Replies

DManA: "These anti-evolution sites are getting real clever."

Thanks for the tip.
I had assumed there might be something legit going on here.
Once it's understood that this is anti-evolution propaganda, then all makes sense...

The truth is, the common ancestor for humans and Neanderthals (named homo antecestors) has always been thought of as circa one million years ago:

"Homo antecessor is an extinct human species (or subspecies) dating from 1.2 million to 800,000 years ago...

Homo antecessor may be a common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals.[22][23]
At present estimate, humans have approximately 20,000–25,000 genes and share 99% of their DNA with the now extinct Neanderthal [24] and 95-99% of their DNA with their closest living evolutionary relative, the chimpanzees[25][26]"

donmeaker: "Modern Europeans have about 20% Neandertal genes.
The rest is from Africa."

20% sounds too high:

"Genetic evidence published in 2010 suggests that Neanderthals contributed to the DNA of anatomically modern humans, probably through interbreeding between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago with the population of anatomically modern humans who had recently migrated from Africa.
According to the study, by the time that population began dispersing across Eurasia, Neanderthals genes constituted as much as 1–4% of its genome (roughly equivalent to having one Neanderthal great-great-great-grandparent).[14][15][16]
Ötzi the iceman, Europe's oldest preserved mummy, was found to possess an even higher percentage of Neanderthal ancestry...

"...While modern humans share some nuclear DNA with the extinct Neanderthals, the two species do not share any mitochondrial DNA,[109] which in primates is always maternally transmitted.
This observation has prompted the hypothesis that whereas female humans interbreeding with male Neanderthals were able to generate fertile offspring, the progeny of female Neanderthals who mated with male humans were either rare, absent or sterile.[110]
However, some researchers have argued that there is evidence of possible interbreeding between female Neanderthals and male modern humans.[111][112]"

babble on: "I can’t believe that some parts of the Conservative movement want to declare this to be the line of scrimmage between Left and Right."

Sadly, there is no debate here between Left and Right, since the Left would never stoop to such a debate.
Any debate, such as it is, comes amongst members of "the Right", such as ourselves.

Dare I say it? An equivalent debate on the Left would be between communists and socialists over the best way to destroy American as we once knew it.
No conservative would seriously enter such a "debate".