Hobbits and hockey sticks

Matt Ridley discusses the importance of rebutting your opponents' actual arguments, citing examples of failure to do so both in the case of the Hockey Stick and the fossil "hobbit", Homo floresiensis.

Comments

[Douglas J. Keenan]

For a brief introduction to some of the problems with the Hobbit, see
http://www.rps.psu.edu/indepth/hobbit1.html
Briefly, the Hobbit has about as much credibility as the hockey stick.

Note that several claims about the Hobbit come from the department of anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. PSU is where Michael Mann works. One of the people on the committee that cleared Mann of wrongdoing is the head of the department of anthropology.

[Hockey Schtick]

have a look at this:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/

[Don Pablo de la Sierra]

Hockey Schtick

I must admit Tamino has really pushed himself. I wonder what he is smoking?

Douglas J. Keenan

Briefly, the Hobbit has about as much credibility as the hockey stick

Douglas, when I was your age, a good friend of mine at Cornell University told me dinosaurs were warm blooded and were very active. He was drummed out of academia and has since made a nice bundle on Wall Street. He also laughs about the depictions of dinosaurs today dressed in feathers and looking like birds.

I do not believe the argument over the Flores skeletons is anywhere complete, nor will be for many years. I draw your attention to Mammuthus exilis, or California Pygmy or Channel Islands Mammoth for a well documented example of very large mammals getting pretty damn small when isolated on an island as the Flores whatever-they-are were.