who says atheists don't believe in magic? it's just that they call it "chance" - an intriguing word - come to think of it.
If you want to give him a metaphorical heart attack, tell him according to the principles of evolutionary theory, natural selection is not the main mechanism for evolution. In their view, two things factor into the fitness of an organism to be selected in comparison to its peers: life expectancy and fecundity (ability to produce an abundance of offspring). In nature, you'll note that animals that have large litters often are shorter lived (on average) than ones that have smaller ones. E.g. rabbits versus elephants, or frogs versus whales. Based on this, it seems that it is rare to find organisms that are both high in fecundity and relatively long lived. One that might come to mind is actually bacteria, as they duplicate quite rapidly and (for the amount of replications they do) are long lived in to the span of months. As such, according to them, if natural selection was the primary mechanism for evolution, then why is it that we see so many complex beings that generally don't have as many offspring as organism like bacteria. A controversial proposition, but some atheists who take this view attribute sheer random chance as the primary mechanism by which evolution occurs. Some go as far to say that irreducible complexity arises by sheer chance as well - according to them, one instance a cell has a no propulsion and randomly, its offspring mutate to have a highly complex machinery such as the flagella.
Also note the amount of speculative language in the original paper compared to how the media (particularly the BBC) tries to frame these discoveries as, in their view, 'hard science'.
[Note: references to and quotes from sources containing evolutionary theory are for radd purposes] Had a read through the original article, checked the sources by which they made a the comparison and it was from an article in Nature in 2004. From the article's introduction [emphasis mine]: "The LB1 skeleton was recovered in September 2003 during archaeological excavation at Liang Bua, Flores1 . Most of the skeletal elements for LB1 were found in a small area, approximately 500 cm2 , with parts of the skeleton still articulated and the tibiae flexed under the femora. Orientation of the skeleton in relation to site stratigraphy suggests that the body had moved slightly down slope before being covered with sediment. The skeleton is extremely fragile and not fossilized or covered with calcium carbonate. Recovered elements include a fairly complete cranium and mandible, right leg and left innominate. Bones of the left leg, hands and feet are less complete, while the vertebral column, sacrum, scapulae, clavicles and ribs are only represented by fragments. The position of the skeleton suggests that the arms are still in the wall of the excavation, and may be recovered in the future. Tooth eruption, epiphyseal union and tooth wear indicate an adult, and pelvic anatomy strongly supports the skeleton being that of a female. On the basis of its unique combination of primitive and derived features we assign this skeleton to a new species, Homo floresiensis." and "Etymology. Recognizing that this species has only been identified on the island of Flores, and a prolonged period of isolation may have resulted in the evolution of an island endemic form." and "Description and comparison of the cranial and postcranial elements Apart from the right zygomatic arch, the cranium is free of substantial distortion (Figs 1 and 2). Unfortunately, the bregmatic region, right frontal, supraorbital, nasal and subnasal regions were damaged when the skeleton was discovered. To repair post-mortem pressure cracks, and stabilize the vault, the calvarium was dismantled and cleaned endocranially before reconstruction. With the exception of the squamous suture, most of the cranial vault sutures are difficult to locate and this problem persists in computed tomography (CT) scans. As a result it is not possible to locate most of the standard craniometric landmarks with great precision." and "Although there is considerable interspecific variation, stature has been shown to have phylogenetic and adaptive significance among hominins23. Broadly speaking, Australopithecus and the earliest members of the genus Homo are shorter than H. erectus and more recent hominins8 . The maximum femur length of LB1 (280 mm) is just below the smallest recorded for A. afarensis (AL-288-1, 281 mm24) and equal to the smallest estimate for the OH 62 H. habilis femur (280–404 mm)21. Applying stature estimation formulae developed from human pygmies25 gives a stature estimate of 106 cm for LB1 (Supplementary Information). This is likely to be an overestimation owing to LB1’s relatively small cranial height. A stature estimate for LB1 of 106 cm gives a body mass of 16 to 28.7 kg, and a femur cross-sectional area of 525 mm2 gives a mass of 36 kg (Supplementary Information). The brain mass for LB1, calculated from its volume26, is 433.2 g; this gives an encephalization quotient (EQ)27 range of 2.5–4.6, which compares with 5.8–8.1 for H. sapiens, 3.3–4.4 for H. erectus/ergaster and 3.6–4.3 for H. habilis, and overlaps with the australopithecine range of variation28,29. If LB1 shared the lean and relatively narrow body shape typical of Old World tropical modern humans then the smallest body weight estimate, based on Jamaican school children data19, is probably most appropriate. This would support the higher EQ estimate and place LB1 within the Homo range of variation. Although neurological organization is at least as important as EQ in determining behavioural complexity, these data are consistent with H. floresiensis being the Pleistocene toolmaker at Liang Bua" To answer your question: in 2003 they found a (seems to be the only one in that study) skeleton that wasn't like others they found, and they classified it under a class of its own. They then did gene analysis of a population of people near the cave where the skeleton was found and they suspect a certain gene cluster [in their view] may contribute to short stature and they thus conclude that in their view, short stature on the Island evolved twice.
https://arstechnica.com/science/201...-flores-are-not-related-to-homo-floresiensis/ We don’t have a sample of H. floresiensis DNA, but Tucci and her colleagues used a statistical method that helps identify any segments of a chromosome that have a large number of changes that don’t show up in the rest of the population. that is, even if don't have a sample we will manufacture something to fit a theory. in a few iterations, this detail will be omitted and stated as an empirical fact. evolution made simple.
please help me with this. i might have missed something. so far as i know, they found only one skeleton and they built a theory that everyone on the island used to be small. even the article below talks as if they had hundreds of samples, though buried somewhere in the article is the fact that they found the bones of ONE person. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45049024
