Posted on 10/01/2023 6:03:56 AM PDT by daniel1212
In a recent discussion on The Discovery Institute’s ID the Future podcast, geologist Casey Luskin explained that the original “98-99%” figure was derived from a single protein-to-protein comparison before the chimp genome was sequenced. Since then, we’ve gained a great deal more precision.
According to Luskin, humans and chimps have about 35 million single base-pair genetic differences and five million insertion-deletion differences. Humans also have 689 unique genes not found in chimps. And while there are different ways of quantifying the differences, almost none of these ways yield the famous “98-99%” number.
For example, in 2018, Queen Mary University of London evolutionary geneticist Richard Buggs performed a one-to-one analysis of human and chimp nucleotides. He reported that “the percentage of nucleotides in the human genome that had one-to-one exact matches in the chimpanzee genome was 84.38%.”
Other methodologies have yielded numbers ranging from the mid-80s to 90s. Why the different results? Well, because as Luskin explains, it is not entirely clear how we should compare human and chimp genomes:
Are you comparing the number of genes or copies of genes that the organism has? Are you comparing one-to-one nucleotide similarities? Are you including just the protein-coding DNA or also the non-coding DNA? Are you looking at certain segments of the genome that aren’t even necessarily places where the sequence matters, like the centromeres … ?
It turns out you’ll get a different answer depending on which method you choose. And there is an even deeper problem, says Luskin:
All of the chimp genomes we have today were effectively humanized. … The human genome was used as a scaffolding during the construction of these chimp genomes, which essentially makes the chimp genomes appear more similar to humans than they truly are.
None of this is new. Back in 2007, a paper in the journal Science admitted that the “1%” statistic was a myth and called for the truism to be retired. Yet 16 years later, this zombie idea shambles on, perpetuated by publications like Smithsonian Magazine, Nature, and the American Museum of Natural History website...
“There’s a vast cognitive and behavioral gulf” between humans and apes:"
Fuzz- that’s my point actually. I agree with you.
Adherence to the theory of evolution requires it to be possible.
It’s not.
No. Evolutionary theory does not say that one species gives birth to a different species in one generation.
It’s not similarity, it’s degree of complexity. We humans are at the halfway point, or just slightly past it, in terms of the possible complexity of DNA. The chimps are just below us, IN DEGREE OF COMPLEXITY.
Imagine what the next level might be like. Or the highest level. The next higher level surely exists elsewhere, but they might not look anything like us, as it’s complexity we’re talking about, not identical genetic evolution.
Incorrect!
The article, rather, makes a "big deal" of the fact that any comparison expressed as a more-or-less exact percentage, that any quantification of a "genetic resemblance" expressed as a decimal-pointed figure, must be taken with a grain of salt / will, by its very nature, be misleading, if taken too literally.
The article then proceeds to attempt to "make hay" and discredit the whole concept of evolution based upon that Straw Man Fallacy.
Regards,
The Wongs had a baby. The husband suspected the wife had cheated when the baby came out Caucasian. As we all know, 2 Wongs don't make a white.
Then it MUST take a LOT of generations.
Hopefully all the good changes are retained and the bad ones drop away.
Says who(m)?
Change DNA and you get a different creature?
My husband has always referred to it as such.
Question is so short and contextless as to be nearly meaningless!
Regards,
Occidents will happen!
Regards,
Someone missed that day of 5th-grade English, when this was explained!
To ask, "Says whom?" would be completely ungrammatical.
Whom is the Dative or Accusative form of who. (Whose is the Possessive form.)
After all, you wouldn't ask "Says him?", would you?
Regards,
Yes or No might work.
I learn new stuff every day.
How ‘bout you?
You are undoubtedly familiar with the quote attributed to Albert Einstein about the growing circle of knowledge, and its ever-expanding circumference.
Regards,
You've heard correctly. "Baltimurder" is also popular. However, the correct pronunciation when not sneering at the crime rate is more like "Bawlmer".
You mean the parroted 99 percent similarity between the DNA of humans while "other methodologies have yielded numbers ranging from the mid-80s to 90s" is not misleading, as used to promote the idea that man just evolved into a higher order of primate, which use "ignores there is clearly more going on than such figures can account for?"
Please understand that (last century) I was educated as an actual biologist. I understand that in human reproduction, the first mitosis of the union of sperm and oocyte is the actual fusion of their [23 apiece] chromosomes.
23 apiece, not 23.1, not 23.5, not 23 and 26. Only an aberration - a defect if you will — enables a zygote with the ‘wrong’ chromosomes.
So realistically, in the theory of evolution - the ‘magic’ would be that *somehow* mom and dad chimpanzee each produced egg/sperm with *matching* sets of 23 chromosomes versus 24.
In actual biology, the genome is SET at the formation of the zygote, NOT in the phenotype (ie something changing due to environment). At least absent a miracle or magic.
What’s all this add up to?
1. Actual genetics and probability preclude the ‘magic’ event of species A engaging in sexual reproduction (sperm meets egg) and producing Species B as offspring.
2. genetics does not support gradualism in sexual reproduction causing speciation.
3. Somehow (?) in the THEORY of evolution, a species, at the chromosome level - ie the molecular level - can gradually change to a different and incompatible genetic set that is in fact a different species. I understand that to be genetically and biologically impossible.
3.1 - a species being defined as a group of organisms that can engage in sexual reproduction and produce viable, fertile offspring.
If you can show me in biology how a genome can gradually change (order/sequence/sets/etc) to support the EVOLUTION of a different species, I will listen. I get it that alleles can shift all over the place within the population/ a species - but they can still reproduce together.
Headed to deer camp. Back in three days.
The days of being assigned homework are long behind me. Luckily for you the very device you are using to post here can help you find all the information you need to answer your questions.
Lame.
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