Friday 26 August 2011

Sex with Neanderthals

Over time the religious have amended their beliefs as science has debunked their explanations of things but one idea that seems to have hung about is the creation story. God swooped up some dust, made a man and called him Adam and then took one of his ribs and made a woman and called her Eve. Throw in a talking serpent and a Tree of knowledge and that's a pretty wacky way to explain how things began but hundreds of millions believe it.
The alternative theory is that man evolved from other mammals and at one point we climbed down from the trees, lost most of our body hair and began walking on two legs.
Not much evidence for the first scenario, plenty for the second including DNA evidence that homo sapiens and other related species not only existed at the same time but interbred.
According to a report, the Neanderthals contribute up to 4% of modern genomes, while the Denisovans contributed roughly 4-6%.
This leaves the admittedly already fragile Adam & Eve story flapping in the wind unless the religious amongst us can come up with an explanation of why our DNA contains bits and pieces from another related species not created by God.
While they ponder on that, this is unmissable chance to mention that us having sex with another uglier, less intelligent Neanderthal like species is not unique to prehistoric times, the wives of Southampton supporters are still doing it today!

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