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According to 23andme I am 2 to 4% neanderthal, and I think of myself as human...

• eru 2y ago
  While funny, I don't think this has much bearing on the topic at hand: we share a lot of DNA with chimps as well (or rather, the last common ancestor between chimps and humans). But that doesn't mean we should call chimps human. So the shared genes alone can't be used as a reason to call Neanderthals human.
  • ljf 2y ago
    True, but while all humans have chimp dna, many humans have 0 percent neanderthal dna - are they more human than me?
    • eru 2y ago
      No human had a chimp ancestor. But humans share a fairly recent common ancestor with chimps. Some human had Neanderthal ancestors, some did not, as you rightly suggest. However, all humans and Neanderthals share a common ancestor that's much more recent than our last common ancestor with chimps. Ie we only have 'chimp DNA' in the sense that we share a lot of DNA with them, and that we haven't changed too much since our last common ancestor. Exactly the same is true of us and Neanderthals.