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Author Topic:   They Might Be Giants -- Peanut Gallery
Yaro
Member (Idle past 6496 days)
Posts: 1797
Joined: 07-12-2003


Message 1 of 9 (270441)
12-18-2005 2:35 AM


Figured I'd start one. Must commend randman on the choice of Meganthropus Wassn't expecting that. I don't know if Nuggins is aware however, the reference randman cited is an outdated article form the wiki.
A more recent article Meganthropus - Wikipedia states:
quote:
Meganthropus has been the target of numerous extreme claims, none of which are supported by peer-reviewed authors. Perhaps the most common claim is that Meganthropus was a giant, one unsourced claim put them at 9 feet (2.75 meters) tall and 750 to 1000 pounds (340 to 450 kilograms). No exact height has been published in a peer reviewed journal recently, and none give an indication of Meganthropus being substantially larger than H. erectus.
There have been some rumors of non-cranial material, but those have either yet to be published or belong to H. erectus. Reports, most if not all apparently from Australian researcher Rex Gilroy, place Meganthropus in Australia, and attach it to giant tools and even modern day reports. However, all paleoanthropologists maintain that Meganthropus was only known from central Java. In a similar way, some Bigfoot researchers claim that Meganthropus is their subject's identity.
Some creationists insist that Meganthropus are Nephilim, but there is nothing to suggest that it was anything other than a hominid, albeit a particularly robust one.
I would urge both parties to find more refrence as it seems this one is in dispute.
(AdminBen) AbE: Misspellings in message bodies are one thing, but in the title, it needs to be changed. Changed penut->peanut.
This message has been edited by AdminBen, Sunday, 2005/12/18 07:16 AM

Replies to this message:
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Nighttrain
Member (Idle past 3994 days)
Posts: 1512
From: brisbane,australia
Joined: 06-08-2004


Message 2 of 9 (270446)
12-18-2005 4:43 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Yaro
12-18-2005 2:35 AM


Rex Gilroy
I`d take anything connected with Rex with an ounce of caution. While he mightn`t be the Aussie Ron Wyatt, some of his claims are pretty far out.
http://www.internetezy.com.au/...ous_Australia_Homepage.html

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 3 of 9 (270557)
12-18-2005 4:49 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Yaro
12-18-2005 2:35 AM


what, randman relying on wikipedia??? lol.
The only credible source I could find on this classification is from AAAS Science Magazine:
Just a moment...
which had this tid-bit at the end:
The uses of the genera Pithecanthropus and Meganthropus for some of the Javanese hominids are still widely used by many Indonesians (including our Indonesian co-authors on the 1994 paper) as well as other anthropologists worldwide. While the names Pithecanthropus and Meganthropus were discussed in the 1994 report (5), it stated that these names are considered by most workers to be part of the Homo erectus hypodigm.
Nothing about size differences.

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This message is a reply to:
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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 4 of 9 (270581)
12-18-2005 5:51 PM


skull reconstruction
Nuggin asked about the guy that did the reconstruction, Grover Krantz is a cryptozoologist. He has also go Sasquatch footprints to his name.
Take from that what you will.

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 5 of 9 (270624)
12-18-2005 8:43 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by RAZD
12-18-2005 4:49 PM


take from this what you will
what, randman relying on wikipedia??? lol.
quote:
Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a comparison study has found.
The British journal Nature ran blind tests asking experts to compare scientific entries from both publications.
The reviewers were asked to check for errors, but were not told about the source of the information.
Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopaedia.
Reviewers found 162 factual errors in the Wikipedia documents, compared to 123 in the Britannica documents.
Nature also said that its reviewers found that Wikipedia entries were often poorly structured and confused. Wikipedia is a free resource edited by 13,000 contributors.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica declined to comment on the findings.
http://www.vnunet.com/...647/wikipedia-squares-encyclopaedia
i guess the moral of the story is that encyclopedias aren't all that accurate in book form either -- the GOOD thing about wikipedia is that it's almost evolutionary in nature. if something is wrong and someone knows better it gets changed much faster than the book form would. this of course can also work against it, but hopefully not very often.
the problem is, you see, randman was NOT relying on wikipedia. he was relying on answers.com, which plaigarizes wikipedia on a regular basis -- but doesn't have the ease of change and correct of wikipedia. you'll find that the text randman used, though from wikipedia, is no longer in the actual wikipedia article.
compare:
quote:
Meganthropus is a subspecies of the extinct hominid species, Homo erectus. Its full name in binomial nomenclature is Homo erectus palaeojavanicus although it was once called Meganthropus palaeojavanicus. Meganthropus was given a subspecies classification to distinguish it from other fossilized representatives of Homo erectus on account of its enormous size. Based on scant, but adequate, existing fossilized remains, H. e. palaeojavanicus has been estimated to have stood roughly 9 feet tall (= 2.75 m) and weighed roughly 750 to 1000 pounds (= 340-450 kg). Remains of this subspecies, including remnants of its cranium, lower jaw, and femur, have been estimated to be roughly 1 million years old.
Meganthropus is a good example of the great variation that existed in the Homo erectus line that is only equalled among representatives of the Homo genus by the similar variations found in modern humans. Its remains were discovered in Indonesia and in Australia where another subspecies of Homo erectus, Homo erectus soloensis, has also been discovered. Although once not considered to be of the Homo genus due to its seemingly improbable size for a hominid, Meganthropus remains were found along with tools normally associated with the Acheulean era, but of great size, making it difficult to refute the intelligence of the titanic hominid.
Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions
quote:
Meganthropus is a name commonly given to several large jaw and skull fragments from Sangiran, Central Java. The original scientific name was Meganthropus paleojavanicus, and while it is very uncommonly considered valid today, the genus name has survived as a sort of formal nickname for the fossils. As of 2005, the taxonomy and phylogeny for the specimens are still uncertain, although most paleoanthropologists considering them related to Homo erectus in some way. However, the names Homo paleojavanicus and even Australopithecus paleojavanicus are sometimes used as well, indicating the classification uncertainty. Of particular interest is that the finds were sometimes regarded as being those of giants, although that is unsubstantiated.
Meganthropus - Wikipedia
quote:
Meganthropus has been the target of numerous extreme claims, none of which are supported by peer-reviewed authors. Perhaps the most common claim is that Meganthropus was a giant, one unsourced claim put them at 9 feet (2.75 meters) tall and 750 to 1000 pounds (340 to 450 kilograms). No exact height has been published in a peer reviewed journal recently, and none give an indication of Meganthropus being substantially larger than H. erectus.
Meganthropus - Wikipedia
This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 12-18-2005 08:44 PM

אָרַח

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Damouse
Member (Idle past 4906 days)
Posts: 215
From: Brookfield, Wisconsin
Joined: 12-18-2005


Message 6 of 9 (270627)
12-18-2005 8:54 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by arachnophilia
12-18-2005 8:43 PM


Wikis are not a horror!
I'm inclined to agree that Wikipedia might have some errors because of it's user creation, but again, its evolutionary self-correcting. Meganthropus helps Evolution quite a bit. Instead of a missing link, its a diverted link.

This message is a reply to:
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 7 of 9 (270629)
12-18-2005 9:03 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Damouse
12-18-2005 8:54 PM


Re: Wikis are not a horror!
I'm inclined to agree that Wikipedia might have some errors because of it's user creation, but again, its evolutionary self-correcting.
all encyclopedias are prone to errors and outdated information, it's just a fact of being human. this little bit is quite an example of how wikipedia corrected itself.

אָרַח

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 8 of 9 (270643)
12-18-2005 10:13 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by arachnophilia
12-18-2005 8:43 PM


Re: take from this what you will
I am aware of this and the Nature article, and was thinking of using it the next time he criticised my usage of it.
I just loved how it was so prone to errors when it disagreed with what he said, and then he goes and uses it.
The power of real time corrections is not to be under-rated, as long as there is a program to monitor changes and look for patterns of abuse (spam articles).
What they may want to do is develop a stability meter on changes to articles so people can judge how solid the information is that is presented.

Join the effort to unravel {AIDS\HIV} with Team EvC! (click)

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This message is a reply to:
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 9 of 9 (270669)
12-19-2005 1:37 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by RAZD
12-18-2005 10:13 PM


Re: take from this what you will
The power of real time corrections is not to be under-rated, as long as there is a program to monitor changes and look for patterns of abuse (spam articles).
well, i think it's self-enforcing. the real-time corrections have a tendency to weed the bad stuff out. i think they do also have some programs that will automatically flag certain things, which then get put in a pile to be checked.
i personally tested this a while back. i got into a debate with contracycle once about the validity of using wikipedia over scholarly opinion. so i put up an article on him that of course would have broken forums rules.
i think it lasted 2 hours.
What they may want to do is develop a stability meter on changes to articles so people can judge how solid the information is that is presented.
a good idea.

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