EvC Forum: The DNA similarity of humans and chimps 96% and 99% history

mike the wiz writes:

Has anyone noticed the trend as the percentage similarity of chimps/humans comes down? For many years it was 98 or 99%, then after a few years it comes down some more, but the rhetoric increases.

There still is a 98% similarity between the DNA shared by chimps and humans. The 96% comes from the insertion and deletion events (i.e. indels) that adds or subtracts DNA from either genome. There are many ways to compare genomes, and the substitution rate is still a good way of comparing genomes.

At the end of the day, the number really doesn't matter. What really matters is the relative distance between genomes. As it turns out, chimps share more DNA with humans than they do with gorillas or orangutans. If chimps are an ape, then so too are humans since chimps are more closely related to humans than they are any other ape species.

"We are apes in every way" seems to be predicated on, "long arms" and, "tailless bodies". Is that, "every way?" Oh dear, the list has ran out fast, four features and one of them he gets wrong, despite being an anatomist. Another he gets wrong is, "habits". That's just plainly bad logic, because I don't recall an ape painting an oil on canvas or playing tennis, or worshipping God, the last time I looked.

This expert doesn't seem to know that all apes have arms longer than their legs but humans don't. This guy is called a, "primate scientist", yet doesn't seem to know why a fully bipedal human would need relatively long arms, for balance. So the reason apes have longer arms is for brachiation, arboreal locomotion. Humans have arms of a certain favourable length for reasons of bipedalism;

The anatomical similarities are unavoidable.

If you can't see the striking similarities between chimps and humans, then you are simply in denial. There are no other species groups that are more like humans than apes.

Also, there is an ape species that paints pictures on canvases and plays tennis. That ape species is Homo sapiens.

Reporter; "Dr B, what does this new figure mean?"
Dr B; "Well Sally, it's remarkable, I mean you just won't believe it, but this shows that before, even though we thought we were apes, and then we knew we were apes with the 96% figure, now it is 93%, then I have to tell you - this is the planet of the apes! Ape, ape, ape! I cannot tell you how ape humans are! In fact, what is a human? Ditch that term! For now I speak as all apes speak, as a thorough ape! A super-duper, fender bending, gun-toting, super-ape. I've had my costume made, I will appear in the latest musical, as super-ape."
Reporter: "That's the best science I have heard in years. Your logical prowess never ceased to amaze me, what an ape-solutely flushbunking success for evolution theory!"

We have sequenced greater than 95% of the chimp and human genomes, so the numbers aren't going to change much. At the end of the day, what matters is the relative distance between the ape species. As already stated, chimps share more DNA with humans than they do any other ape species. That makes humans apes.

Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

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