The Hobbit Trap: How New Species Are Invented - Hardcover

Henneberg, Maciej; Eckhardt, Robert B; Schofield, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1598745719 ISBN 13: 9781598745719

Publisher: Routledge, 2010

Synopsis

When scientists found the remains of a tiny hominid on an Indonesian in 2004, they claimed they found a totally new species of human ancestor (homo floresiensis), and called it a Hobbit. Film crews rolled in and the little creature took the world by storm, but a group of prominent scientists, including Maciej Henneberg and Robert Eckhardt, smelled a rat. They refuted the data―the size and shape of bones, the inferences about height―and they raised fundamental questions about scientific method, revealing cultural and political pressures that lead to the wide acceptance of unsupported theories. The Hobbit Trap describes how the case against the “new species” theory developed and offers an important critique of the species concept in evolution. In this thoroughly updated second edition, the authors include new data and analysis of the Flores fossils, and expand their important analysis of scientific practice, calling for a new movement to reverse the decline in scientific standards and the rise in scientific politics. This lively and important challenge to conventional wisdom is accessible to the general reader and makes a stimulating addition to courses on the history and philosophy of science, evolution and physical anthropology.

About this title

About the Author

Maciej Henneberg, PhD, DSc, holds the Wood Jones Chair of Biological Anthropology and Comparative Anatomy at the University of Adelaide. His main research interests are in past, present, and future human evolution, described in over 231 papers and five monographs. Born in Poland in 1949, he was an academic and free trade-union activist under the Soviet regime before being exiled. He taught and conducted research in biological anthropology and anatomy in the United States, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Europe, and has been in Australia since 1996. Professor Henneberg is in high international demand as a lecturer and forensic expert in criminal cases, including the notorious Falconio murder in Outback Australia. He has a strong interest in the maintenance of scientific standards within academia, and has been a Convenor of the Academic Board at the University of Adelaide and participates vigorously in current debates on the governance of the University of Oxford.

Robert B Eckhardt, PhD, is Professor of Developmental Genetics and Evolutionary Morphology in the Department of Kinesiology at the Pennsylvania State University, where he is head of the Laboratory for the Comparative Study of Morphology, Mechanics and Molecules. He has been conducting and publishing research for over forty years, specializing in the development and evolution of the human musculoskeletal system. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Australian Research Council, and several private foundations. He has published numerous scientific papers and books, most recently Human Paleobiology (Cambridge University Press, 2000). His laboratory was part of a research team that proved that the origin of bipedal locomotion occurred two million years earlier than previously realized. Dr. Eckhardt was an active recreational runner for several decades before shifting to vigorous daily walking for a more optimum balance between cardiovascular and biomechanical outcomes.

John Schofield is a veteran journalist with extensive experience living and working throughout Australia and South East Asia. He has a lifelong interest in the direction of human development.

Phillip Vallentine Tobias is a South African palaeoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is best known for his pioneering work at South Africa’s famous hominid fossil sites, and is one of the world’s leading authorities on the evolution of humankind.

Review

"This is the extraordinary tale of the last three years in the history of humankind’s evolution. Professor Henneberg is seen to be not only a scientist, but an historian of science, a detective and a philosopher.” —From the Foreword by Phillip V. Tobias

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1598745719
• ISBN 13: 9781598745719
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 228