I think I may have found the source for this bizarre man/maize genetic claim:
http://www.direct.ca/trinity/accounting.htm
Among other splendours, the following may be found therein:
We have all heard that Chimpanzees and Humans share 98% of our DNA. In some instances this percentage is said to be more than 99% and at the low end of the spectrum the some argue for slightly below 97%. If you watch the Discovery channel, often you will hear this 1% difference between man and chimp, reminding us almost weekly of our closest evolutionary cousins. Is there only a 1% difference between man and chimp? Yes, however this difference can be as low as 0.4% (99.6% similarity) or as high as 2% (98% similarity). ...[snip]...Did you know that Tetrahymena thermophila a unicellular, ciliated freshwater protozoan, shares 42.6% of the same DNA amino acid chain that Maize (corn) has! 1 We as humans become quite relieved to find that we share 47.5% of our amino acid chain with that same protozoan. This means that there are more similarities between people and a unicellular protozoan then corn and that same protozoan. 1 However, we find that Maize (corn) and people share 66.7% of our chain, where horses only share 63.7% of their chain with corn, a difference of 3%. Looking further into cytochrome C connections we find that the horse shares 65.7% of the chain with Neurospora (fungi) whereas humans only share 63.7% of the chain with that same fungi. So if we consider this data we find that primates common ancestor must have sprouted from corn (no pun intended) where the common ancestor of the horse/donkey is closer to fungus then to corn. 1 Do we take this seriously? If human and chimp share 98% of our full DNA then we must take a 3% difference between humans / corn and horses / corn with some seriousness. A troubling puzzle indeed when one considers that the ears of corn are more similar in appearance to the ear of a horse then any primate.
MissAmericanPie's reading comprehension is somewhat suspect, the "3%" would appear to be her own scrambling of an already twisted source--unless she would like to offer another source for her astounding claim.
It's clear that a 'film' made quite an impact here; she never responded to my point that films arent't really a scholarly source, far more often used as propaganda (just look at what Michael Moore gets away with on film). But they do have a lot of weight if reading comprehension ain't your strong suit.
http://www.direct.ca/trinity/
My own advice here: make sure to don your tin-foil hats first. :-)
My granddaddy weren't no ear of corn!
MissAmericanPie: The numbers in that little blurb do not say that humans and maize share 97% of of genome but 66.7% which would be a 33.3% difference not 3%.
Just as a point of interest, the 3% difference of a difference stated in the blurb actually says nothing about the similarity between horses and humans (or their common ancestor).
Oh wow. It's amazing what you can prove with MissAmericanPie's logic:
[ToryHeartland replied:] MissAmericanPie's reading comprehension is somewhat suspect, the "3%" would appear to be her own scrambling of an already twisted source--unless she would like to offer another source for her astounding claim.
Oh, it's worse than that. She made the *same* bone-headed "error" two years ago, and I already pointed out the idiocy of her "math" back then. Now, apparently having learned nothing from getting caught at it before -- or being dishonest enough to try it again after *knowing* it's wrong -- here she is again parroting the same mindless nonsense.
In short, she's acting like a typical anti-evolution creationist. Big surprise.
What *is* funny is that she states this "non-fact" she already *knows* won't fly here in the same post that she tries to sarcastically claim that it's *scientists* who have a slippery notion of what "facts" are... In truth, it's the *anti-evolutionists* who have more than a little "trouble" with sticking to facts, as her blatantly false "3%" claim makes very, very clear.
Here's the post I wrote to her the *first* time she tried to pull this crap on this forum:
Posted by Ichneumon to MissAmericanPie[MissAmericanPie wrote:] There are so many black boxes in their theory, that the veiwing of it on film, well lets just say that it is very revealing.
On News/Activism 06/15/2004 6:53:00 PM CDT · 746 of 1,009
Yet more "creationist math" (as opposed to the real kind):However, we find that Maize (corn) and people share 66.7% of our chain, where horses only share 63.7% of their chain with corn, a difference of 3%. [...] So the next time you hear someone talk about your closest genetic cousin, pull a piece of dried corn out of your pocket and introduce them to another close genetic cousin.
This is... mindbogglingly stupid.
It's like saying that since Miami Florida is 1360 miles from Portland Maine, and Miami is 1244 miles away from Kansas City Missouri, "a difference of 116 miles", that Miami and Kansas City are 116 miles apart, and "So the next time you hear someone in Miami talk about the closest city, pull a brochure of Kansas City out of your pocket and introduce them to another close geographic city."
Yes friends, creationists really do argue crap like this -- and then try to ridicule *science*. The mind boggles.
So if we consider this data we find that primates common ancestor must have sprouted from corn (no pun intended) where the common ancestor of the horse/donkey is closer to fungus then to corn.
No, "we" don't "find" that at all. Not unless "we" are an idiot creationist.
Do we take this seriously? If human and chimp share 98% of our full DNA then we must take a 3% difference between humans / corn and horses / corn with some seriousness.
No, actually, we don't.
My point is that by utilizing the same creative accounting used by anti-creationists we can also draw some weird conclusions about our heritage.
No, the point is that by utilizing weird "creative accounting" which is dishonestly (or cluelessly) *DIFFERENT* from the analyses actually used by scientists (here called "anti-cerationists"), one can *fallaciously* try to ridicule science in a classic case of a "straw man" attack, because it's like beating up a scarecrow version of the real thing, not the real thing itself.
This is very common among creationists, probably because most of them haven't a farking(tm) clue about the science they're trying to attack. But they keep trying anyway.
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No, what's "very revealing" is how often the anti-evolution creationists get caught posting blatant falsehoods in a dishonest attempt to have a cheap excuse to attack science, and how they KEEP doing it even after they've already gotten caught at it, because all they have is their script of misrepresentations, distortions, and lies. Deprive them of that, and they wouldn't have anything to say at all, so they just keep reading from it even after having already been previously caught using the same false material. They *know* the material is false, they don't *care* -- lying in order to attack science is just fine by them. So remember, "by their fruits shall ye know them".
Why do you anti-evolution nuts keep trying? You're just making fools of yourselves, *and* making all conservatives look bad by association. Or is that your actual goal?
Question for the lurkers: Does *anyone* think the anti-evolutionists on this thread are coming off as fine, upstanding, honest, competent, knowledgeable folks? Let's have a show of hands...