. . . and then takes some lumps

Although splitters now stand in the scientific spotlight, lumpers refuse to bow out quietly. In fact, their dismay at proliferating evolutionary categories, or taxa, for hominid fossils led them to convene a symposium titled “Read our lips, no new taxa.”

Computer models of species formation, which account for genetic influences often overlooked in fossil studies, don’t identify skeletal traits that

specify more than one Homo species, reported John D.