News Section | Evolution
”Hobbit” was ”iodine-deficient human, not another species”
The debate over the origins of so-called Homo floresiensis-the ”hobbit”-has been re-ignited as scientists have claimed that it was nothing but the iodine-deficient species of human.
Charles Oxnard of the University of Western Australia’s Emeritus and his colleagues have reconfirmed, on the post-cranial skeleton, their original finding on the skull that Homo floresiensis in fact bears the hallmarks of humans-Homo sapiens-affected by hypothyroid cretinism.
The remains, allegedly as recent as 15,000 years, were discovered in 2003 in the Liang Bua caves on the Indonesian island of Flores by archaeologists seeking evidence of the first human migration from Asia to Australia.
When Professor Oxnard and fellow Oz researchers suggested in 2008 that the skull showed evidence of endemic dwarf cretinism resulting from congenital hypothyroidism and were not a new species of human, their claim caused controversy.
In order to test their thesis, Oxnard and his team have summarised data on the rest of the skeleton and mathematically compared the bones of cretins in relation to chimpanzees, unaffected humans and H. floresiensis.
They used two methods with different statistical bases: principal components analyses (PCA) and non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (MDS).
Their work has confirmed the close grouping of H. floresiensis with the hypothyroid cretins, and the clear separation from both modern humans and from chimpanzees.
This has lead them to conclude that the Liang Bua remains were indeed most likely cretins from a population of unaffected H. sapiens.
“This is consistent with recent hypothyroid endemic cretinism throughout Indonesia, including the nearby island of Bali,” Science Daily quoted Oxnard as saying.
“Cretinism is caused by various environmental factors including iodine deficiency — a deficiency which would have been present on Flores at the period to which the dwarfed Flores fossils are dated,” he added.
The findings appeared in a paper in PLoS ONE.
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wow thanks for taking the mysticism outta this …
Uh…yea that’s all just fine and dandy…ever consider that their iodine levels were natural for their species and there was no deficiency…think outside the box…remembering that these scientists only know what they were taught by men who only knew what they were taught etc…etc…etc..leaving very little if any room for possibilities…hey…how about that baby that was dead for…what was it…20 minutes…and came around when it was with it’s mother…the “doctor” wouldn’t come to their side until “HIS” way of thinking was accepted. Arrogance nothing more…remember scientists rarely believe in a “God” or creations outside of Homo Sapien.
Yo Tony! Thinking outside the box? You mean accepting lots of ‘crazy Dick’ Hoagland type BS as fact?
These men are doing what’s called scientific anlysis of the evidence. Their mission and methodologies are focused on one thing; getting to the nitty gritty truth about these speciments, not wishful thinking.
Keep checking for those black helicopters. I think one of them is hovering over your trailer. That’s God you hear talking to you through their mega-phones.
joaquin, y chromasome and mitochondrial dna proves or disproves lineage, not phrenology and subjective observations.
Joaquin…thinking outside of the box or outside of mainstream concepts is how our most revered scientists and great thinkers have figured out their theories. Just because you may not agree with something off the bat does not make it false. Remember they all laughed at the great thinkers , some even died for their ‘crazy’ beleifs. If it weren’t for people thinking outside of the box we wouldn’t be where we are today.
the biggest problem with their scientific study is that the scientists who proposed the idea that the bones discovered are those of iodine deficient humans are the very same ones who did the math calculations to “prove” their theory. that’s not how it works in the scientific arena – another group is going to have to repeat their work – using the same methods of calculation – and perhaps verifying the findings using a third calculation method – before the scientific community will accept the “find” as valid.