Enormous "Hobbit" Cavern Stirs Debate: FOX NEWS

The chance discovery of an enormous chamber beneath the Indonesian cave where hobbit-like creatures were discovered promises to settle the debate about who — or what — the tiny creatures were.

Scientists are confident the mystery will be solved if they can extract DNA from "hobbit" remains they expect to find among the rubble of 32,000- to 80,000-year-old bones and stone tools littering the cavern floor.

FOX NEWS LINK

It appears this cavern holds the secrets that will end the debate over wether the "Hobbit" man was a different species, or merely a mutated species.

When I was younger, what lies underneath the earth always intrigued me. I actually wanted to be an archeologist at one time.

However, as I grew older,I came to realize that we will probably never know the truth about what rests under our feet. Who's going to tell us? Academia certainly isn't...

speaker, the NY Times Book Review wrote about this book in yesterday's paper. It might be of interest to you.

Originally posted by Crakeur
speaker, the NY Times Book Review wrote about this book in yesterday's paper. It might be of interest to you.

Yeah, the "Hollow Earth" theory has always intrigued me. While I don't think the earth is hollow, I do believe that it is certainly cavernous and could contain some mind blowing surprises... I may look into purchasing that book, if not from Barnes and Noble, maybe Amazon...Thanks for the link

Being 5'4" I hope these hobbits made some really great stuff that is still laying around in their caves. hopefully Give us little guys some credit.

I always knew I had long lost relatives in Indonesia...JK

Originally posted by super70
32,000- to 80,000-year-old bones

I love how the age of the bones is stated as fact, even though there is a 50,000 year window for their 'fact'.

I submit two things for your consideration.
Number one-we really dont know how old these bones are at all. They could be 500 or 5,000,000 and any number given by anybody is little more than a guess.
Number two-we really dont know if these bones had any offspring.
To assume that they were an evolutionary link we would have to assume that they had offspring, and further more we would have to ASSUME that the offspring they had were a different species, which has never happened in the history of recorded science.
One species giving birth to another entirely different species is impossible.

Originally posted by 11Bravo
Number one-we really dont know how old these bones are at all. They could be 500 or 5,000,000 and any number given by anybody is little more than a guess.

Yeah, we do. They are estimated to be between 32,000 and 80,000.

It is an informed estimation, the artifacts and fossils from these sites are dated using various methods (e.g. radiocarbon, zircon fission-track, stratiography etc). The range is given because they tend to have levels of confidence (error range) for such measurements. Thus they are extremely unlikely to be 500 or 5,000,000. They are estimated as between 32,000-82,000 and this is 95% certain.

Number two-we really dont know if these bones had any offspring.
To assume that they were an evolutionary link we would have to assume that they had offspring, and further more we would have to ASSUME that the offspring they had were a different species, which has never happened in the history of recorded science.
One species giving birth to another entirely different species is impossible.

There is still a lot of discussion over what these fossils are, some claim they are a distinct species, others a group of homo sapiens possessing a genetic dysfunction. In the future, we may be more certain.

However, it is very unlikely they were a link to Homo Sapiens, more likely an island derivative of an early homonid (i.e. we have many examples of island pygmies of many animals). So an offshoot of some sort.

And, yeah, one species giving birth to an entirely different species is not part of evolutionary theory, it would be more a possible falsification of it.

[edit on 29-1-2007 by melatonin]

Originally posted by 11Bravo

even though there is a 50,000 year window for their 'fact'.

Where are you getting that from? There is not even a mention of an error bar in that FOX article. What other article are you citing?

Number one-we really dont know how old these bones are at all. They could be 500 or 5,000,000 and any number given by anybody is little more than a guess.

Thats false. Scientific dating techniques are not 'mere' guesses, anymore than the calculations used to send rockets to the moon are 'mere guesses'.

To assume that they were an evolutionary link we would have to assume that they had offspring/quote]
No one is claiming that they are a species that lead to man.

One species giving birth to another entirely different species is impossible.

Since no one is claming this, its irrelevant.

Originally posted by Nygdan
Where are you getting that from? There is not even a mention of an error bar in that FOX article. What other article are you citing?

True, I interpreted what 11bravo is saying as relating to a 95% CI, it's probably just the earliest and latest dated remains found so far in that area. It's not very clear.

We have floresiensis fossils around 13,000 and the oldest at around 90,000.

ABE: And speaking of floresiensis, the evidence grows...

Monday, 29 January 2007, 22:30 GMT

'Hobbit' human 'is a new species'

The tiny skeletal remains of human "Hobbits" found on an Indonesian island belong to a completely new branch of our family tree, a study has found. The finds caused a sensation when they were announced to the world in 2004.

But some researchers argued the bones belonged to a modern human with a combination of small stature and a brain disorder called microcephaly.

That claim is rejected by the latest study, which compares the tiny people with modern microcephalics.

Microcephaly is a rare pathological condition in humans characterised by a small brain and cognitive impairment.

In the new study, Dean Falk, of Florida State University, and her colleagues say the remains are those of a completely separate human species: Homo floresiensis.

They have published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

...

"LB1 has a highly evolved brain," Said professor Falk. "It didn't get bigger, it got rewired and reorganised, and that's very interesting"

news.bbc.co.uk...

[edit on 29-1-2007 by melatonin]