US rejects hobbit research

www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20209505-2702,00.html

Nico Hines
August 22, 2006
AN article in The Australian yesterday ("US rejects hobbit research",
page 5) incorrectly said the US National Academy of Sciences had
dismissed the discovery of a new species of hobbit-sized humans in
Indonesia as an "error". In fact, criticism of the find was contained
in an article published in the journal Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences. The author's opinion is not endorsed by the
academy or the journal editors.

THE discovery of hobbit-sized humans living in Indonesia 18,000 years
ago by Australian scientists has been dismissed by the US National
Academy of the Sciences as an error rather than ground-breaking
research.

The academy claimed yesterday that the miniature cavemen - homo
floresiensis - discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores were just
ordinary humans with a rare brain disease that left them only a metre
tall.

"The skeletal remains do notrepresent a new species, butsome of the
ancestors of modern human pygmies who live on the island today," the
academy says.

In 2003, scientists led by the University of New England's Mike Morwood
claimed to have found a new species of man when the remains of a single
hominid, or early human, were discovered in cave on Flores. This was
reinforced by the discovery of a further nine sets of remains in 2004.

The discovery upset the conventional history of evolution because the
fossilised remains had more in common with prehistoric man living in
Africa two million years ago than other species thought to have existed
at the time.

The latest attempt to debunk the breakthrough has prompted anger among
the Australian scientific community.

"It's a nonsense, I'm afraid, utter nonsense," said Colin Groves,
professor of biological anthropology at the Australian National
University.

Professor Groves, who was not involved in the original research, said
the American study was so fatally flawed that it did not examine the
key to the discovery. The size of the chins on the skeletons, he said,
was the vital clue alerting scientists to a new species.

The size of the CHINS on the skeletons, he said, was the vital clue
alerting scientists to a new species.

A vital clew!!!

.