Homo Florensis Specimin partially destroyed by Prof holding it Hostage

March 21st Article

A damage list from the article

• Much of the detail at the base of the skull was pulled off.

• The left outer eye socket and two teeth were broken off and glued back. Bits of molded rubber still adhere to some sections.

• Long, deep cuts mark the lower edge of the hobbit's jaw on both sides, left by a blade used to cut away molded rubber.

• The chin of a second hobbit jaw was snapped off, losing bone. It was glued back together misaligned and at an incorrect angle.

• The pelvis was smashed, perhaps in transit, destroying details that reveal body shape, gait and evolutionary history.

I jsut heard about this now from the April 11th posting of Doc Wilkins' Blog.


This Site has some photos of the destruction.


Damage to the 'innominate' bone

Damage to the jawbone. Don't let it fool you, the teeth are demolished, and the sculpturing and architecture of the important parts have been ruined and the whole thing was misaligned in glueing.
Its not an art object, its a collection of information. That information has been destroyed.

The above blog also links to this article, which apparently notes:

Jacob denies that any damage was done to the bones in his lab - or even that a cast has been made. "(The Australians) blame us for everything," he says. "They think they own the skulls and they own the cave and they think Indonesia is part of Australia. The Indonesian government has regulations about making and selling casts. So you cannot make them easily. You have to follow the rules and the government can intervene if you make something wrong.''

Although no unauthorized copies of the cast have surfaced, Morwood has drafted a letter asserting that the intellectual property rights to the bones, including casts, belong to the Jakarta Center for Archaeology, whose scientists are on his team.

[emphasis added]

I don't know what's more disturbing, the fact that one scientists is tempestuously holding the fossil hostage and severly damaging it (while at the same time saying the fossil is just a freak) or that other scientists are resorting to establishing copyright and intellectual rights over something that belongs to everyone.

Regardless of how it's treated, I think it's the coolest find ever in paleoanthropology (human stuff). It gives credence to the concept that evolution is not as linear as we picture it.

The nearby Indonesians have had a legend about the hobbit people for eons, and I can just imagine all those academics during the last century telling superstitious folk how they could not have existed.
But then they find the fossils.

On another site, a poster from western Australia spoke of his friend who descended from chiefs of an aborigineal tribe. Apparently, when his friend was a child, his grandfather took him to a place where they set out food and watched the hobbit guys come out and take it. That part of the world is not extremely well explored or documented by the West, so I wouldn't be too surprised if Florensis was around more recently than the suggested 10k years back.

I have one uncertainty about Florensis, though. Initial speculation about the cause of its stature points to it living on an isolated island. However, I'm not sure its clear that the particular island was always so. Meh
www.scotese.com...

Originally posted by Nygdan
I don't know what's more disturbing, the fact that one scientists is tempestuously holding the fossil hostage and severly damaging it (while at the same time saying the fossil is just a freak) or that other scientists are resorting to establishing copyright and intellectual rights over something that belongs to everyone.

Nygdan, While I certainly don't mind, and in fact sometimes enjoy butting heads with you, it's nice to agree with you so completely about something. IP issues are a huge, huge problem in my opinion. While I am certainly not trying to change the topic of your well thought out and completely relevant post, but I am particularly interested in IP issues as it relates to patenting genes, proteins and other portions of the 'biological commons.'

And while I might never agree with you re: the conclusions or implications of this particular find, I completely agree that what has happened is truly an outrage.

that so called scientist; isnt a scientist
hes selfish and unscientific
destroying evidence of amazing discovery

should be Arrested and tried in a Court of Law for crimes agianst Humanity

destroying our history
its unacceptable

my guess :: he is religious or is controlled by religious people (maybe government ?)
heck he may be working alone i dont know ....
anyways; i think he destroyed it so that we wont know the TRUTH

Arrest Him Now
Throw him Behind Bars!

Hopefully this will only be one of many finds related to these "hobbit" people. It is a shame to lose so many of the details that would help us in understanding a few more things about these people.

mattison:

muzzleflash
my guess :: he is religious or is controlled by religious people

There is nothing to indicate that. Anyone can get out of control. I mean, him being an evolutionist doesn't mean he isn't also religious, but him doing this doesn't mean that he is religious either. To mess up so horribly a simple task like this is certainly.....questionable.

infinite8
Hopefully this will only be one of many finds related to these "hobbit" people

I have absolutely no reason to think this, but....what if this guy has more hobbits in his, from what I understand, expansive collection, all marked as 'homo sapiens'? I mean, if it looks at 'the' 'hobbit' specimin and says 'its just a dwarf, then how many other 'just dwarves' are in his collection????

Wow. I have read a couple of articles on the scientific tug of war going on over these remains and untill now haven't really known whom to believe. Nice post, thanks Nygdan

.
While on the surface this little soap opera of science may be causing some damage to data/artifacts, in a perverse way it indicates and helps to engender people's minds being/getting occupied with science.

BTW did anyone see that nature special with these little jungle birds that moon walk? They do this wierd/great/crazy little dance including walking backwards then they bend over and vibrate their wings so fast it makes a high pitched audible trill. They move so fast the film recording them has to be a 500 frames per sec. It was so incredible i wonder that it might be bogus. It was funny, the biologist lady was doing the moonwalk demonstrating it. I wonder if someone could/would pull a little science hoax/scam on a major PBS broadcast show?
.

Hello, I am doing some research on the subject of whether or not Homo Floresiensis was in reality it's own species. If anyone can point out some articles it would be greatly appreciated. I have googled the subject and found a wealth of information, but any more will be of great assistance. My email address is [email protected]. Thank you.

Originally posted by Dakaramor
Hello, I am doing some research on the subject of whether or not Homo Floresiensis was in reality it's own species. If anyone can point out some articles it would be greatly appreciated. I have googled the subject and found a wealth of information, but any more will be of great assistance. My email address is [email protected]. Thank you.

Okay... here's the situation: The jury's still out on this because of the limited amount of material they have. It's agreed that they're human and agreed that they're small, but it's not clear whether they're simply very short homo erectus, homo sapiens, or a new species. DNA would solve the issue, but the place where they were buried is not a good site for preserving DNA for 10,000 years and more.

A cast of its brain cavity shows that its brain wasn't organized quite like ours and resembles homo erectus: www.sciencemag.org...

In general, it is being treated as a new species. Here's a handfull of articles:
www.comdig.org...

The war over this is going to go on for a number of years and will need finding other fossils to enable them to finally make a decision.