It would be legal to breed Homo floresiensis for profit.

Before I address the points she raised, I would like to explain that, should I be successful in securing a breeding population of hobbits, I would indeed expect to face legal challenges to my operation based on ethical concerns and I hope this debate will help me to pre-empt any such actions. However, I would not expect a large number of court summons as the Homo floresiensis stud farm I envisage will provide the highest levels of hominid-husbandry and also adhere to the strictest animal welfare regulations. Indeed, conditions will be so good that the inmates would not seek to escape - nobody should be fooled by the rolls of barbed-wire, electric fences and watchtowers that will surround the compound – they will be there merely to prevent hobbit-rustling. My dear opponent, in your reply, you cited various respected sources that speculated that Homo floresiensis are (or were) deformed Homo sapiens, and I quote one example: "New research from the Proceedings of the Royal Society B raises the possibility that Homo floresiensis was nothing more than population of Homo sapiens that were endemic cretins. " At best, all this proves is that, like the issue of global warming, the scientific jury is still out. Incidentally, don't you think it was a bit unkind of the Royal Society to call the poor little hobbits "cretins"? :) Indeed, the majority of experts agree that hobbits are a completely distinct from modern humans as a species. For example, Dean Falk of Florida State University wrote in Science Magazine: "The brain of Homo floresiensis was assessed by comparing a virtual endocast from the type specimen (LB1) with endocasts from great apes, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, a human pygmy, a human microcephalic, specimen number Sts 5 (Australopithecus africanus), and specimen number WT 17000 (Paranthropus aethiopicus). Morphometric, allometric, and shape data indicate that LB1 is not a microcephalic or pygmy. LB1's brain/body size ratio scales like that of an australopithecine, but its endocast shape resembles that of Homo erectus. " Also, Matthew Tocheri, from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC told BBC News: "What was very clear from my perspective looking at the Hobbit's wrist bones is that it does not belong in the group that includes modern humans and Neanderthals. It basically has the same type of wrist that we see in [the ancient hominid] Homo habilis, that we see in Australopithecus (the famous 'Lucy' fossil) and that we see in living chimps and gorillas today. " In other words, if it couldn't be proved that Homo floresiensis are humans, they could be legally exploited for commercial gain. Post Script: Your final quote was from an article in National Geographic: "Given that Homo floresiensis is the smallest human species ever discovered, they out-punch every known human intellectually, pound for pound. " This is exactly what will make them such great pets – their intelligence, combined with their human-like manual dexterity, will mean that they could be easily trained to do household chores. Industrial corporations would also be very interested in buying them to operate dangerous machinery because, not only would they save on the wages of a human operative, but they would also avoid having to comply with health and safety legislation.