So, then, are the necessary DNA mutations considered in simple-sounding statments like "just shorten the arms and lose some hair?"
What's weird to me about genetics is, macro-scale traits - like the thickness of your hair, or whether or not you have extra fingers, or whether your 1st abdominal segment (assuming that you're an insect) grows legs instead of mouthparts - are generally controlled by much less of the genome than you would think.
Like, you'd think that shorter arms would necessitate mutations in genes controlling skin, muscles, bones, nerves, and all manner of other things. But it turns out that changes like these are generally accomplished by changes to only one or two genes.
I don't know, step by step, what mutations you would need to turn the genetics of a chimpanzee into that of a human. But if the genetics of development and structure are any indication we're not talking about really complicated changes.