution.
It is not clear how the findings presented in this article lead to the conclusion in the last paragraph.
The question is whether it is a new species or not, and not what the deniers of evolution say.
This is an unnecessary defensiveness that arises from charges that do not belong to the subject.
Unprofessional and disrespectful.