a concept brought into the deep interior of understanding. Hence we continually make errors inspired by unconscious allegiance to the ladder of progress, even when we deny such a superannuated view of life. "Wonderful Life" (1989), Stephen Jay Gould Yet here we are 22 years after this book was written, with the BBC, the Guardian, and the Observer, still pandering to this "march of progress" myth, wrong-headedly seeing evolution as a progression to superiority. It really is pretty shameful pandering to such poor thinking and myths, using language the Guardian/Observer would rightly condemn, if it was used by those on the extreme right. So please bring the proper view of evolution "into the deep interior of understanding", and stop pandering to these outdated views and stereotypes. the hypothesis is that the Neanderthals were not all that different. Not different enough in the end to be a different species. If you think about couples that can't produce offspring, perhaps there is already a divergent subspecies thing happening (so long as both are not sterile) anyway. Even though they can enjoy a shared love and social life... I'm not a biology expert, but I thought if two different species of the same genus interbreed, the progeny are always sterile. Think of horses and donkeys producing mules, and lions and tigers producing "ligers". Shouldn't that also be true of Homo sapiens breeding with Homo neanderthalensis? How then can we have any neanderthal genes at all? Yes, strictly speaking, if 2 species can interbreed