Hobbit Trap

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

"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 "Those working with skeletal remains face challenges appropriately analogized to solving a ten thousand piece jigsaw puzzle with only two pieces, no picture, and no judge of the veracity of the finished product. The field is overbuilt, overstaffed, and full of strong egos and weak evidence. With barely two hundred skulls available worldwide to outline human development over tens of millions of years, not much is set in concrete. There are more experts than there are bones, so there is competition for scarce resources. The work decries the lack of openness of the field sites to scholars but also their vulnerability to grave robbers and those who have created a cottage industry in manufacturing fragments for profit and tourism. The book is less interesting as an argument for one interpretation of one find than it is as a jeremiad against the shortcomings of a major field of science. The issues it raises about the state of the field and the its practitioners are pertinent to would-be scholars regardless of field, and the book should serve nicely as a springboard for discussions of the role of the scientist and the scientist's relationship to the broader world."--John Barnhill, Anthropology Review Database

• Chapter 1 Reflecting on Origins; Chapter 2 Thinking Small; Chapter 3 Null Hypotheses and Fairytales; Chapter 4 A Lot to Chew Over; Chapter 5 Random Skulduggery; Chapter 6 Collegiality and Line Management; Chapter 7 The More Things Change; Chapter 8 Degrees of Separation and Laboratory Slaves; Chapter 9 Out of Sight, Out of Mind; Chapter 10 More of the Same; Chapter 11 Pseudo-Science and Bruised Egos; Chapter 12 The Debate That Isn't; Chapter 13 The Sum of the Parts;