` Bethink Ave got canned, so there will be no more posts.
Update for October 23, 2008: I have most of them - except for a few links - transferred onto my new blog, corrigendopedia.blogspot.com with other things. When I get that all sorted out, I'm deleting this blog and the user profile.
Don't worry, I'm putting them back online elsewhere!
` ATTN: In the process of adding rest of illustrations.
[Image of Darwin, Image of Caricature of Darwin]
` At long last, after more than three weeks I have completed (writing) this post - and fought the temptation of writing any others during bouts of writer's block! Though it is a fine essay for anyone to read, it also addresses my fellow biology students.
` Science, as I've written before, isn't an overly natural process to human beings: When we have an idea, it's our first instinct to come up with evidence to support it. In science, not only do you learn as much as you can, you try to find evidence that disproves your ideas. (That way you know if you got something wrong.)
` Darwin's Theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection has passed, with flying colors, a century or more worth of tests that were designed to disprove it. (Some people don't agree, and I'm getting to that.)
` Charles Darwin was a creationist who began to explore the natural world - it wasn't until after his travels that he became convinced that natural processes and long stretches of time could account for all the variations seen throughout life on earth.
` Today, so much is known about biological processes that evolution has long been considered a fact. Even Darwin, in the mid-1800s, could not explain anything that he knew - about comparative anatomy, populations, biogeography, embryology, paleontology, etc. - without referring to the idea that all species living today had a common ancestor.
` The question he asked was how did it happen?
` Darwin's version of 'how' is called the Theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection, whereby certain organisms are 'edited out' by their own environment. It is true that one organism can produce many more than one replacement for itself. As a result, this creates many 'chances' for its lineage to continue - and there surely needs to be.
` The million-dollar question is; which offspring will survive?
` Despite what opponents of evolution will say, Darwin's theory is far from being completely random: Mutations and new variations abound - especially with species that reproduce sexually - so not all offspring are equal. Many even have extra copies of genes, missing genes, mutated genes, or simply unusual combinations of genes, all of which can affect their ability to survive. Over the generations, 'disadvantaged' individuals will be completely 'bred out' of a population while better-adapted are likely to be preserved, or 'selected' by nature.
` Thus, species are forced to change into others. And, as the environment also changes, what was useful for one individual may make survival difficult for its great-grandchildren. So, species continue to be forced into changing. But, if enough individuals of a species cannot do this, their kind faces the ultimate cut - extinction.
` The Theory of Evolution is not to be confused with the general concept of evolution, which simply refers to the fact that species are constantly changing. This is important because it may be helpful to know that anti-evolutionists confuse them all the time.
` About Darwin: He wasn't the first to come up with a theory of how evolution happened, but his is the only one for which all of biology - as well as chemistry, geology, cosmology, et cetera, have done nothing but back it up.
` This is why it's called the Grand Synthesis - pretty much everything we know about the universe relates to and supports Darwin's theory in some way.
` The Theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection is truly a gargantuan concept - so huge that it is based on a lot of different laws of nature as well as statistical probabilities. Since a law can only contain one very simple and utterly absolute concept - such as the speed of light, or the law of gravity - Darwin's theory encompasses far too much to ever become a law.
` Similarly, a lot of the patterns and activity of your cells is also based on both laws and statistics - and are thus not always consistent or predictable - and yet, their tendencies still manage to form a living, changing body that doesn't suddenly lose coherence. There is no 'Law of a Human Body', and there never could be.
` There is a lot of ignorance on the subject of evolution in this country (and thus plenty of misconceptions) so it's relatively easy to get many people to swallow a false picture of Darwin's theory - one that makes evolution look nonsensical - whether or not they agree on its validity.
` This is what Intelligent Design proponents do (as did the 'Creation Science' proponents before them). Intelligent Design Theory - which (as you'll see) is merely an attack on Darwin rather than an actual theory - was employed by creationists as a 'Wedge', explicitly to gain converts.
` Main ID proponent and lawyer, Phillip Johnson, describes how he came up with the idea ('Berkeley's Radical', Touchstone Magazine, 2002):
So the question is: "How to win?" That’s when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing" —the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy.` This explains why the book Of Pandas and People, which goes on about design and a designer, was originally called Creation and Biology and talked about God and the book of Genesis.
Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do.
Intelligent Design opens the whole possibility of us being created in the image of a benevolent God … The job of apologetics is to clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ … And if there’s anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ as the free reign of the Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view.` Phillip Johnson also highlights his reasoning (Missionary Man, Church and State Magazine 1999):
The objective is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to ‘the truth’ of the Bible and then ‘the question of sin’ and finally ‘introduced to Jesus.’` There you have it - in their own words, not mine: Intelligent Design theory is missionary work disguised as some sort of 'scientific' debate. Some have told me, "it doesn't matter where the science comes from; science is science and it's wrong to censor it."
"Between horse and dog (two mammals) the divergence [in cytochrome C] is six percent, between horse and turtle (two vertebrates) the divergence is eleven percent, and between horse and fruit fly (two animals) the divergence is twenty-two percent." (Denton 1985.)` Well, that's perfectly consistent with evolution. See? (You'll have to click on the picture to see, because my blog is too narrow to display it any larger.)
` And yet, Denton said that in all his studies, since he couldn't find any proteins from a transitional species in anything alive today, it must mean that Darwin is wrong. And Darwin would point out that transitional species of modern animals - and their proteins - lived millions of years ago.
` He said that these data made evolutionary theory "collapse" because the modern animals' proteins did not show any signs that they evolved into proteins in another animal living at the same time. Well, why would evolutionary theory predict that?
` And yet, according to Denton, bacteria ought to be at the bottom. Bottom of what? Eukaryotes and prokaryotes have been separate for something like two billion years - that constitutes four billion years of changes because we count both branches since the common ancestor.
` So, the four billion years between bacteria and all these eukaryotes has resulted in about the same number of differences in cytochrome C. Unsurprisingly, that supports evolutionary theory absolutely, but no; Denton said that Darwin's theory dictates that bacteria ought to show more signs of being primitive, that they should be relatively close to wheat, and a little farther from silkworms, and father than that from tuna.` It's easy to be tricked by what you see. Especially if you feel absolutely sure that you know what you're seeing.
` I admit, I've been tricked this way many times - for example, just last weekend a prankster had me terrified, thinking that our downstairs neighbors were impersonating a police officer and later left me a message to tell my boyfriend that they were now going to 'get' him for calling the cops about that.
` It's a long story.
` I was glad when he came home in one piece so I could tell him that he was in danger - at the same time, the police had finally called us back. Just as they were on their way to arrest our neighbors we got a call from someone we know who said, "Oh, by the way, that was me! Wasn't that funny?"
` We told him how much it wasn't.
` It's things like this that help one realize how easy it is to be fooled - and mortally terrified by being fooled! An immature person on the phone seemed like a seedy thug to me, despite the fact that two of the details in the phone call didn't quite seem right.
` Similarly, though less frighteningly, one of my psychology teachers related the time he heard sounds that convinced him that were rats in the walls - only to find they were coming from a moth trying to escape from his skylight!
` Partial or sketchy information can evoke strong emotions - and it is for this reason that they are sometimes unwarranted. What you can't see your mind automatically makes up, or tries to, depending on what you're thinking of, and you don't necessarily notice how much of it takes place in your head. If you only think of one explanation, that explanation becomes your reality. Sometimes, though, it's the wrong explanation!
` That's why, as I've said, one of the objects of science is to rule out various explanations until you find the one that is most likely. Scientists are generally very serious about finding out the truth, though they may still accidentally pollute their own studies by being biased and then completely fail to realize it. (That's why other scientists are around to challenge them and repeat their experiments, etc.)
` It is actually normal to 'pollute' one's own life with one's own biases and opinions. Usually, this does not cause many problems, but sometimes it can - such as potentially arresting people for something they not only didn't do, but know nothing about.
` If one firmly believes in untrue things about, say, the nature of a group of people (positive or negative), or that certain people have a special privilege to impose whatever they like upon others, it's been known to sometimes create very large problems.
` If everyone looked at themselves the way scientists looked at the universe, more people would, for example, find more out about where their own ideas and attitudes come from, and in the process, better understand how easy it is to trick themselves.
` Though learning how to 'look before you leap to conclusions' would benefit anyone, it is sometimes discouraged and looked down upon here in America. This is reflected (and exacerbated) by the general lack of any serious questioning to extraordinary, questionable claims as presented on television shows (or in reams of books).
` Sometimes, when there is critique, either not much is shown or it is otherwise presented in such a way that it doesn't appear to make a dent in the claims. The evidence shown for them, on the other hand, is generally dubious or ephemeral, but is made to look as firm and substantial as possible.
` This is because the main point of television shows is to gain viewers. If people actually think that something is both dramatic and real, they are more likely to keep watching. In the days before I got rid of my television, I used to watch educational programming, and even then I observed that a lot of it had inaccuracies and flaws - sometimes atrociously so!
` To reiterate; for monetary reasons, proper representation on TV is less important than creating sensationalism or letting sloppiness and misunderstandings take hold. As far as criticizing extraordinary claims, there are only a few shows that actually have done so while many more only pretend to, effectively mocking skepticism by doing a splendidly bad job of imitating it - then taking the whole 'investigation' seriously!
` A lot of people, I am sure, do not know the difference between a real critical investigation and a cheap imitation, so this type of thing would be good enough at leading some of them to laugh at skeptics.
` Really, I think a good dose of learning how to ask questions, the way a scientist would, is just the sort of thing American citizens need more of.
` Since it's nearing Halloween, I thought I would post a critical review of a television show featuring both video and photographic 'evidence' that some people insist are real ghost activity. I will demonstrate how very easy it is to find much more plausible explanations for these 'haunting' images despite the fact that none are offered throughout the entire program.
` I am talking about one entitled 'World's Scariest Ghosts'. Long ago I may have believed these videos to be compelling evidence of real goings-on, but now I see a variety of other things happening, or potentially happening.
` Go ahead and start loading up the video now, if you like, so you can see exactly what I'm talking about.
` The opening announcement, concerning the ghostly cases presented in the show says, '...But none can be authenticated. Are they real? You decide.'
` Though this program supposedly involves 'paranormal investigators' and 'experts', all we really have is emotional eyewitness accounts and footage of things that don't look particularly supernatural. There are zero attempts to verify whether or not anything strange had gone on. That must be why the viewers are supposed to be the ones to decide!Mysterious Liquid, Noises, and People Generally Freaking Out
` The first segment deals with a woman, 'Jackie' who kept feeling like there was an evil activity in her home, and says that it has to do with a reddish-orange liquid, which is pooled on a shelf in her cabinet - in addition, there is what appears to be dark yellow glue in a line above the top shelf.
` We see no one asking what it is or trying to find where it comes from. It could even be put there by someone, as we don't see it emerging from anywhere.
` This reminds me that there also used to be reddish-orange liquid dripping from my present bathroom's ceiling. These were probably 'stalactites' of nicotine stains left by the previous tenants. Well, at least they'd killed the mildew off.
` The stomping noises in her attic might conceivably be water dripping on metal or the roof changing shape due to temperature - I generally ignore similar sounds. (Though, many times I heard footsteps in the attic above me and they turned out to be from a homeless woman taking shelter during the winter.)
` I am slightly amused by how horrified investigator Jeff Wheatcraft looks when he went into the attic and was allegedly almost strangled by a cord hanging from a nail - he says a ghost was responsible for this. In truth, similar things have happened to me. I don't know how, but my head gets caught in things when I'm probing around with a flashlight and I don't see them until I back away and find that something is wrapped around my neck!
` Presumably, he could also have been staging this 'assault' - or exaggerating something that happened accidentally. He has good reason to because this is for a television show which requires drama. You know, like so-called 'reality' shows?
` Interestingly, this incident is not on tape, though if it had been, it supposedly would have been more compelling that a ghost was actually attacking the man. All we see is a photograph of a fearful-looking Jeff standing precariously on a rafter with his head stuck at an odd angle in a twisted cord.
` Then, towards morning, Jackie goes ballistic because she believes the ghost has attacked her baby. Why? Because she suddenly notices a red mark on the baby's forehead. It could be a bruise that took a while to appear, or - who knows? - it could be some of that dripping, reddish-orange stuff! Sometimes things happen that nobody notices. It's also really emotionally engaging when it's your baby you believe is in trouble.
` So says the narrator, Jackie moved out after that and the house has been quiet since then. Okay. That statement seems to tell us more about Jackie than the house.
` In any case, there is nothing that can be seen or heard that is really unusual - just the way the people are reacting - and we see no attempt to narrow down possibilities of what may be going on. Really, lots of spooky things happen all the time to me, though generally I figure out what's happened eventually.Objects Moving With No Visible Cause
` The second segment is a bit better than the first because it supposedly shows actual poltergeist activity before our eyes! Now, poltergeist activity quite often turns out to be children (yes, even very young ones) who find that pretending they are being attacked by unseen forces gets them attention. Keep that in mind.
` On the other hand, the next video shows a glass being dragged across a table a few inches, the typewriter next to it being rotated by one corner, a reclining chair being rocked, and then the sound of the door being slammed again and again.
` The video after that, from an entirely different person, shows some invisible force grabbing the leg of a chair and pulling it offscreen, then a piece of sheet rock appears out of the new wall and is similarly pulled up through the air and off the other side of the screen.
` Invisible forces? Sure; fishing line is even more invisible on videotape than it is on film. The simplicity of the movements (i.e. objects moving from one 'attachment point' in a straight line) would suggest that this is what is being used.A Family Secret?
` Here we have Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are well-known to have been entertainers and phony ghost hunters - that's right, they weren't even real ghost hunters! According to people who have investigated the Warrens, they were a kooky old couple that consistently distorted actual stories of hauntings and were very secretive about their very dubious 'evidence' of ghosts - some of which was actually exposed as being obviously hoaxed and/or misrepresented (the best-known case probably being The Amityville Horror).
` But, I digress - I'm supposed to be focusing on alleged effects by ghosts in this account: First, we hear some table-tapping in response to Ed's questions in a kind of 'séance'. It can easily be faked by any one of the people sitting around the table.
` I could mention here that the entire spiritualism movement (mediums, séances, etc.) was started in 1848 by the young Fox sisters, who found clever ways to trick people into thinking that their questions were being answered by ghostly rapping sounds.
` Later on, they came up with new tricks, such as producing lights, ghostly hands and 'spirit-writing'. By the time Margaret Fox began a tour of public demonstrations of how she could seem to produce rapping sounds from any part of a theater, spiritualism in general had far too long been out of her control to stop.
` So, who knows? Someone could be tapping the table with their foot or cracking their toe joint against it. The camera does not even peer under the table!
` Next, we see footage of the table itself, with Ed apparently alone and to the left of the video camera. One of the chairs moves toward the left of the camera where Ed must be, pulled by one leg. Was it fishing wire? (It's hard to say, as the legs of the chairs are difficult to see.)
` Then, the chair moves again while at precisely the same time the camera is also bumped - my guess is that this was Ed bumping the camera while pulling the chair himself. Then, "in the name of Jesus Christ", the entire table along with the chairs slides towards Ed. (Fishing wire is indeed strong enough to do that with.)
` Again at the table, we next find the little girl doing homework, and her elbows are firmly braced against the tabletop while her feet are wrapped around the front legs of the chair. It is very easy to lean the chair back on two legs from this position, which is what she appears to be doing. Try it and see!
` But what is said about this in the video? 'Oh, her feet aren't touching the floor, which means she can't be doing this herself; therefore, a ghost must be responsible.' That's a huge leap of logic, especially since the truth is really the opposite; you can't tip a chair like that without your ankles or feet 'grabbing' it like she is, because this motion is a sort of abdominal crunch rather than a pushing-down with the arms.
` All one has to do is lean against a table, hug a chair with one's legs, and lift up one's feet. The chair is easily picked up. If one tries doing the same thing with one's feet on the floor, the only thing that lifts up is one's feet.
` Similarly, when the table is 'pushed out' from under her, she simply appears to be pushing the table - which similarly can only be done if one's feet are hanging onto one's chair for leverage: If someone puts their feet on the floor and pushes, they are simply pushed away from the table. Try it yourself!
` It's simple body mechanics, really - I suspect that the only people who are fooled into thinking this video must be supernatural have probably never tried doing it themselves (or at least realized it if they were doing it).Waking Up, Unable To Move
` Here are some eyewitnesses describing seeing people, feeling presences, etc. which I find to be perfectly plausible; I have had such experiences myself since the age of two. Most recently, I woke up one morning to find that I was on my side, looking over at the floor. I couldn't move. I thought, 'oh, this again'. Then, I heard someone walking towards me and I could feel the mattress sink as they stepped onto it.
` It was a man, who started saying some nasty stuff he was going to do. I said "No." he said "Yes."
` I couldn't see him, though, and I started to think for a moment that he was real and began to be frightened. I finally managed to move enough to roll over and found that I was alone - but that didn't stop me from having to calm myself down afterwards.
` I've had many similar experiences and have seen and heard many things, from a roommate I'd had at the time wrestling with the cat near the bed, to completely floating off through the wall and into an alien spaceship.
` It's called sleep paralysis - it can be a usual occurrence for some people, and can happen to seemingly anyone under certain conditions, especially if they are under a lot of stress. It's a period of time when some of your brain acts as if it's awake - so you might think you're wide awake - while other parts aren't yet.
` As a result, it can really appear to you as if something is watching you, as if your chest is being crushed (you can't gasp for air), as if you are being restrained, as if you are being raped, as if you are being lifted into the room, as if you are being rotated, as if small creatures of some sort are kidnapping you, and you may hear or see a variety of different things - often terrifying, even to people who study sleep paralysis.
` These can be very emotional experiences, and records of them go back thousands of years.
` Most noticeable is that you can't move. This starts because when you are dreaming, the part of your brain that allows voluntary movement is shut down. (On the other hand, acting out dreams occurs when that part of your brain is not turned off while you are dreaming; however, sleepwalking is different because it takes place between dreams when you aren't paralyzed.)
` During sleep paralysis, part of you is aware of the room around you while part of you is 'dreaming'. So, you are still unable to move as if you were dreaming, plus you may have strange and unusual sensations around you that are often influenced by the paralysis itself, including vivid hallucinations that you may or not be able to distinguish from reality.
` That doesn't mean you're crazy, of course, just that you're not fully awake, and you're not experiencing reality like you normally would.
` What these people are describing are textbook cases of sleep paralysis - being paralyzed, feeling as if they're being held down, being unable to speak, seeing figures, sensing telepathic communication, etc. Classic examples.
` So I would say that in this segment, we have typical examples of a phenomenon that's well-known, fairly common, and many people who have these experiences are convinced that something has happened in the 'real world' outside their heads.
` In other words, this isn't unusual. How is it evidence for ghosts?Wildland Music Video 'Figure'
` As for the supposed 'ghost' in the Wildland music video, shot in the former town of Glenn Davis. This one is extremely easy to explain, especially since nobody claims to have seen it in real life.
` The first thing I noticed is that it doesn't move. The second thing I noticed is that is doesn't look like a person. Now, this film is black and white, so all we have is a twisted, dark lump (metal?) that vaguely resembles the body of a human figure standing in and leaning against an opening in what is left of a wall. Because it does not overlap with the top and side of the opening, it would actually appear to be some sort of debris that has fallen from the building and was still propped up against it, just behind the wall.
` Above the first lump is another dark shape that appears to be of the same stuff, coming out from behind the wall just above the first lump - it looks to be part of the same object, curled around.
` It is positioned just so that it looks like it could be a hat. But there is no head - you can easily see a white panel on the building behind and a post, which create a continuous background both above and below the 'hat'. However, they are aligned with the edge of the 'hat' so as to create the illusion of a light-colored 'face' - though it is clearly visible above the 'hat' as well.
` If you don't notice that is is just part of the background, it may look like a disjointed parallel line where the face should be that moves at a different rate as the camera moves - and that is basically what the director of the music video is saying it is, except he also evidently thinks that this movement is evidence of being the face of a ghost!
` Why investigate the deaths of poor miners or priests who had once lived there? The dark part is clearly not something that overlaps with the top or sides of the opening in the wall, and it sinks behind it as the camera moves. Also shifting in perspective, relative to the dark parts, is the lighter part, which is clearly part of the background. It does not look like a face, and is obviously not even part of the same object.
` As the producer of the video said; "There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that that was a ghost." Personally, I'd rather believe my own eyes.A Projected Light
` This video is clearly a projected light that is moving across the surface of one side of the hallway wall, flittering over door frames and other objects, shrinking at the far end of the hall, and then growing again as it slides nearer, over the surface of the other long wall and off the edge of the screen.
` The shape is flat, narrow, and near the floor, apparently unvarying except for the fact that it is distorted by the objects it's hitting - it looks like it could be a reflection, or from a car headlight coming in from a crack beneath a curtain.
` But, the man who lives in the house, Edgar, thinks it's actually the ghostly arm of his mother, walking across the hall and into a doorway. (I don't see anything like an arm, nor do I see it entering a doorway at any point.)
` The reason he believes this, though, is because he set up the camera to film whatever's making the footsteps he hears at night. Okay, I used to hear footsteps coming from one part of the house I grew up in - the part of the house my grandpa had once lived in.
` I heard them from the floor above, I heard them from the basement. They generally happened only in the afternoon and at night. I had always assumed that it was the house expanding or contracting in response to the temperature.
` Silly me, it could have been my grandpa's ghost! I should have set up a video camera. But wait - I also heard them when he was still alive, and he was scarcely even able to walk. Wait a second....The Greencastle Mansion
` Onto the photos of the abandoned mansion during a spooky lightning storm. First, there's a strong smell like sulphur and roses. I'm not sure what smells like sulphur and roses, though there's no reason a smell would be supernatural. Perhaps it's from something that's been rotting in there for a while?
` Then the photographer said he heard a heartbeat in his head, but it wasn't his. How can he be sure? I've heard my own heartbeat and not realized it was mine because I was paying too close attention to things that were frightening me. In fact, once I was so scared I didn't know my own hand was my own hand - I thought some weird, scaly thing was touching me until I looked down!
` As for the pictures of the 'ghosts' seen in the upstairs windows - they are obviously light reflecting off the 'melted'-looking old glass. Know how I can tell? Look closely - they are seen behind the outer façade of the building, but in front of the windowsill and frame on the interior of the room!
` The three photos of the 'pink lady' show exactly the same thing - a pattern in the wavy glass with a crack in it - though with slight variations which could be caused by shifting position slightly between photos. Whatever the light is from (the flash?) it's definitely on the glass.
` So, the 'photographic expert' saying that they're very interesting because they're really on the film has nothing to do with their authenticity. The 'computer graphics expert' is then shown distorting the images with a 'bas relief' filter (he pronounces is 'bass' relief), which I've observed exaggerates the depth of any image so that it makes small photos of real people look like skeletons, rotting zombies, or completely unrecognizable shapes. For that reason, I don't like using it.
` But our expert here is now baffled that the 'face' in the photo now looks like a skull. Yes, and so would a good number of other face-like images. I fail to be surprised.
` Somehow, it's then important to find out who once lived in the house. Fair enough. Apparently, there was a woman named Irene O'Hare. The name was also found scratched on the bedroom wall - there also appears to be more writing below that. Is a name clumsily written on a wall evidence of a dead person because they lived there?
` I have a friend whose bedroom closet was lined with writing and signed with the name of a girl who'd had lived in the house before him. Does that mean she had died, or rather would it suggest that nobody washed her closet wall before the family had moved?
` There's also the matter of the 'gold ghost'. It is similar to the 'pink lady' - it's a blobby shape and can be seen in front of the interior window frame, so once again it must be on the surface of the glass. This time, however, it's gold rather than pink.
` The clouds seen in the camera could be the cameraman's breath drifting through the flashlight beam - I have inadvertantly videotaped my breath sneakily doing the same thing, even when the weather is warm (but moist, like in a thunderstorm). It looks just like that; my face is on the left side of the camera because I, like most people, am holding it with my right hand, so it's coming from left to right, even with the same rhythm.
` On a related note, someone I know sent me a picture he took while working as 'the chainsaw guy' in a haunted corn maze last year... on which he was shocked to see a 'smiling' ghost! He quickly realized it had been his breath.Strange Shapes in Photos
` After more bits of descriptions of random ghostly encounters, we move onto photos of a little girl named Carrissa.
` I have seen these exact same shapes - ribbons of various widths that have perfectly evenly-spaced ribs running through them. I don't remember what the people at the camera shop said they were, but I know that a lot of different ones I had were common defects and they see it all the time.
` As I was quite the aspiring photographer, it really bothered me when I took a really nice picture and a huge part of it had this thing that looked like mist or lightning or textured-looking ribbons all over it - sometimes they would extend across the film from one photo and into the next. Some, the camera shop people said, were due to light leaks in my camera, and some are due to this annoying thing that tends to be right at the end of rolls of film.
` When I got a new camera, I stopped getting some of those defects. Now, why it is that apparently nobody took those pictures to a camera shop or photo developing expert to ask what they might be, I can't say. Maybe they don't care what it is?
` Then, the narrator tells us that her story is "strangely similar to the film The Sixth Sense." Well, the girl hasn't said that she sees 'dead people', nor does she describe seeing strange things - only that something is scaring her - so what is the parallel again?
` Perhaps the next segment seems like a better match, but from the looks of it, not really.A Little Boy's Story
` Photos of this boy, Justin, reveal very similar-looking shapes as ones seen in Carrissa. I'd say this may be due to a common kind of photo defect. He says, though, that he sees ghosts of people.
` So, maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. Children do seem to see things that are not there - like gnomes. Does that mean gnomes are real? Or maybe they are just pretending that they do.
` As he is telling his story, his wide-eyed nervous smile suggests to me that he might be lying and is so excited because he can't believe he's getting away with it. Especially the very animated way he's saying "closer, and closer, and closer, and closer...."
` The many-times-over-exposed fake, James Van Praagh, is precisely the wrong person to introduce into this situation, because his job is exploiting people for money - even if it's giving them his (as it turns out) completely wrong guesses as to what's happened to their missing child, etc.
` With Van Praagh 'investigating' on this scene, Justin looks like he is thinking 'Wow, I can't believe he is pretending, too!' If Justin is just making stuff up (and since it's been well-established that Van Praagh does the same thing) he is of course going to agree that the police sketches are what he sees.Orbs
` The 'orbs' in the basement in the first house look to be moths flying in and out of the infrared spotlight - the camera guy is the one telling the woman that they're even there! I'm not sure what the 'V' shaped object could be, though it could be part of a cobweb slowly falling to the ground.
` Anomalous electromagnetic and temperature readings? How do they know where the orbs are if only the cameraman can see them? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I don't see them doing any kind of control tests, nor can I tell what they're measuring, so how could I tell if they aren't the normal EM and temperature readings expected in this basement, or basements in general? (Basements are where hot and cold water, electricity, as well as heating and cooling generally spring from, so lots of fluctuations are possible.)
` And then the other people with the other house with the other orbs - those look more like out-of-focus specks of dust in a spotlight. I see them all the time in cameras.
` The furniture was moved? Maybe someone was in there! Or maybe they were mistaken, as people sometimes come home to be alarmed that their furniture wasn't where they'd thought they'd left it.
` Similar things are still vivid in my memory, like the time I toppled a four-foot tall houseplant, or the time someone accidentally knocked a hole through a wall where everyone walked, etc. Neither of my parents noticed these types of things, sometimes for months until just 'one day', one of them would walk in the door and stop being blind to it. (So, even if it wasn't my fault, as the family scapegoat I was severely punished for my parents' inability to see things when they first had happened.)
` I can tell that the 'backyard' orbs are definitely not in the backyard. To begin with, I fist noticed that they do not go farther away or closer to the camera - they move on a 2D plane. The announcer says that they go around the trees - I'm presuming, behind the trees - but I can't see what he's talking about.
` The smoking gun? Watch the one on the left. If you're not paying attention, it appears to move off the left edge of the sliding glass doorway... but on second glance, it ends right where the glass ends, not the edge of the doorway, which blocks the view of the yard!
` Anyone can see, plain as day, that it actually goes in front of the brick on the house - much like the 'pink' and 'gold' ghosts went in front of the inside window frames!
` That's right, these are just projections onto the sliding glass doors! So, then the narrator mentions that Steve, the guy who's doing the filming, does not think that these 'orbs' can be due to "any known camera tricks". How about the one where you turn off the lights in your living room and hold small lights, which reflect off the glass? I bet he knows that one!
` Up next, we have the giant, freaky, globby orb. It looks a lot like an oval mirror that may not be perfectly smooth, or a shiny platter or similar object that's reflecting a small light source. Just before moving into an area where it's light enough to tell whether or not someone was carrying it, it suddenly moves downwards and offscreen. (Yes, the 'trails' of light are normal on videos taken in dark places.)McPike Mansion
` So here, we have images of what appears to be large droplets of mist, or particles of something, which are swirling around a small basement room. The people say that these were dry and felt electrically-charged. If they were, that might explain why they were rushing around the room so fast.
` It might also explain the described sightings of balls of light - naturally or artificially-occurring electricity can cause some very odd spectacles, including ball lightning and St. Elmo's fire.
` No attempt is shown to even ask someone who studies things like air currents, humidity, electrically-charged dust, etc. to take a stab at cracking what it could be. Though I myself don't know what it is, I would rather ask an expert in meteorology before jumping to the conclusion that it's simply unexplainable.So...
` Overall, what this show presents are people's emotions and absolutely no images that can't be explained by some down-to-earth phenomenon - especially when the illusion is very apparent, or when there is none at all. Even so, I would expect that there are those who are taken in by some, if not all, of these very poor presentations of evidence for ghosts.
` 'But none can be authenticated.' That might be because they look authentically unimpressive.
` 'Are they real?' Maybe to some of the people on the show.
` 'You decide.' I've decided that anyone who thinks these video representations are of real ghosts probably has not tried to imagine other ways in which they could be created.
` I think that programs like this - not to mention ones of the Unsolved Mysteries sort - are an insult to human intelligence. They really do expect some people to believe it, just like that.
` Not surprisingly, the way in which I came to find it was when I frequented the Skeptic forum - it was chosen basically for it's 'insult' value. Basically, everyone there laughed at it.
` I'm sorry, but frightened people and effects that could be duplicated by almost anyone are not my idea of convincing images of ghosts. If I saw a video of something like a water glass that started floating through the air, turning all about, and changing directions, that would at least get my brain puzzling. (Many strands of fishing wire? Computer graphics?)
` In one of the other threads, the Skeptics all got together and recounted stories of when they were really fooled into thinking they had seen something they had not. I recall one participant relating the time it appeared as if a gnome wearing a pointed hat and a tiny dog were crossing the street, silhouetted in the sunlight.
` Upon further examination, in the shade, the 'gnome' with the little 'dog' turned out to be a skunk with its tail in the air; the contour of the tail just happened to look gnomish!
` Similarly, another forum responder told of the time, after her mother had died, she saw what looked like her mother's head of hair on her pillow! Then, it appeared to 'get up' and was out of view beyond the doorway. If she hadn't have stayed around to check out the situation, she might have thought something strange was going on - luckily, she stuck around to see the dog coming out of the room, and for the first time, she noticed that the dog's fur looked a lot like her mom's hair!
` Most creepy of all was the guy who told of attending his grandfather's funeral as a child - which, as is the case with children, he thought of as somewhat amusing, which made him feel guilty and nervous. After being very serious at the casket to assuage his fears, he turned around to see... his grandfather coming up the aisle! He thought his own grandfather's ghost was irritated that he wasn't showing more respect, and panicked.
` Seconds later, his parents were there to tell him that it was actually his grandpa's estranged twin brother that nobody ever told him about. He didn't talk to his parents for a few weeks after that.
` Of course, I can't verify that these claims are true any more than I can the claims of the people on World's Scariest Ghosts. But, at least the stories don't require an article of faith to believe that they are physically possible. They are at worst hypothetical examples.
` It's easy to be fooled by illusions. Remember - it's not that illusions aren't real, they are simply real things that appear to be something they're not. Even our own senses employ illusions so that our brains put together a coherent picture.
` Asking 'why' is only the first step in any part of science, or of events in everyday life. Narrowing down the most possible explanation - a process which I've written about on this blog, and will do more of in the future - is something that needs to be made familiar to everyone.
` If it were, I don't think that television presentations like these (or even ones only half as credulous) could be used to grab ratings right and left the way they are.
` In my opinion, when such ridiculousness is met with enough ridicule to make people in the television industry think twice about using it for ratings (unless these shows are made to be laughed at instead), then probably a great deal of progress would have had to have been made in familiarizing the public about how to evaluate how well 'evidence' actually matches up to whatever explanation is being presented.
` Credibility, not only of presentations or debates, but also perhaps of our society, would seem to be at stake.
` It would be darn useful if the most common liquid in the world - salt water - could be used as a fuel. John Kanzius, a Pennsylvania man, says that he accidentally discovered a way of doing this when trying to desalinize some saline water - with a radiofrequency field.
` Supposedly, his radiofrequency transmitter breaks up the water molecules and releases hydrogen, which can then be ignited and turn back into water - and the cycle continues.
` Kanzius is not a scientist, however; he's a former broadcasting executive. Speaking of broadcasts, this 'amazing new development' has been on news programs around the country, though curiously, it hasn't been much of a hit among physicists.
` Allegedly, the radiofrequency field breaks the oxygen away from the hydrogen in water, but my question is (besides "does it actually work?"); "if he really is doing this, then is more energy coming out of it than what was put in?"
` In fact, Kanzius says it can't, which indeed makes perfect sense because doing this would mean his device is the basis for a perpetual motion machine that uses salt water fuel. As you may know, any perpetual-motion machine - by definition - requires that the first law of thermodynamics (the conservation of energy) as well as the second (the law of entropy) be broken.
` So ask yourself, could he really do that?
` As my biology teacher has explained, certain molecules can be fuel because they contain stored energy. Carbohydrates, for example, are a plant's way to store solar energy, and when an animal's digestive system breaks them down, that energy is released.
` Water, however, it not one of them. Sure, people break the hydrogen atoms off the oxygen atoms all the time when converting water into hydrogen fuel.
` However, that takes a lot of energy - usually in the form of petroleum products (at least for now), which raises the question of whether or not hydrogen fuel technology is a good idea right now. See, burning hydrogen fuel cannot possibly make as much energy as it needs to be created in the first place, so exactly how is it more energy-efficient?
` Even so, hydrogen is still a fuel because it can be burned to create energy - and water. Water, on the other hand (with or without salt) requires a lot of force to break apart, and doing this to water merely drains an energy source rather than releasing energy.
` So really, water is an exhaust product, not a fuel, and every time someone says it is, they never do manage to demonstrate it. Some are even caught cheating the public by selling unwitting citizens their patented devices or water-based fuels.
` Stanley Meyer is one such hoaxer - self-proclaimed inventor of the 'water-powered car' - who was charged with "gross and egregious fraud" in 1996. Conspiracy theories about him spout that the oil companies did nothing but give him trouble, and eventually poisoned him at a restaurant in 1998. (The coroner said he died of an aneurysm, but he was bribed to say that, right?)
` No one ever did figure out how his fuel cell was supposed to work.
` In Kanzius' case, he does not claim that this process creates energy - all it really does is cause the radiofrequency emitter to eat brutal amounts of electricity - but he does insist on the possibility that the laws of physics will not get in his way.
` We shall see, Kanzius, we shall see.
Last updated September 26.
` On the Indonesian island of Flores, the natives tell stories of a long-gone, diminutive and hairy 'cave people' called Ebu-Gogo. Ebu means 'grandmother' and gogo means 'one-who-eats-anything' - they were said to have lacked cooking skills. These human-like creatures are said to have constantly raided crops and eaten anything they were given, from raw meat to the gourd-dishes the food was placed on!
` They were said to be no taller than three feet with long hair, pot bellies, ears that stuck out a bit, longish arms and fingers, and a slightly awkward gait - they were clearly built for walking, but could also climb slender trees very well.
` Ebu-Gogo women were noted for their long breasts which they reportedly slung over their shoulders. (The women of the village Labuan Baju in the far west also have somewhat long breasts and therefore the 'LBJ' villagers are often made fun of for allegedly interbreeding with the Ebu Gogo!)
` Though they were said to be able to 'murmur' to one another in some form of speech, talking to the Ebu-Gogo was described as being rather like talking to a parrot - you could say whatever you wanted to them, but they would only repeat what you had said.
` Now, there are many convincing explanations for similar stories of 'little people' the world over (some that involve short humans and some that don't), though the Ebu-Gogo legend is distinguished by being the only such legend to potentially (maybe, perhaps, plausibly) have more literal credence since the discovery of tiny homonin fossils in a cave called Liang Bua.
` The small-brained people are tentatively named Homo floresiensis - and commonly are known as 'hobbits' - though it is unclear exactly how closely they are related to us. However, since the 'hobbits' may have gone extinct ten thousand years ago or further, the idea that the natives' stories were passed down from memories of living individuals is doubtful.
` Nevertheless, it is possible that the natives may have come across these small skeletons themselves and made up the tales to preserve the knowledge of the old bones:
` It is well-documented that people of other cultures have done the same thing. Among Native Americans for example, a gigantic vulture-like bird preserved in a cave seems to have sparked stories of a terrible bird that ate people; bird-like dinosaur footprints are used as religious symbols, thought to be the tracks of thunderbirds or sky-gods; mammoth skeletons were thought of as the bones of mythical giants or great beasts; skeletons of large mammals and dinosaurs seem to be represented quite often in myths about the development of the earth.
` In any case, there is proof of very small people who really did live on Flores - right alongside modern human beings, in fact! Since that discovery, in 2003, the question has been raging; how much like us were they? Are they even a different species?
` This was my take on the first reports of the first 'hobbit' find: Moisture-softened bones (like 'blotting paper') from several of these these Homo floresiensis were found spanning several layers in Liang Bua alongside those of animals such as giant monitor lizards, dog-sized rats, and miniature versions of prehistoric elephants of the genus Stegodon.
` In addition there were the remains of firepits (evidently they could cook) and numerous stone cores, flakes, reworked tools (points, blades, microblades) and anvils that look like they could have been made by our own species. The bottom-most remains dated at 94,000 years ago to the most recent at about 14,000 or 13,000 years back - and through it all, the tools stayed the same.
` The official opinion was that they might be a miniature version of something like Homo erectus, a species that lived in the region, which might have migrated to the island and become smaller after living there for several generations - much like the many miniaturized instances of other species, such as the pygmy Stegodon.
` In fact, every so often the Stegodons would go extinct and then more large ones would migrate over from the mainland and shrink, one population after another. Evidently, it was an easy enough place for them to get to, though they most likely swam considering that herds of elephants can sometimes be seen swimming out to sea towards islands. (Many islands, anywhere from off the coast of California to just north of Russia, were also populated by very small versions of mainland elephant species.)
` How H. floresiensis ended up there, no one can say. Though the nearby island of Java used to be populated by H. erectus, it had also been connected to the mainland by a land bridge. Flores wasn't, as far as anyone can tell. It is tempting to think that 'hobbit' ancestors were capable of making boats, though there is also no evidence of this. Whatever happened, once they got there, they stayed there, and assuming they had once been bigger, they shrank.
` Miniaturization is common in rainforests or islands (or rainforested islands like Flores), which are environments with few available nutrients. Presumably it happens because a healthy breeding population is not so easily supported on the available resources at the species' 'normal' size. In these types of environments, native peoples can be found who rarely grow much taller than five feet - this includes African, Melanesian, New Guinean and Southeast Asian groups.
` A complete female H. floresiensis skeleton shows an individual that was much smaller - only three feet tall and around fifty-five pounds in weight, with longish arms. From what is known about an individual known as LB1 (a.k.a. 'Ebu' or 'Our Little Lady of Flores') - they had a face similar to ours, yet the cranium was the size of a grapefruit, more like that of a much older human relative, the similar-sized Australopithecus.
` The team determined that the skull was from an adult individual - around thirty years of age - from many clues, not the least of which was that the permanent molars had all erupted and had undergone years of wear.
` Early on, the scientists wondered if a person with such a small brain could be capable of making tools that resemble those of our own species from many areas of the world, while Homo erectus fossils have never been associated with anything this advanced.
` It could be that they had gotten the tool ideas from humans - who lived alongside H. floresiensis for roughly 45,000 years - though from elsewhere, as humans had presumably arrived on the island thousands of years after H. floresiensis established their first colony and primitive technology.
` What seems to be much more likely is that they had figured it out on their own. After all, the largest genetic difference between us and chimpanzees concerns genes that affect the way the brain functions, and a human brain is structurally different from a chimp brain:
` Judging by the inner surface of the skull, H. floresiensis had a rather human-like brain. Though chimps and 'hobbits' had similar-sized brains, perhaps this is not quite as large of an issue as it seems!
` However the tools came to be, they evidently were made by H. floresiensis, as they were smaller than tools from H. sapiens, and not surprisingly, the right size for them. The little people were also apparently organized enough to hunt and butcher Stegodons, especially young ones, whose bones - which also show evidence of being cooked - were much more common in the cave deposits than adult remains.
` How unusual - a species that was incredibly small, seemingly had high intelligence, and yet what a small brain! It only got stranger.
` A bit later on in time I had read science reports that attempts to find similarities between the H. floresiensis braincase and those of people who were pygmies or who had dwarfism or microcaphaly had continued to fail.
` Archaeologists like Peter Brown and Richard Roberts reported that the fossils had many Australopithecus-like traits (besides those that occur from having a short stature), and interestingly none of these had been recorded in modern humans of any kind.
` Their detractors insisted that perhaps these were merely some growth-challenged people and that the skull that had been found just happened to be from a microcephalic - which is funny, because people with microcephaly don't tend to live very long.
` A few months later, I continued trying to find information about more published studies concerning the 'hobbits', but they seemed to have had stopped at the moment.
` Then I discovered a potential reason why when I came across interview transcripts from an Australia Broadcasting Corporation show called Lateline. The first transcript (Nov 25, 2004) is an interview by Tony Jones of the aforementioned Richard Roberts at the University of Wollogong.
` They discuss the huge amount of drama concerning a professor Teuku Jacob - who was not involved with the project - taking the team's findings and claiming that they were modern human bones! He allegedly kept them away from anyone who disagreed with his viewpoint and seems to have even told a few lies to help justify his behavior.
` This, in my opinion, is even more sensational than the idea of a tribal legend with parallels to a fossil species! I mean, scientists may be scientists, but sometimes there will be some who fail to act accordingly.
` Jones and Roberts comment on what had happened...TONY JONES: It's an extraordinary situation. This was billed as one of the great scientific discoveries of our time?
` It is strongly implied that Jacob was not being objective. So, why do most of the archaeologists involved - or otherwise - think that Jacob's opinion was wrong? And why did Jacob insist he was right? I found this to be rather telling;
PROFESSOR RICHARD ROBERTS: It is. It has moved beyond science now into the political arena. We're trying to take it back to the scientific arena which is where it belongs.
It shouldn't be used as a trophy to trade around as a power base. It is something for the scientific community to say; 'This is what it is or isn't.'
I don't object to Professor Jacob having a different view from ourselves. I think he should let others look at the material and he can come to his own conclusions as can everyone else.PROFESSOR RICHARD ROBERTS: ...Microcephaly is an extremely rare disease amongst modern humans.
` I then learned more about the controversy, both over Jacob's actions and concerning H. floresiensis biology. And where? Another Lateline interview (March 3, 2005) with Richard Roberts and one of the people who agree with Teuku Jacob.
The fact we have found a human with microcephaly would be an acheivement. The probabilities of finding it are vanishingly small. The fact that we now have seven indiviuals, from this cave, presumably all with microcephaly... the chances of that are utterly remote.
Let's take a point of argument that this particular individual with a small brain is a microcephalic individual, is such an individual. They have other features that indicate they're not suffering from microcephaly, they have unusual tooth structures - three roots to the teeth.
You find those in three-million-year-old people like Lucy in Africa, that only exist in very early Homo erectus. You don't find those with modern humans. We don't suddenly develop three roots to the teeth. Nor do you suddenly develop long arms if you have microcephaly. And that's what the hobbit has, they have slightly longer arming compared to ourselves.
The pelvis is wider than in modern humans. They have very thick eyebrow ridges. None of these are features of microcephaly. When you look at a complete set of features of the skeleton, one or two of them might be credible as being microcephalic problems, but the rest of them can't be explained by microcephaly.
If you pick some of the ones like Professor Jacob has done I can understand how he reached that conclusion. But not on the basis of all available features.
...None of the referees on the papers, and we had lots of them, of course they were looking for something simple like this, saying it's a modern human suffering from a medical problem, it's something the referees on the paper thought 'is this going to be the explanation?' and they quickly reached the conclusion, 'it's not the explanation.'
This is definitely a new species of human. In fact, so different, originally Peter Brown even thought this was a new genus of human, that's how different they are. Professor Jacob is really out there by himself.
Interestingly, it is history come full term again. Every time a new human species is discovered, suddenly everyone is saying it's some sort of demented modern human.
TONY JONES: I was going to say you have to be a bit philosophical about it. This is pretty much what happened with the Neanderthal man?
PROFESSOR RICHARD ROBERTS: That's right. They were first thought to be some poor cossack who got stuck in a cave and died or some demented human.
Same with the first Homo erectus, Java man, people thought; 'Oh, look, he's a sad case of a poor soul who's a demented human.' As the fossils began to accumulate, everyone says, 'No, that's not the case.' We've now got too many 'demented humans' for that to be an explanation. It's a new species.
TONY JONES: From Professor Jacob's point of view there's some history here. He refers to a Dutch Priest called Verhoven who made similar claims for a discovery in the 1950's, at least that's who the professor is saying. It appears he was directly involved in refuting those claims. Is history repeating itself for him?
PROFESSOR RICHARD ROBERTS: Verhoven was the first person who found this cave. He was a very talented archaeologist, be he was a full-time priest, or was supposed to be a full-time priest, but he did an awful lot of digging but never dug deeply, only about the first two or three meters, then stopped.
All he ever did find was modern humans. If Verhoven claimed it was another human species, Verhoven would have been wrong. So Professor Jacob might have been right then but I don't think he's right on this one.
` That person is Maciej Henneberg, who also claims that Jacob was not hoarding the specimens. Roberts disagrees, explaining that Jacob and the discovery team would have to agree before allowing a third party to look at the find. Jacob didn't do this. Roberts then claims that the only people Jacob let look at the remains were those few who actually agreed with him.
` Finally, he says that Jacob relinquished the find after he was forced to, though he wouldn't have done so voluntarily. (It was badly damaged from human handling as well.)
` He also talks about the comparison with the brain endocasts of various diseased human individuals and prehistoric species, and how the results oppose Jacob's (and Henneberg's) viewpoint.TONY JONES: Maciej Henneberg, are you prepared to reconsider your position on the basis of the endocast results if they do indeed show that the brain of the hobbit is not a diseased brain as you seem to be suggesting it is?
` It certainly does sound like Henneberg is biased, though I thought his point about not having several skulls was a good one. Nevertheless, if you have a skull and then another almost identical, primitive-looking jaw (with no chin) that could well fit onto the same type of skull, it seems reasonable that they were once articulated with a similar skull.
MACIEJ HENNEBERG: I'm not, and the reason is that... [t]hey compaired [sic] it to one single brain of a person who has the kind of microcephaly that we never suggested the LB1, the skeleton in question, ever had. So it's like comparing a patient with tuberculosis to a patient with bronchitis or pneumonia. I don't think it bolsters their case in any way.
TONY JONES: Let's speak about your other objections or your other views about why this skull and the other bones are not the bones of a new species.
MACIEJ HENNEBERG: Well, I have now had an opportunity to study the skeleton. I must add that, when I did any discoveries on skeletal material, I welcomed my colleagues to come and have a look, especially those colleagues who had a different view because I thought that when they come and look at the original material they can change their minds, and I'm talking only about looking at the bones that were already described.
Those bones clearly indicate that the person suffered from a growth anomaly and this growth anomaly caused anomalous, very slow or retarded growth of the brain....
TONY JONES: Richard Roberts, I know you know some of Professor Henneberg's other criticisms. He is suggesting that, in spite of what you're saying - that it's... the brain of a hobbit, a new species of human, but a normal brain, not a diseased brain - how do you answer the claims that it is in fact diseased without referring to the endocast?
RICHARD ROBERTS: Professor Henneberg, in a paper which I've seen in a journal, not a referee's paper but one where he expresses a point of view, pointed out some features that he believed to be that of a microcephalic individual.
Peter Brown, our expert paleoanthropologist, pointed out in reply that, while individual features such as a very small brain, such as certain things like even perhaps a slightly receding chin or sloping forehead, are consistent with a microcephalic individual, lots of details are not consistent.
In fact, they've got nothing like that in microcephalic individuals ever reported. So, when you consider the whole package of features that we found in the skeleton, and not just the facial features but also the post-cranial features, the rest of the body, it has a very flared pelvis and arms that come down almost to the knees - these are not conditions that occur with microcephalic individuals.
So, when you consider the whole overall anatomy of this person, it doesn't wrap up into a microcephalic person.
TONY JONES: Is the problem here there's only one skull? I know there's a part of another skull - I think it's the mandible -
RICHARD ROBERTS: That's right. We've got two lower jaws, and they're both very, very similar to each other which again argues against the fact that we've now got two microcephalic individuals and we've got the remails [sic] of eight individuals now from the cave, so if they're all equally small, which they seem to be, then if Professor Henneberg is right we've found eight microcephalic individuals and it's an extremely rare disease and to find eight of that antiquity would be quite a remarkable find.
TONY JONES: Professor Henneberg, you couldn't possibly have a nest of diseased individuals in this cave, could you, so how do you answer that?
MACIEJ HENNEBERG: We don't. There is only one skull. The so-called seven or eight, they seem to be multiplying now in the discussions, individuals are represented by mostly a single bone or a little bone fragment, like a fragment of a Spinous process of a vertebrae. And those have nothing to do with brain size. The only thing they indicate is small body size of local population....
...there's only one - and I stress it - one brain case and actually one face attached to it, and this face is fitting into modern human range of sizes and has a lot of features Australian and Indonesian people who, yet again, live in Flores and islands to the east of Flores until today....
It's not normal to have this amount of asymmetry in the face. When we come to long bones, they are actually unusually wide in relation to their rather short length and, yet again, this is indicative of abnormal growth, not of growth that is compatible with a new species. Let me finally straight out say that we are not discussing fossils at all.
Neither the skeleton LB1 or any comparing remaining bones, but we didn't really study them, neither of these are fossilized. They're as fresh bones as those that are excavated - I have excavated several thousands of them - from cemetaries and burial grounds that are a few thousand to several hundred years old. This is not a fossil.
RICHARD ROBERTS: Preservation is a geological issue and the particulars of preservation in this case are a wet, damp cave environment can keep things soft for a very long time. It certainly isn't fossilized in terms of minerals getting replaced in the original bone but it's certainly an extremely old skeleton, about 18,000 years old.
The fact that it's not completely mineral-replaced is neither here nor there. It's a complete red herring....
He talked about a slightly deformed skull. Of course we found this skeleton six meters underground. A cubic meter of sediment weights 2.5 tonnes - you'd feel pretty squashed too if you were stuck under six meters of sediment.
So you're going to expect some amount of crushing of the original skeleton when it's that deep underground.....
...What he was saying about the fact that referees never had a chance to look at the skeletal material, it should be said that Professor Henneberg, three days after we published our paper, was quite happy to write himself in the Adelaide Sunday Mail what he thought about it without having seen a specimen himself and he had already made his mind up. All he's done by going to Yogyakarta is made up his mind further. It was always a microcephalic to him. No amount of data will change his mind on that subject.
` Not surprisingly, there is even another transcript from the very next day concerning the speciment' brain shape - and even its texture, which was convoluted like ours!RICHARD ROBERTS: Foreward planning activity happens in the front of the brain, and that's where the hobbit brain is really well-developed. That explains a lot of mysteries that we had the first time around, which was; 'how could something with a brain the size of a grapefruit do so many sophistocated activities?'
` I wonder, then, what it is that tells them that there's no problem. How can anyone tell if there's something 'diseased' about a new type of braincase? I'm assuming there are telltale places of abnormal growth, though I still haven't been able to find what they are.
...Importantly the study concludes that these features are almost certainly not from a modern human suffering from a brain disorder....
PETER BROWN: They are not consistent with the size and shape features which you might expect to find in a pathological or abnormal modern human. They are normal brains, they just happen to be different to modern humans and different from those in Homo erectus and much smaller than Homo erectus in overall size.
RICHARD ROBERTS: Professor Henneberg said they only looked at one microcephalic individual's brain, and that's true. But out of all the brains that they compared the hobbit to, the microcephalic's was the least like the hobbit's brain; that is, this brain was so distinctively different from the microcephalic it really is very, very improbably [sic] that it was somebody suffering from microcephaly.
` Anyway, I know it's strange to be so clueless as where to find the latest scientific information that you will seek it out from television interviews - but as I later learned from science articles and news reports, this was a fairly accurate picture of what had been going on.
` For example, in Nature's July 1, 2005 EMBO 'Science and Society Report' was an article called Skullduggery by Tabitha M. Powledge. It described what had gone on with the archaeological community being in an uproar over Jacob, and that most other paleoanthropologists didn't agree with him. However, I was not aware that the bones had been damaged when Jacob finally returned them to Jakarta (February 2005):The bones had been seriously damaged: the pelvis had been smashed, the second mandible had been broken and unskilfully repaired [glued back on at the wrong angle], and LB1's skull had been mutilated by latex moulding; Science published photos of the damaged pelvis (Culotta, 2005).
` I later found that Falk compared the LB1 endocast to those of nine microcephalics, showing that the brain had no discernible growth problems but did have its own unique characteristics, suggestive of being a different species.
Morwood charged that bones with australopithecine traits had been almost destroyed. "The condition of some finds is absolutely appalling," he said. "This is not the action of responsible scientists." Jacob acknowledged taking moulds, but says he has photos showing that the bones were in perfect condition when they left his care.
Meanwhile, a study of LB1's brain, based on skull endocasts made before the bones were moved, was also published (Falk et al, 2005). First author Dean Falk of Florida State University (Tallahassee, USA) concluded that the brain was unique and somewhat erectus-like, but had advanced features, such as an enlarged prefrontal cortex, that hinted at respectable cognitive capacity.
Comparing it with a single skull from a microcephalic, the group also concluded that LB1's brain was not altered by disease. Falk is now studying additional microcephalic endocasts for comparison. "This was just a thrill," she said. "We said to them, 'We stand ready. If you find any more skulls, we'd love to analyze them!'"
` Really, the whole debate seems to have been fruitless for Jacob's part and the article ends by describing how this drama has been used as fuel by critics of science (especially of evolution) by giving them something to scoff at. You know, the old 'obviously they don't know what they're talking about' line! (A similar thing happened when Pluto was reclassified - what is going on in that case is that 'planet' is an ancient term and it has been hard to adapt as a scientific one.)
` So far, further attempts to place the fossils into our species have continued to be unconvincing. As recently at June of this year, a team led by Israel Hershkovitz et al published a study that supposedly demonstrates that LB1 is nearly indistinguishable from a person with Laron Syndrome.
` So, I looked the condition up and discovered that those with Laron syndrome do not have grapefruit-sized brains, along with quite the opposite of sloping foreheads. See for yourself.
` It turns out that Richard Roberts also considered this possibility, though he decided that it didn't make any sense for these reasons and others. Though there are some striking similarities with other characteristics, this could mean something else:
` What could it mean? That's not clear. I could speculate. It's dangerous, I know; Perhaps this is what happens to H. erectus when it has the Laron syndrome mutation? But then... all the individuals found - from different millennia, no less - would then appear to have had it. Plus, the tools in the caves seem to be dwarf-sized. There is also no evidence of larger individuals in the same deposits.
` Perhaps it represents a mutation that was adaptive? And now I seem to be getting back to the original hypothesis....
` Yesterday, however - this is actually what inspired me to throw this whole post together - I had stumbled into a Nature News article that describes how the wrist bones of H. floresiensis were characterized as being almost the same as those of Australopithecines!
` What?
` Matthew Tocheri from the National Museum of Natural History (Washington DC) led a team who made detailed measurements of trapezoid, scaphoid and capitate bones of various wrists including H. floresiensis, humans, Neanderthals, great apes and Australopithecus. Microcephalics and pygmies were left out, however.
` Still, the study concluded that the wrist bones of apes and Australopithecus were more similar to the H. floresiensis wrist than modern humans - including those with dwarfism - and Neanderthals. In fact, there's even a visual provided:The ape-like trapezoid bones of the hobbits, for example, are tapered and wedge-shaped, in contrast to the 'boot-shaped' trapezoids of modern humans, Tocheri and his colleagues explain (see picture).
` If H. floresiensis inherited its wrist bones from a long line of primitive ancestors, their common ancestor with ours would have lived before eight hundred thousand years ago. Why? Because that is the age of the earliest-known modern human wrist - just the type of wrist to make tool use easier!
` So, our lineages would have split ways a long time ago, and possibly longer assuming that H. erectus also had modern wrist bones - of which none have yet been found, strangely.
` While I did consider that Roberts may be wrong for a while, I'd say that from this latest find that these might really be a different species from our own. At least, any argument for H. floresiensis as being mutant H. sapiens does not seem very impressive. Only further finds and barrages of tests will tell....
` And I'm sure once this is all worked out, maybe some people can move onto working themselves into a lather with even more enigmatic questions... such as; 'Do the legends of the Ebu-Gogo have anything to do with the extinct creatures of Flores?'
` I'll probably be taking a mental-exhaustion-induced nap.
