Thank you for explaining that- and pointing out not all sequences are accounted for in those articles- I’ll check otu those links you posted- see if i can make heads or tails of them- probably not-
[[It’s all essential.]]
What i meant was that exdemmom was complaining that ‘basic’ sequences like the redundancy within coding and non coding shouldn’t be counted or included in comparisons-
It should not surprise anyone that calculations of percent similarities & differences in DNA will vary depending what assumptions and rules are used.
So when we say all human DNA is 99.9% identical, that is based on different assumptions than when we say human & chimp DNA is 98% or 84% *similar*.
The key point exDemMom brings out is that mutations accumulate faster in non-coding regions of DNA than in coding regions.
And she tells us the reason: because non-coding mutations have no significant effects on survival, whereas coding mutations can be catastrophic and prevent reproduction.
Now ifinnegan wishes us to understand that non-coding DNA can have important functions, but that idea is not fully accepted, for one reason because non-coding mutations accumulate so readily.
The key point then is: if non-coding regions have no or little functions, then **any** differences there are totally irrelevant and should not be used in percent comparisons.
On the other hand, if non-coding has important functions then their differences are significant enough to consider in percent similar calculations.