A few years ago, everyone was in a tizzy over the discovery of Flores Man, curious hominin remains found on an Indonesian island that had a number of astonishing features: they were relatively recent, less than 20,000 years old; they were not modern humans, but of unsettled affinity, with some even arguing that they were like australopithecines; and just as weird, they were tiny, a people only about 3 feet tall with a cranial capacity comparable to a chimpanzee’s. This was sensational. Then on top of that, add more controversy with some people claiming that the investigators had it all wrong, and they were looking at pathological microcephalics from an isolated, inbred population, and then there were all kinds of territorial disputes and political showboating going on, with the specimens taken out of the hands of the discoverers, passed off to a distinguished elderly scientist whose lab damaged them, etc., etc., etc. It was a mess of a story, and the basic scientific issues are still unsettled.
Now the leader of the investigators who found the specimens has written a book, A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the “Hobbits” of Flores, Indonesia(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mike Morwood and Penny Van Oosterzee. I’m coming to this a bit late — Afarensis reviewed it already this spring — but finally got far enough down in my pile of books to encounter it.
I’m of mixed feelings about the book. It is not the book I wanted to read: I want a thorough overview of the details of the fossils, even from an author with his own predispositions about it (maybe especially so — a solid work of advocacy can be very entertaining and informative). I really want a good discussion of the various competing hypotheses, of the science in this discovery, but all too often this particular book seems to take a superficial view, and at times the fossils themselves seem to be wrapped in paper, boxed, and tucked away in a locked room while the real focus of the story is put on the front stage.
And that focus is on the politics. We learn far more about the politics and details of getting an Australian grant funded than we ever wanted to know. We get the personality clashes and diplomatic battles necessary to get research carried out across national borders. We meet a few prima donnas and mandarins of australasian anthropology, and we get all the juicy details of the infighting within the research group … all those important issues of divvying up the work and the all-important credit, sorting out authorship and possession, and all these thousand petty matters of priority and ownership and locking down the data. I have to say, it drove me nuts with frustration at times. I didn’t want to know about how authors argued over the species name, I want details of the characters used to link it to the human lineage. Less administrative dissection, more analysis of the biology.
It’s a good book if you go into it expecting what it actually is, a description of the sociology of science through the lens of one particularly discovery, by someone who is square in the middle of it all. It might be an excellent book for someone considering a career in anthropology, too — if you aren’t frightened off by hoop-jumping and paper-shuffling needed to just get started, you might actually be able to do the work without going insane.
I’m still looking for the Flores book I want to read, though. It’ll be a synthesis of various hypotheses with all of the skeletal details, all of the methods, and with lots and lots of pictures to illustrate exactly what the author is talking about. I’m still curious about that story and want to know more. A New Human, unfortunately, is not that book.
Wow, I’m sorry the book was such a let-down. I’ve been following the story for several years now, but the science seems to be all effed up. I’ve heard several different accounts of the actual fossils. Namely that the original height estimates that were an integral part of the new species designation are dramatically lower than they should be because the original authors (Brown and Morwood et al.) on the initial Nature paper reported incorrect measurments for the long bones. As of now, I have yet to see any definitive evidence that it is microcephalic, but the latest paper from June hasn’t made its way into my reading pile yet.
I’m keeping an open mind on the science, but until I see more independent analysis I’m a fence sitter.
I got this book from the library and just failed to engage with it, for the reasons you listed. I just don’t guess I care that much about the peripheral issues, but I am still intensely interested in what the hell those wee Hobbits were. I wish there were an extended version of what is contained in “The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans” just on Floresiensis. One thing I learned from “Last Human” is that our ancestors were, if anything, even less attractive than I’d thought. Yikes.
Is it just me, or do you get the sense that when a science book is proposed, publishers now always respond, “What’s the human angle?”. Can’t we just have straight science and ideas, instead of intertwining it with “human interest” elements? I think at some point 15 years ago this was seen as very postmodern and hip, but in some ways it is a drag to slog through all this frip about other peoples’ lives and affairs when you just want to learn something. It also makes these books more to the point. Let’s have more of that.
Just wondering whether anybody has seen this:
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/flores/
The fossil has traits that match a form of dwarfism almost perfectly.
It may just be the last word on ‘floresiensis’.
PZ
Can you recomend a biology dictionary, so I can understand what you are saying, Under $100 I can aford.
Thanks
Grgg
Is it possible that Flores Man is the genetic predecessor of GW Bush?
As an aussie, I apologize for you being bored shitless by the workings of bureaucracy and academia here. We love to paint ourselves as carefree and somewhat adventurous, but in truth aussies are law abiding, somewhat boring and love following rules (except when beer is involved, as it often is down here).
I would’ve liked the book to be a ripping tale about naked hobits doing strange acts with dwarf stegadons whilst being hunted by komodo dragons. Alas, it seems it wasn’t. I’ll wait for that book to come out….
http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary.asp
There you go bro.
Speaking of science books, wasn’t there a topic and comments thread a while back where PZ asked people for their favorite or recommended books?
I can’t find anything by searching and I want to add some good books to my paperbackswap.com wish list.
Well of course they show features of dwarfism, they were dwarfed in classic island isolationism. It may well be that for hominins there aren’t too many variants that lead to dwarfism so that finding means nothing in relation to their relations to other hominins.
It seems to me that would have had to be there for quite some time to develop all these features and a specialised culture to boot. We know H. erectus have been around there for at least a million years. So it seems to me that the most parsimonious explanation is the original one, they evolved from H. erectus founders. The sad thing is it seems likely it was us who killed them off, directly or simply in competition.
Mr Ashby:
Not just ANY kind of dwarfism, but a specific one: Laron Syndrome. One possibility is that this is an isolated population of H. sapiens which, as a result of random genetic drift and inbreeding, became fixed for the syndrome. (Another is that this is an isolated instance in an otherwise normal population.)
I suggest all interested folk read the article and then we can discuss it knowledgeably. The case is (IMHO) startlingly strong (and, as Hawks notes, testable).
Believe me, I’d love to see this paper refuted, but I haven’t heard any response. Let’s argue from evidence; not from desire.
I read the blog entry djlactin mentions. It doesn’t seem like even the person who wrote it thinks that it’s the “last word” on H. floresiensis, and even he mentions that the brain and cranial characteristics don’t match someone with Larson syndrome. Incidentally, djlactin might be interested to know that Falk’s latest conclusions regarding the brain characteristics came after a second round of measurement and comparison against a broad sample of hominids, including victims of dwarfism and microcephaly.
It is very unlikely at this point that the “hobbit” was a victim of a disorder. At the very least, no real evidence has been substantiated that it was, and the remains of several individuals have been found. Any hypothesis that asserts dwarfism would need to also explain why several such dwarfs would be found together.
Doubtful. Because we have also observations such as this (PT comment dated 070621):
One thing about this interesting idea that I didn’t see Hawks go into is that Laron Syndrome sufferers are very obese.
Now, the stature of these individuals is small, but I have never the less to wonder if one would not see this probably early onset obesity expressed in skeletons development and adaptation? Yet I didn’t see any such consequences mentioned. (Which may mean I’m obviously wrong, of course.)
What would a biologist say?
Doubtful. Because we have also observations such as this (PT comment dated 070621):
One thing about this interesting idea that I didn’t see Hawks go into is that Laron Syndrome sufferers are very obese.
Now, the stature of these individuals is small, but I have never the less to wonder if one would not see this probably early onset obesity expressed in skeletons development and adaptation? Yet I didn’t see any such consequences mentioned. (Which may mean I’m obviously wrong, of course.)
What would a biologist say?
Oops. That would be “IIRC, Hawks”, since I haven’t reread the material yet, and my memory seems to go on coffee fumes at the moment. Time to hit the espresso again. :-P
Oops. That would be “IIRC, Hawks”, since I haven’t reread the material yet, and my memory seems to go on coffee fumes at the moment. Time to hit the espresso again. :-P
Hmmm. Can’t get the link to the blog to work, but it’s worth pointing out that kids with Laron have *larger* heads than their other proportions would suggest, and since microcephaly has been mooted for the Hobbits, that really doesn’t sound like a runner.
This is not however a new suggestion – Laron himself suggested it last year: Laron Z, Kornreich L, Hershkovitz I. “For debate: did the small-bodied hominis from flores (Indonesia) suffer from a molecular defect in the growth hormone receptor gene (Laron syndrome)?” Pediatr Endocrinol Rev. 2006 Jun;3(4):345-6. [Zvi Laron would appear to be one of the editors of the journal]
I haven’t seen that paper, but there is an interesting angle – as we now know, the difference between big breeds of dog and wee breeds of dog seems to be in a particular variant of IGF1. Growth hormone hits the growth hormone receptor, which stimulates IGF1, which then mediates the next step in the growth chain. Ergo, lower IGF1 function, smaller doggies.
Laron is due to mutations (usually) in the growth hormone receptor GHR, and results (you guessed it) in low IGF1. It is entirely possible that lower IGF1 (or general activity along this axis) could be responsible for the small size of the “hobbits”, but it seems very unlikely that this explains other features (such as the relatively small head size, which if I’m reading things correctly means small in relation to the *overall* proportions, unlike Laron).
Notably, Laron patients *are* fertile, although puberty is often delayed. So it’s not a ridiculous suggestion, but one that needs investigating; a hypothesis more than anything else. Here’s the latest:
Hershkovitz I, Kornreich L, Laron Z. “Comparative skeletal features between Homo floresiensis and patients with primary growth hormone insensitivity (Laron syndrome).” Am J Phys Anthropol. 2007 Jun 27
-Amenhotep
Vyoma:
This is science: nothing is EVER ‘the last word’.
I count myself among the many who went “OH WOW! A new, bizarre species! Possibly an independent branch from H. erectus! (And, to reveal my generation: FAR OUT!)” I did the pish-posh on the “it’s only a microcephalic human” argument. But this (summary of a) paper really made me sit up.
To Quote Hawks (I apologize for the extensive quote; I want to avoid perceived quote-mining):
“Summary
This is a powerful paper. The overlap between the morphology of LB 1 and Laron syndrome symptoms is very extensive.
To my mind, much of the credibility of the species hypothesis — that H. floresiensis really existed on Flores for a long time and evolved a mean phenotype including derived features absent in other populations — depends on finding more specimens from earlier time intervals. If the archaeology of the island could be extended into the period after 500,000 years, it would document the long-term persistence of some hominid population across the interval from 700,000 years ago to 90,000. At 90,000 years, given ambiguities in dating, it is entirely possible that remains may be attributed to modern humans. So documenting a persistence in between those dates is important.
Likewise, the anatomical evolution of those populations would be a key piece of evidence. Were they, as Jacob et al. (2006) suggest, connected by gene flow to the Asian landmass by recurrent connections? Or were they really isolated on Flores or possibly other islands? Only a trace of the evolutionary history, through morphology or DNA, can provide evidence of this isolation.
I don’t view any of this as impossible, but naturally it remains to be demonstrated. Likewise there is nothing impossible about such a population having a unique GH/IGR-I variant, either by drift or as an adaptation to the island. But we are waiting for the evidence that they were there throughout that time.”
….
You’re right: he does not think this paper is the end of the story. But let’s not use “argument from authority” as a justification for belief.
The possibility is very real that this is a member of a dwarfed isolate of H. sapiens. In fact, I see this proposal as a more parsimonious argument than the “independent descent from H. erectus” hypothesis, particularly because a ‘pygmy’ group exists on Flores today.
As I said before, we should argue from evidence, and not from a desire to see cool stuff.
I’d really like to see opinions from the rest of the readership… not that truth can be decided democratically, but because intelligent analysis is rewarding in its own right.
p.s. you can call me derek
[I should have added, though, that Laron makes a very strong case in that last paper cited, but unfortunately no pics of homo floresensis are available for comparison, and it would seem I may be wrong about the head size in Laron patients. Time will tell]
cm
Not really. If something is going into wide press production, the publishers are going to want the broadest possible reading demographic. Scientists themselves are a fairly small subset of a population, and breaking those scientists down into their own relevant interests makes the reading blocks smaller still. So to actually make a return on their investment, yes, publishing houses encourage the writers to broaden the appeal. In the best case scenarios, this means interspersing the hard science you’re looking for into an accurate-yet-entertaining narrative. At worst, it fumbles both the science and the story.
But if all you want is the science and nothing but the science… well, you’ve always got journal articles.
A couple of things —
This book really isn’t about the “human angle,” either. It’s written from the perspective of the PI of a major research project, which means he focuses a lot on administration and maintenance and occasionally odd little details, like the quality of the shoring in the excavation. That stuff is important to know, too, and it tells us quite a bit about the normal practice of science.
As for the speculation about homologizing the mechanism of Ling Bua dwarfism with a modern pathology — it’s easy to get the wrong impression from that. It’s obvious that there are known molecular mechanisms for getting a reduction in size, and a deleterious mutation in the HGH receptor gene now does not imply that a past population carrying a variant allele was necessarily suffering from a pathology. We’d expect that instances of island dwarfing would be accompanied by changes in genes like the GH receptor.
The only good way to resolve the issue is more digging on Flores. Find a couple of skulls with normal morphology and size from the same era, and then no one will argue that LB1 is representative anymore. Find more skulls of similar morphology, and it will be clear that this was a very strange population.
IANA biologist, paleontologist or any other kind of scientist, and all this talk of morphologies doesn’t mean much to me without pictures. To me the pictures of H. flores’ skull resemble quite strongly an H. erectus skull, with changes appropriate to a scaled-down offshoot. The few pictures of microcephalics I’ve seen on the interweb look like distorted H. sapiens, retaining many of the features such as chins, weak jaws, minimal eye-ridges and squarish craniums that mark the human skull. I know that it’s good to have measurements to back intuition, but I think that the opponents to the dwarf erectus hypothesis may be counting trees instead of surveying the wood.
` I was hoping the book revealed more clues as to Homo floresiensis, but I guess the fact that we’re still stuck (partly because the fossils are damaged) is what happens when bureaucracy interferes with paleontology.
Let’s face it, we’re all just a sub-species of slime mold with birth defects.
how do you like this?
Professor Paul, In regards to your descreation of the Holy Eurcharist of the Catholic Church. No need for big words but you remember the story about the little boy who called wolf. Don’t wait to call on Jesus, do it now so He knows who it is who is calling. Just an analogy as Jesus will always know who you are and will be there whenever you call on Him. He loves you that much. Soo much He died on the Cross for you.
My friend, what happened to you that you would do such a horrible thing? Something must have sometime in your life.
To Take on God is something mighty scary. Want you to know I am praying for you. Son, use those brains and learn about Jesus and the world will be soo much happier for you. Mrs. Townsend
Carol,
If this is just a belief you’ve convinced yourself of, fine.
But if PZ, myself, or any body else for that matter, doesn’t believe in this, why would you want to tell us that, unless you have clear objective evidence to convince us that it is a fact ?
Carol,
are you a Catholic ? Have you read Pope John Paul II’s (a very wise and honourable man, in my opinion, and I’m not a Christian) encyclical Redemptoris Missio [The Mission of the Redeemer]. There the Pope taught that “The Church proposes; she imposes nothing.” The Catholic Church respects the “other” as an “other” who is also a seeker of truth and goodness; the Church only asks that the believer and the “other” enter into a dialogue that leads to mutual enrichment rather than to a deeper skepticism about the possibility of grasping the truth of things. The Catholic Church believes it to be the will of God that Christians be tolerant of those who have a different view of God’s will, or no view of God’s will. Thus Catholics (and other Christians who share this conviction) can “give an account” of their defense of the “other’s” freedom, even if the “other,” skeptical and relativist, finds it hard to “give an account” of the freedom of the Christian. That the Church did not always behave according to these convictions is obvious from history.
Do you think this is what you are doing, trying to enter into a dialogue with us, the “other”, without imposing your beliefs ?
Do you think you are respecting us, the “other”, as also a seeker of truth and goodness ?
I’m sure PZ appreciates you wasting your time talking to yourself.
strange phenomena, this picking old threads to let us know that they are praying for us.
Not the frst time I see this.