Jeff Hecht's "The Neanderthal Correlation" (flash fiction, human evolution): Some truths we probably don't want to know!

A researcher is fooling around with genome data of humans & Neanderthals. She finds evidence of their interbreeding during a certain period. So she goes looking for traits humans have acquired as part of this interbreeding.

What she finds is that only a human subpopulation seems to have inherited the essentially-Neanderthal traits. And they are - "advanced mathematics skills, information processing, logic, analytical intelligence, concentration skills, obsession-compulsion & Asperger's syndrome"!

Key things that Cro-Magnons had & Neanderthals didn't were "genes linked to successful socialization & management skills."

And she's found that human genes have been asserting themselves over these acquired one! We as species are slowly but surely losing mathematical & logical reasoning, & such!

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 22 May 2008.
Rating: B.