Comments on: Were Homo floresiensis just a population of myxoedematous endemic cretin Homo sapiens?

By: Homo floresiensis: How Did This Dreck Get Published? « Afarensis: Anthropology, Evolution, and Science

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:19:12 +0000

[...] the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, -1(-1), -1–1. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.1488 Update 1: Kambiz has a more sympathetic take on the paper. Although, he has reservations about the screen capture as [...]

By: onix

onix — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:16:06 +0000

k you start using swearwords, i am not an idiot, and by the time you understand what i write i am probably proven right.

By: Kambiz

Kambiz — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:34:20 +0000

You’re an idiot Onix. No human individual can exist for millennia, however there are mutations that do sprout about from time to time. All your comments so far have been absolutely trash and I’m gonna have to ask you to stop commenting here so as to maintain the quality of the discussions here.

By: onix

onix — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:51:33 +0000

mh, i don’t belief an endicrinously flawed human would survive for millenia. next, i am not convinced by any theory so far. however, the supposed erectus ancestry that is the other side of the pathology argument is also flawed. the australopitheque or even gorilla like characteristics predate that a lot, and simply imply island dwarfism and other degenerate processes, that famously retrace evolution (allways, as opposed to sufficient space and diversity). thus, i arrive at the conclusion we see a limited population of unknown and in my opinion possible sapiens ancestry. to small to stay progressive but to big to die off without concurence. interesting is it is now both proven erectus survived untill 60k< on java, and that some mixing has probably taken place. i would be more interested to the results of the gossiped interbreeding on flores, and try to do that dna comparisons. also island dwarfism is not exactly the same as endocirinous flaws or microcephalics but still produces similar (at least superficially) results.

By: Erik John Bertel

Erik John Bertel — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:01:34 +0000

There’s not much fame and glory in peddling free eBooks and Podcasts at floresgirl.com, so please, I am not profiting with my opinion as do some of these researchers. I studied with a lot of these bozos that call themselves scientists and if you don’t think ego has a big part in formulating their so-called scientific opinions then I have some junk mortgages I would like to sell to you! Furthermore, the Flores finds have been vindicated by the recent research from the Stony Brook University team, researchers I was proud to study with.

The rules are simple in academia, if I didn’t make the discovery and it doesn’t fit my rigid model of the world then I go into attack mode. I just ask people to wake up and smell the egos!

By: Mary S. Lynn

Mary S. Lynn — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:39:13 +0000

Even if they were cretins due to some chemical deficiency or imbalance doesn’t the fact of their existance make anyone curious about the persistant legends throughout the British Isles about “The Little People?” Now that you know when they existed doesn’t that make it possible to go to areas where this legend is the most prevalent and do a dig there in that time horizon to see if you can find anything to prove they existed in Ireland and the other Isles? The facial reconstruction that was done on these “cretins” looks a lot like the way “The Little People have been described/depicted throughout history. Instead of infighting try and get some solid research accomplished.

By: Crowlspace » Blog Archive » The Hobbit Challenge

Crowlspace » Blog Archive » The Hobbit Challenge — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 01:38:40 +0000

[...] Were the Hobbits Cretins? …medically cretins i.e. deficient in iodine. Very unlikely as the main source of iodine, fish, were found amongst the food remains in the cave. [...]

By: Kambiz

Kambiz — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:59:45 +0000

Erik,

Thanks for the comment, but I think the back and forth-ing is a healthy part of the scientific method. It is hard to keep track of it all. Results must be accepted by the scientific community and in order to be accepted, very thorough investigations must be done and reported for people to figure out what’s going on. Sometimes the analyses are poor, like this one. Sometimes they are really high quality and accepted by many. So you really can’t say it all a pissing contest. Very few research have ulterior motives when conducting research, they’re just not as good as others in doing it!

On the topic of ego, you sure do peddle your Flores Girl site/ebook every time new research comes out on Homo floresiensis. Don’t you think there’s some level of hypocrisy in chastising researchers for murking the waters with their own agendas when you seek similar fortune and glory?

Kambiz

By: Erik John Bertel

Erik John Bertel — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:51:32 +0000

Unfortunately, the likes of this endocrine study plus the work of the late Dr. Teuku Jacob and Dr. Berger’s Palau find continue to muck the proverbial academic waters with their own murky agendas. No wonder the creationists feel so emboldened nowadays when they observe evolutionary scientists continuously getting embroiled in a pissing contest of personal egos. As to this study, I guess the fact that there were numerous other primitive conditions of the Flores hobbit skeletons that are not readily explained by this endocrine condition doesn’t matter. We say it, so it must be so, get our five minutes of fame and basically say damn to the so-called facts!

Of course, I have a vested interest in this discovery, having written a speculative fiction novel called Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot on the recent fossil find. If you are interested, there is more on this ongoing controversy about Homo floresiensis at http://www.floresgirl.com or catch the free Flores Girl podcast at Podiobooks.com.

Erik John Bertel

By: An upcoming study on Homo floresiensis says they are a separate species « Anthropology.net

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:05:37 +0000

[...] Two weeks ago we read a very flawed article that concluded Homo floresiensis was nothing more than a bunch of endocrine-ly challenged modern humans. There’s been a so much back and forthing on whether or not Homo floresiensis is a unique species that is has become tiresome to even keep up with the arguments. Sometimes it feels like ego is at more at stake here than really figuring out human evolution. [...]