Stephen Colbert on National Day of Prayer

The Colbert Report - Thursday, May 7, 2009

Clasp Your Hands Say Yahweh

To compensate for President Obama's bad attitude, Stephen has to amp up his own National Day of Prayer prayer. (04:46)

See video.

The Hobbit: Human Family Member, or ...?

Flatfooted Ape or Hominid?

Scientists have discovered the bones of a critter with feet that were way, way long for the size of its body. And get this: the feet were completely flat.

Now, we know this critter, who is thought to have existed as recently as 17,000 years ago on an Indonesian island, did not jump from an upper bunk to flatten its feet and get out of the Army. So what's with the flat feet?

Some scientists speculate that the critter developed the ability to walk, but not the ability to run, as our distant hominid ancestors did. For running and jumping, the critter would have needed an arched foot, they say. Did it fit into the hominid line that evolved arched feet? If not, where did it go? Up in smoke?

So what is this critter? A distant cousin, or a member of a different branch of the family entirely?

Unanswered questions are what science is all about: someone finds something, then speculates, based on other known facts, what the thing is. Then other scientists, based on still other known facts, says it is no such thing. And this is where it gets exciting. Now begins the true detective work. The hypothesis, the research, the papers, the arguments.

Where does "The Hobbit" fit into the human family picture? Or does it? One thing is sure: the answer will be hotly debated. And the more hotly it is debated, the more certain we may be that the final answer (if any) will be thoroughly supported by research by scientists around the globe.

Whether this critter is a hominid or ape has no influence on our daily lives. Yet the process of its identification has everything to do with the processes of science, which certainly does have an influence. This detective story is to be continued...