Neanderthals were fully human and were not a different species

From EvoWiki

Contents 1 Claim 2 Source 3 Responses 4 Fallacies contained in this claim 5 References 6 External Links 7 See Also 8 Acknowledgments

Claim

Neanderthals were fully human and were not a different species.

Source

• Neanderthals are Still Human! by Dave Phillips

Responses

1. The very definition of a species is a population or group of populations that can successfully reproduce together. Recent evidence has shown that the two populations were in fact incapable of reproducing together and creating live offspring.
2. This claim is based on early research that examined mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), because mtDNA preserves better than Nuclear DNA. Modern scientists reached the conclusion that Neanderthals and humans are separate by examining Nuclear DNA, which yields more accurate results than mtDNA, due to mtDNA being only inherited maternally (thus being subject to sex bias and increased genetic drift).¹
3. That Neanderthals are anatomically and cognitively similar to humans does not make them one species, but merely shows that they are related. As mentioned above, the criterion for a species is not similarity, but whether they interbreed regularly and successfully. Both the bonobo and the common chimpanzee are very similar anatomically and cognitively, but are widely considered to be different species because they do not interbreed.
4. Even if populations of modern humans, such as the Inuit, appear somewhat similar to what Neanderthals did, this does not prove Neanderthals were fully human. This is likely an example of convergent evolution (the process that two different lineages of organisms develop similar features in order to adapt to similar ecological niches) because both "Eskimos" and Neanderthals had to adapt to similar conditions.
5. Even if this was true, it doesn't disprove the theory of evolution, but merely sheds a new light on the history of the hominids by confirming the Multiregional hypothesis.

Fallacies contained in this claim

• Fallacy of Soundness (Physical similarities indicate same species)
• Suppressed Evidence (New evidence of distinct species)
• Denying the Antecedent (Neanderthals being human does not disprove evolution)

References

1. Green RE, Krause J, Ptak SE, Briggs AW, Ronan MT, Simons JF, Du L, Egholm M, Rothberg JM, Paunovic M, Pääbo M. (2006) "Analysis of one million base pairs of Neanderthal DNA" Nature 444 (7117), p330-336, November 2006

External Links

• Wikipedia: Convergent evolution
• Nuclear DNA Analysis Proves Neanderthals Were a Different Species
• Evolution and Creation Science Neanderthal Species Distinct from Humans from Answers in Creation

See Also

• All hominid fossils are fully human or fully ape

Acknowledgments

• Fang 23