In case you didn't know, National Geographic magazine has a new editor in chief, photographer and former associate editor Chris Johns.  As you might imagine, die-hard NG readers are wondering with worried looks if the flavor of the magazine will change over the coming months, as Johns pulls digital photography into the magazine and rearranges the editorial staff, combining the photography and illustrations departments.  Involved in the restructure was the elimination of Kent Kobersteen's position as director of photography, and it seems unclear whether he was fired or stepped down from NG voluntarily.  He is 62, but some photographers who have worked with NG say his absence will weaken the publication.

But Johns promises a commitment to excellence and integrity, and hopes the changes he is making will keep attracting readers. "We constantly need to evolve," he said.  One such change will be an amplification of the short stories in the front of the magazine, such as the "Geographica" section.

Speaking of evolution, Johns' debut issue (April 05) features on the cover a model face (I might add, an ugly one) of a "new species" of human, purportedly discovered on the island of Flores, Indonesia.  The scientists  who found the fossils (and who were supported by National Geographic) are calling their main specimen "Hobbit" and the race they think they've discovered "hobbits" (as if J.R.R. Tolkien knew something we didn't), because of the small, 3-foot-tall size of the skeleton, and the miniature skull.  They dismiss critics who think they've found a human suffering from the rare disease microcephaly (shrunken brain and body) by pointing out that they've found other bone fragments and another adult jawbone, also dwarfed.  As I understand it, they know the jawbone is adult because of the teeth.  The other bone fragments could be of children.

Whoever this person, or this family, or these people, were, they were definitely suffering from the gene deprivation.  Isolated on the island of Flores, they may have not been able to reproduce with anyone but close relatives, and over a few generations developed some serious genetic defects.  As a young-earth creationist, I don't believe the fossils found on Flores are more than a few thousand years old, and I don't believe they should be called a new species.  They've only found two solid specimens, after all, and now they're head over heels about how a race of dwarfs really existed.  What's funny, though, is that they believe their hobbit race lived as recently as 13,000 years ago--yesterday in evolutionary time.  This just proves creationists' point that genetic change can happen very quickly in isolated groups.  There is no need for millions of years.  And don't forget that dwarfishness is the result of less genetic variability, not more.  It's a disadvantage.

But evolutionists don't care.  To them, the hobbits are our ancestors, our great forefathers, whose evolutionary struggle to live perfected us today.  They love finding examples of deformed skeletons and praising them as our creators.

In his first "From the Editor" column, Johns beams, "I could not ask for a better story to kick off my editorship than this."

Oh great.