… just so some tenured airhead can prove common ancestry of humans with apes? What did I ever do to you folks anyway?”
Here Casey Luskin summarizes the growing recognition that Neanderthals were just us, with nutcracker jaws:
In fact, Neanderthals buried their dead, and they had an average brain size which was slightly larger than that of modern humans. Perhaps it’s time to stop seeing Neanderthals as a primitive species–a popular icon of evolution–but rather as a sub-race of our own species. To Giberson and Collins’s credit, they recognize this point. But they do not recognize that it therefore prevents Neanderthals from demonstrating that humans share ancestry with something that isn’t human.If Giberson and Collins want to make the case that humans share “common ancestry” with some primitive species, they’re going to have to find another example than Neanderthals. Neanderthals do essentially nothing to bolster the case that humans evolved from more primitive hominids.
– “Does Giberson and Collins’ Neanderthal Argument Demonstrate ‘Common Ancestry'”?, Evolution News and Views, May 12, 2011
[Neanderthal: Good we settled that. I gotta go pick up some new flints for my dad. He said he’d start teaching me … ]
Don’t forget about the contest: For a free copy of The The Nature of Nature mailed to your home: Do you think we understand the human-Neanderthal relationship better than we did twenty-five years ago? In what ways?