>>>>
The most compelling evidence supporting Darwin's theory is not hominid fossil evidence found in East Africa, but genetic evidence showing our similarities with other higher primates such as chimps, bonobos, and gorillas.<<<<What's in the Fridge?. Origins Research 13:1
It's from that moment which is two months after fertilization, that we don't call any longer human being embryos, we call them fetuses. And that is very true to change the name just because it tell a very plain evidence: Nobody in the world looking for the first time at a Tom Thumb bag, looking at an embryo of two months of a chimpanzee, of a gorilla, of an orangutan, or of a man, nobody in the world would make a mistake just looking at him. It's obvious this one is a chimpanzee, this one is an orangutan, this one is gorilla, this one is a man.
Q. Certainly. I think I have read somewhere, and I'm sure if I'm not right you'll correct me, that genetically as far as the chromosomes, as far as the contents of the DNA in the chromosomes, for instance, man, Homo sapiens, and the higher mammals, particularly the gorillas, chimpanzeeshelp me look for that species.
A. Orangutan.
Q. There is a remarkable similarity?
A. Well, it depends what you remark. You can remark the similarity, or you can remark the differences. And difference is incredibly interesting. I don't know where you want to ask me.
Q. Well, I have heard it said or read that approximately ninety-eight percent of the genetic material that is found in a chimpanzee or gorilla is identical to what may be found in a human being.
A. It has been written, and it has been written by statistical calculation of the DNA but not about the meaning of it. Now, what makes ninety percent similarity in the number of words in two different texts? They can mean something very different by the way the sentence are made. It's what makes the difference between the species.
Q. But there is a similarity in the DNA?
A. Oh, yes, exactly like the similarity in the fact they have two hands like us, not the same thumb, but they have hands, we have feet, but they are the most similar to us, no doubt. It's no surprise that the DNA also has some similarity.
Q. But the same basic process that we observe in human beings we also observe in chimpanzees?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. Mice?
A. Mice, I would not go that far but partly.
Q. Mice have zygotes?
A. Oh, yes, I mean--I want to make clear when we speak about basic mechanism we have to know what we mean by basic. For example, I told you the enormous importance of methylation of the DNA we discovered those years. But, for example, Drosophila does not methylate the DNA.
Q. That's the fruit fly?
A. That's the fruit fly but it's a very complex organism. It's makes a differentiation of cells that makes me believe that with methylation we have unveiled one of the tricks used by nature, but there are other tricks we are still using, we men, that were sufficient to build a Drosophila but would not be sufficient to build the human being. I would not agree that basic mechanism are the same in the whole living system. Surely it's much more complicated to build a human being, to determinate on one cell the wiring of his brain so that he will some day invent machine to help his own brain to understand the law of the universe. There is something peculiar to the human beings compared to others, you know. I will tell you one thing, very simple: I'm traveling a lot, and as far as I can I visit two points which are very important for me when I go in a new town: One is the university and other is the zoological garden. In the university I have often seen very grave professors asking themselves whether after all their children when they were very young were not animals, but I have never seen in a zoological garden a congress of chimpanzees asking themselves whether their children when they are grown up will become universitarians. I feel there is a difference somewhere.
Was that actually supposed to prove some point?