Human - Chimp split 4 million years ago?

Source? I am a fan of comparative genomics to a certain extent. Here are the genes (amino acid sequences) for cytochrome b (not all of them complete):Human:
MTPMRKINPLMKLINHSFIDLPTPSNISAWWNFGSLLGACLILQITTGLFLAMH
YSPDASTAFSSIAHITRDVNYGWIIRYLHANGASMFFICLFLHIGRGLYYGSFL
YSETWNIGIILLLATMATAFMGYVLPWGQMSFWGATVITNLLSAIPYIGTDLVQ
WIWGGYSVDSPTLTRFFTFHFILPFIIAALAALHLLFLHETGSNNPLGITSHSD
KITFHPYYTIKDALGLLLFLLSLMTLTLFSPDLLGDPDNYTLANPLNTPPHIKP
EWYFLFAYTILRSVPNKLGGVLALLLSILILAMIPILHMSKQQSMMFRPLSQSL
YWLLAADLLILTWIGGQPVSYPFTIIGQVASVLYFTTILILMPTISLIENKMLKMouse:
MTNIRKTHPLFKIINHSFIDLPAPSNISSWWNFGSLLGICLMIQIITGLFLAMH
YTSDTMTAFSSVTHICRDVNYGWLIRYLHANGASMFFICLFLHVGRGMYYGSYT
FMETWNIGVILLFAVMATAFMGYVLPWGQMSFWGATVITNLLSAIPYIGTTLVE
WIWGGFSVDKATLTRFFAFHFILPFIITALVIVHLLFLHETGSNNPTGLNSDSD
KIPFHPYYTIKDILGVILMIMFLMTLVLFFPDLLGDPDNYTPANPLNTPPHIKP
EWYFLFAYAILRSIPNKLGGVLALILSIMVLMLLPFLHTSKLRSLMFRPITQTL
YWILVANLLVLTWIGGQPVEHPFIIIGQLASISYFSIILIFMPIAGIIEDSLLK
FDChimpanzee:
MTPXRKINPLMKLINHSFIDLPTPSNISAWWNFGSLLGACLILQITTGLFLAMH
YSPDASTAFSSIAHITRDVNYGWIIRYLHANGASMFFICLFLHIGRGLYYGSFL
YLETWNIGIILLLTTMATAFMGYVLPWGQMSFWGATVITNLLSAIPYIGTDLVQ
WVWGGYSVDSPTLTRFFTFHFILPFIITALTTLHLLFLHETGSNNPLGITSHSD
KITFHPYYTIKDILGLFLFLLILMTLTLFSPDLLGDPDNYTLANPLNTPPHIKP
EWYFLFAYTILRSIPNKLGGVLALLLSILILAAIPVLHTSKQQSMMFRPLSQLL
YWLLATDLLILTWFeel free to compare them yourself, I used some handy dandy software and it gave me:Human-Chimpanzee: 95.25%
Human-Mouse: 76.19%Which would seem to contradict your statement. What evidence do you care to bring to the table? Right - but that doesn't explain why the animals which the fossil record and morphology strongly agree with genetic evidence with regards to the degree of seperation between any two things. According to your reasoning - the marsupial mole would have very similar DNA with that of a placental mole. According to evolutionary reasoning they should be very different. We have done this test, and found that evolutionary reasoning gets the conclusion we see in reality.The fact is - that there are billions upon billions upon billions of different ways to genetically create any of the traits you described and the evidence is that if we compare genomes we end up with a nested hierarchy of relatedness which is astonishingly similar to what the fossil record would suggest. The science of evolutionary biology is incredibly difficult. It would be best to admit that you don't understand it, rather than to suggest you know biology better than the biologists. That's my 2 cents anyway.Edited by AdminAsgara, : fixed page width

What children know shouldn't be a benchmark of knowledge since they are so frequently wrong. However, in this case they are right - as are the biologists who state likewise (including evolutionary biologists). Of course animals can give birth to humans, and this is witnessed around the world many times a second. That is to say, humans are animals.However, many children know that animals can change into significantly different animals (caterpillar->butterfly for example) - but this is not evolution!Evolution is about changes to populations - and population changes are not something we should turn to children to discuss since children generally struggle with basic arithmetic. What evolutionary biologists know is that populations mostly remain the same, but slight pressures can quite quickly change the genetics (and appearance) of the population as a whole. As a side note - baring what you said in mind, we should be careful what we teach children. We have to teach them some things of course, but we should be very sure of their veracity. Science gives us methods for quantifying the likelihood of some statement about the world as being true - so we take the likely things and we teach them to kids. We should avoid teaching them things that we cannot be sure are true since we have no way of quantifying their truth probability. After all - children cannot resist the stronger adults teachings as well as adults can.I take it you agree with the reasoning?

Page has gone | New ScientistIndeed. this paper, seems to discuss the human-chimp differences in the same kind of terms so we can approximately say they are therefore measuring in a comparable fashion. Doing it this way (focussing on functional DNA) we find the human-chimp difference is closer to 99%.As a more fair comparison I've located a paper that used the same process to compare mice, humans and chimps. It states:

quote:

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Here we compare {approx}90 kb of coding DNA nucleotide sequence from 97 human genes to their sequenced chimpanzee counterparts and to available sequenced gorilla, orangutan, and Old World monkey counterparts, and, on a more limited basis, to mouse. The nonsynonymous changes (functionally important), like synonymous changes (functionally much less important), show chimpanzees and humans to be most closely related, sharing 99.4% identity at nonsynonymous sites and 98.4% at synonymous sites.

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Hopefully these will springboard the debate in a tangible direction, but something tells me not to be so optimistic.

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No - I don't believe a cosmic Jewish zombie can make me live forever if I eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that I accept him as my master, so he can then remove an evil force from my soul that is present in all of humanity because a dirt/rib woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree about 6,000 years ago just after the universe was created. Why should I?