Currently on social media, there's an image circulating of a Neanderthal woman who bears a striking resemblance to a serving U. S. Congresswoman. It is supposedly a detail from a display in a European museum as shown in a 1990s book, and it's presented as a ha-ha, lookie here gotcha.
The real "gotcha" is not how much J. Random Reconstructed Neanderthal looks like a public figure, but how much we all do. As the human genome is unravelled and compared, it has become increasingly obvious that when the big-headed bipeds in our direct ancestral line met other hominid species and pondered "Kiss, marry, kill?" they concluded, "All of the above."
You're part Neanderthal, just like members of Congress. We've all likely got a touch of Denisovan. Modern humans, it turns out, are not "pure" anything.
And our shortcomings and achievements are not even slightly determined by how much we resemble primitive troglodytes. We do that stuff all by ourselves, on our own merits, ambitions and weaknesses. You can't tell a mass murderer from a chicken farmer by a look at their face. They might even both be the same person.
Modern humans, it turns out, are not "pure" anything. LOVE it. And the Right faints away dead while pearl-clutching.
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