Strange Bedfellows on the Evolutionary Landscape

I just read Neanderthals: Fact, Fiction, and Wishful Thinking, by Jeffrey H. Schwartz. The title intrigued me, because I have been wondering about our connection to the Neanderthals, but I went into this cautiously, because I had read Schwartz before and found his writing style to be too fussy and academic. Unfortunately, he hasn't changed at all, so I've decided to just make a brief comment rather than a full review of the book.

As I wrote earlier, genetic research has recently shown that we are related to the extinct Denisovans and Neanderthals, and that they are probably the closest relatives of modern humans. Schwartz seems to find the Neanderthal connection offensive and then goes on to write a long history of biological science as it relates to the evolution of H. sapiens, from Charles Darwin to the present. He seems to be most familiar with the skeletal differences between Neanderthals and modern humans and devotes more space to that than to the genetic studies. Somehow, he seems to find the thought of sex between Neanderthals and humans repugnant. Apparently, in his academic bubble, no one told him that human males are known to have had sex with dogs, horses, donkeys, cattle and sheep. 

To keep it short, I'll just say that Schwartz must never have studied at the Sabine Hossenfelder College of Quantum Indeterminacy or Robert Sapolsky's "It's Complicated" University. In sum, there is so much that we don't know that Schwartz should be far more cautious in his dismissiveness of our connection to the Neanderthals. While it is true that some animals, such as cockroaches and horseshoe crabs, have had stable genetic and physical characteristics for hundreds of millions of years, most large mammals have gone through major physical changes or become extinct within a mere 12,000 years.

I'll add that I was shocked to see Schwartz describe James Watson, who died last year, as a "Brit" on page 152. Anyone could have told him fifty years ago that Watson was an American.