Opinion: That gecko is also suspiciously smart

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The GEICO caveman—whose intelligence is comically at odds with his brutish appearance—may be the creation of an ad man, but a respected science magazine is now floating the possibility that heavy-browed Neanderthals may have donated a gene for high intelligence to modern humans.

In “The Neanderthal Inside Us,” an article in the March 3-9 New Scientist, Dan Jones cites a theory by Bruce Lahn, a geneticist at the University of Chicago, that microcephalin, a gene that may be associated with intelligence, could have migrated to modern humans through, uhm, interbreeding with Neanderthals.

The question of whether modern humans and Neanderthals “did it” is a perennial subject for science writers and a prime example of what I call the “toggle” story—a story that obliges copy-starved journalists by switching a thesis on and off again. This year, we can run a story titled “Universe Older Than Previously Thought, Scientists Say,” knowing that sooner or later we will be publishing a story headlined “Universe Younger Than Previously Thought, Scientists Say.”

I have lost count of the number of times the human-Neanderthal interbreeding story has toggled back and forth between “OMG it happened” and “No way, dude!” And, unlike the age of the universe, the question of what is politely called hybridization appeals to the prurient interest of readers.

The real vindication for GEICO will come when scientists trace the gene for reckless driving to the Neanderthals.