Talk:Homo floresiensis/Archive 2

Peter Brown e.a.?

What doea "e.a." in "Peter Brown e.a." mean? I am pretty literate, and I have no idea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jrundin (talk • contribs) 15:50, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

It was introduced in thi edit [1], and clearly must be a nonstandard abreviation of et alia. I'll change it into et al., as in the reference.--Nø (talk) 16:28, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Et alii.--MWAK (talk) 10:00, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Recent article by Gregory Forth

The 18th of April, anthropologist Gregory Forth published an article in the The Scientist magazine (https://www.the-scientist.com/magazine-issue/opinion-another-species-of-hominin-may-still-be-alive-69869/amp) where he argues for the possibility that some individuals of this hominid species could remain alive to this very day or extinct only within the last 100 years. He backs this up with the claim that he has had contact with and studied the culture of the Lio people who inhabit a central region in the island of Flores. These people, he claims, have plenty of stories of encounters with a creature fitting the description of Homo Floresiensis and seem to regard it as a real "animal".

The question is whether any allusion to Forth's recent paper should be written within this Wikipedia article. Personally, I would advocate for caution: the article is very recent and I have yet to see any other anthropologist allude to Forth's proposition. The author is releasing a book about the topic this May, its scientific reception should be closely monitored for inclusion of such a fascinating possibility. KOSƧIO (talk) 22:00, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

This was discussed in several papers and in this article when floresiensis was believed to have survived until 12,000 years, but the discussion in this article was deleted when the extinction was pushed back to to 50,000 years ago. See [2] in 2016 where the speculations of scientists including Forth are discussed. Dudley Miles (talk) 23:01, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

One thing is taking such claims seriously; another is reporting the fact that such speculations exist. I think not mentioning the speculation is wrong. The article mentions and discards the 12000 years (fine!), but do not mention the much more sensational 0 or 100 years. I think those speculations are a notable part of the saga about floresiensis, and we should have a sentence or two, properly sourced, about the speculations and their refutation. The new article is probably not a good source at this point.--Nø (talk) 07:45, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Forth has made these claims ever since H. floresiensis has been discovered, and hardly anyone has taken this seriously except maybe in the initial years. We would need some recent secondary sources to establish due weight for inclusion in this article. There is a bit about it in Ebu_gogo#Proposed_connection_to_Homo_floresiensis, but there it is fine, since without H. floresiensis, people wouldn't have heard about this piece of Lio folklore in the interior of Flores.

Many field anthropologists encounter cryptozoological tales. Sometimes, they lead to the discovery of new species, but very often they just remain myths for lack of evidence (and most probably also due to lack of a real world counterpart). Forth is just in the "lucky" position to link Lio mythology to a sexy discovery in a different part of the island. –Austronesier (talk) 08:55, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

It's speculation. No need to report anything until there's something to report. - Boneyard90 (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

What we might do, is including a link to Ebu Gogo in See Also. This is allowed under WP:Undue Weight. Should the publication of the book elicit a notable polemic in the scientific literature (as one can always hope for) we can add a small Cryptozoology chapter.--MWAK (talk) 16:27, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

That's a good idea. And talking about WP:Undue Weight: for Ebu gogo's sake, let's remove the promotional part for Clash of the Empires in the main text, and move it to See Also, too. –Austronesier (talk) 16:39, 24 April 2022 (UTC)