Talk:Homo floresiensis

Undue weight

Every time I hear of these fossils, they are presented as a new species with the sceptics as a minority position. Is it really in agreement with WP:UNDUE that it is called a "possible" species in the introduction?--Berig (talk) 07:11, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

As long as there is still an active scientific debate about the status of these fossils, we here on wikipedia cannot "decide" the issue and state categorically that this is a new species. Trying to decide when something is "undue" weight is, of course, a subjective decision, but the consensus here so far has been to retain some marker that there is still a scientific debate ongoing. Normally, undue applies to truly fringe positions; the debate of H. floresiensis is still occurring within the standard scientific channels. Remember, science is done by weight of evidence, not by popular vote. It is possible for the majority to be wrong. See my longer comment below about the growing consensus, and the work that we will need to do to try to update and integrate this new information into the article. Edhubbard (talk) 14:38, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Lots of new info out there

It appears that we need to start thinking about a pretty massive update on this article, as there has just been a raft of articles published on our friend H. floresiensis. There are the Nature articles mentioned in one of the posts above. In addition, there is an entire special issue of the Journal of Human Evolution dedicated to H. floresiensis that will appear shortly (the articles are online with access through most universities). Finally, there are two articles related to H. floresiensis that have appeared in PNAS since the beginning of 2009. Altogether, there are at least 16 new articles that have appeared within the past two to three months! Right now, I have a ton of "real life" work to do, so I cannot read and integrate this new information into the article, but anyone who would like to get copies of the articles can e-mail me off-wiki, and I will send you the pdfs. On a related note, in a commentary on the recent spate of publications, a long-time fence-sitter in the species debate, Daniel Lieberman of the Harvard Department of Anthropology says this:

"Good science requires a healthy dose of tempered scepticism — at its heart, the process involves trying to reject proposed hypotheses. So it was understandable that the announcement in 2004 of the discovery of a species of dwarfed hominin, Homo floresiensis, from the island of Flores, Indonesia, stimulated a range of opinions, many of them sceptical, that the fossils constituted a new species and were not the consequence of some pathological condition.

Two papers in this issue, by Jungers and colleagues and by Weston and Lister, together with contributions to a special online issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, will go a long way towards addressing the sceptics’ concerns. The studies provide considerable evidence — literally from head to toe — that H. floresiensis is a true species of hominin (that is, a species more closely related to humans than to chimpanzees and other apes). More importantly, the analyses prompt hypotheses about the human family tree that will require more fossil evidence to test."

Now, of course, Lieberman does not speak for the entire scientific community. Although his sense that the accumulated evidence is now compelling may be shared by many others, I am sure that there will still be those who remain unconvinced. However, Lieberman's commentary may speak to a growing consensus in the field. I am sure this is why we are seeing a spike in the number of people editing the page to say that the matter is decided, as some people read on news sites something about Lieberman's commentary, and following journalistic practice assume that the scientist speaking speaks for all scientists. Let me admit my own bias here (which I have mentioned from the beginning): I believe that H. floresiensis is a new species, one that upsets several ideas about evolution, not only because of their small stature, but especially because they seem to use advanced tools with fairly small brains. This is what led me to first come here. But, given my own bias, I don't want to rush to accept Lieberman's conclusion as support for my feeling. I probably will get a chance to work on this in a couple of weeks; in the meantime, please feel free to e-mail me about the pdfs. Cheers, Edhubbard (talk) 14:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

In its current state...

...this article can't be featured. --62.216.120.76 (talk) 18:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)