If this article showed that humans and chimps were always in contact during the last 5 million years or so, it would weaken the speciation argument.
It would have been harder for the two species to diverge genetically if they were constantly breeding as one population during this period.
No, it wouldn't, because there are many modes of speciation which work just fine even with populations that are "always in contact".
Furthermore, this article (an editorial by the anti-evolution creationist group "Reasons.org") didn't even establish *that*. It just shows that 4.5 million years *after* the human and chimp lineages separated, at least one chimp ended up in a region where human ancestors have been found. Big whoop-de-doo.
It would have been harder for the two species to diverge genetically if they were constantly breeding as one population during this period.
Define "harder". Is it "harder" to have a mutation which triggers sympatric speciation, or is it "harder" to become geographically isolated? Both seem not "hard" at all -- populations keep living their lives, and thanks to nature s**t happens (without any effort at all) that has an effect on the future of your descendants.
It either happened or it didn't, and mountains of evidence overwhelmingly indicate that it did. In any case, again, the creationist spin in no way establishes that this *was* even the case. They're just propagandizing by misrepresenting the implications of a find.
Whether they do this through incompetence, or dishonesty, or a combination of the two, is left as an exercise for the reader. Lord knows the creationists have exhibited an endless capacity for both.
If this article showed that humans and chimps were always in contact during the last 5 million years or so, it would weaken the speciation argument.