• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Isn't this cute?

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
They want to remove bias and increase accuracy of artistic depictions of extinct hominids. What is the beef?
 

epronovost

Well-Known Member
It's pretty interesting how a subjective decision can make some interesting differences in the reconstruction of the facial appearence of an extinct hominid.

032621_ti_hominid-reconstructions_inline1-1018x580.jpg
 

epronovost

Well-Known Member
Bias? By the way, I like that -- "increase accuracy." But now that you mention it, accuracy? What do you mean by that?

Doesn't "accuracy" in that context always translate to "closer to reality". In facial reconstruction there is always going to be a measure of interpretation since you are going by skull shape and muscle lines which leaves a lot of room, but there are ways to increase accuracy by using more sophisticated modeling tools taking into account more data or by removing entirely a completely imagination dependent feature like hair style as mentioned in the article.
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
It's pretty interesting how a subjective decision can make some interesting differences in the reconstruction of the facial appearence of an extinct hominid.

032621_ti_hominid-reconstructions_inline1-1018x580.jpg
yup. :) It sure is. Interesting. Of course, beauty (and by that I mean physical beauty) can be "in the eyes of the beholder." Although decisions have been made about what constitutes physical facial beauty.
 

epronovost

Well-Known Member
yup. :) It sure is. Interesting. Of course, beauty (and by that I mean physical beauty) can be "in the eyes of the beholder." Although decisions have been made about what constitutes physical facial beauty.

They aren't trying to make them pretty. They are trying to reconstitute the appearance of a dead person based on his or her bone.

The one on the left is modelled after using chimps muscles as a baseline while the other, on the right, is using modern human muscles as baseline to reconstitute the appearance of that child.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
yup. :) It sure is. Interesting. Of course, beauty (and by that I mean physical beauty) can be "in the eyes of the beholder." Although decisions have been made about what constitutes physical facial beauty.
Yeah, we don't want no ugly reconstructions.
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
They aren't trying to make them pretty.

The one on the left is modelled after using chimps muscles as a baseline while the other, on the right, is using modern human muscles as baseline to reconstitute the appearance of that child.
Some people think chimps are cute, maybe not pretty though. Muscles, however, are usually not preserved in skull fossils, are they?
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
And if I understand you correctly, it seems you are saying many renderings were not accurate?
They are interpretations that can vary with the artist and basis they follow in making the reconstruction. I am not applying any quantitative estimates on the number and level of accuracy of any rendering. I actually read and understood the article you linked.
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
They want to remove bias and increase accuracy of artistic depictions of extinct hominids. What is the beef?
No beef. Just reconstruction by ?? scientific methods or artists employed by publications? Meantime, the article states, "Now, the researchers that produced the dueling images are attempting to remove some of this subjectivity by introducing standards that may give more accurate and reproducible portraits of species known only from fossilized bone." So -- may give more accurate ...portraits." I like the term "may give." May give. After a long time. Well, science changes, doesn't it? :) Wait a minute. Now I see no hair on these rendered faces. LOL, they lost their facial hair -- :)
 
Top