Human Fossil Record—Diverse or Distorted? The question is a
legitimate one, and one that should be asked more frequently. Do
paleontologists take into consideration skeletal variations when
they report the latest “missing link”? After all, anyone who has
ever sat in a room with more than 200 individuals of various
ages, and from various cultures, realizes that skulls (and body
sizes) come in a variety of shapes and forms. But, on occasion,
impatient paleontologists are expectantly eager to place the
next branch on the family tree. Some of these overzealous
scientists have been rebuked by University of California
(Berkeley) paleontologist Tim White, as he attempts to rein in
the tendency of fossil hunters to classify every find as a new
species. In the March 28, 2003 issue of Science, White authored
an article titled “Early Hominids—Diversity or Distortion?,” in
which he quoted two former Harvard professors—Ernst Mayr, who
once described hominid taxonomy as a “bewildering diversity of
names,” and George Gaylor