ILLUSTRATION FOR TIME BY TIM O'BRIEN
What Makes Us Different?
Not very much, when you look at our DNA. But those few tiny changes made all the difference in the world
Posted on 10/01/2006 3:14:48 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
You don't have to be a biologist or an anthropologist to see how closely the great apes—gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans—resemble us. Even a child can see that their bodies are pretty much the same as ours, apart from some exaggerated proportions and extra body hair. Apes have dexterous hands much like ours but unlike those of any other creature. And, most striking of all, their faces are uncannily expressive, showing a range of emotions that are eerily familiar. That's why we delight in seeing chimps wearing tuxedos, playing the drums or riding bicycles. It's why a potbellied gorilla scratching itself in the zoo reminds us of Uncle Ralph or Cousin Vinnie—and why, in a more unsettled reaction, Queen Victoria, on seeing an orangutan named Jenny at the London Zoo in 1842, declared the beast "frightful and painfully and disagreeably human."
It isn't just a superficial resemblance. Chimps, especially, not only look like us, they also share with us some human-like behaviors. They make and use tools and teach those skills to their offspring. They prey on other animals and occasionally murder each other. They have complex social hierarchies and some aspects of what anthropologists consider culture. They can't form words, but they can learn to communicate via sign language and symbols and to perform complex cognitive tasks. Scientists figured out decades ago that chimps are our nearest evolutionary cousins, roughly 98% to 99% identical to humans at the genetic level. When it comes to DNA, a human is closer to a chimp than a mouse is to a rat.
Yet tiny differences, sprinkled throughout the genome, have made all the difference. Agriculture, language, art, music, technology and philosophy—all the achievements that make us profoundly different from chimpanzees and make a chimp in a business suit seem so deeply ridiculous—are somehow encoded within minute fractions of our genetic code. Nobody yet knows precisely where they are or how they work, but somewhere in the nuclei of our cells are handfuls of amino acids, arranged in a specific order, that endow us with the brainpower to outthink and outdo our closest relatives on the tree of life. They give us the ability to speak and write and read, to compose symphonies, paint masterpieces and delve into the molecular biology that makes us what we are.
Until recently, there was no way to unravel these crucial differences. Exactly what gives us advantages like complex brains and the ability to walk upright—and certain disadvantages, including susceptibility to a particular type of malaria, aids and Alzheimer's, that don't seem to afflict chimps—remained a mystery.
But that's rapidly changing. Just a year ago, geneticists announced that they had sequenced a rough draft of the chimpanzee genome, allowing the first side-by-side comparisons of human and chimpanzee DNA. Already, that research has led to important discoveries about the development of the human brain over the past few million years and possibly about our ancestors' mating behavior as well.
And sometime in the next few weeks, a team led by molecular geneticist Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany, will announce an even more stunning achievement: the sequencing of a significant fraction of the genome of Neanderthals—the human-like species we picture when we hear the word caveman—who are far closer to us genetically than chimps are. And though Neanderthals became extinct tens of thousands of years ago, Paabo is convinced he's on the way to reconstructing the entire genome of that long-lost relative, using DNA extracted, against all odds, from a 38,000-year-old bone.
Laid side by side, these three sets of genetic blueprints—plus the genomes of gorillas and other primates, which are already well on the way to being completely sequenced—will not only begin to explain precisely what makes us human but could lead to a better understanding of human diseases and how to treat them.
*** [Snip] ***
[Long article. For the rest, see the original: What Makes Us Different?]
I do recall seeing that he/she had made a number of postings, though I did not examine them in-depth. There appears to be an unusual level of arrogance in that individual.
Indeed...but heck, thats his/her way, so be it...I found it very informative indeed, that no substantive discussion was brought up...just a lot of spamming...the other posters and lurkers can and will, take notice, and evaluate all that spam for whats it worth..
Sorry, you didn't say common DNA "proves" common descent, just that it was an argument in favor of it. Again, however, it is a necessary-but-not-sufficient result.
Nice try, but bull puckey. Birds and bats might get classified together by a retarded third grader based soley on the fact that they fly, but then you'd have to include such things as bugs, flying squirrels, certain frogs, lizards and fish, and pteranodons.Bats are not that similar to birds.
It does strike me as odd that God didn't seem to have any more knowledge than the Iron Age goatherders who worshipped Him.
Bull puckey again. I never used the word "prove" nor will I ever user it in anything other than mathematics. Nothing in science is ever "proved." Common DNA is strong evidence for common descent. That you choose to ignore it or handwave it away does not change that fact.
Ouch, Losing faith in humanity one person at a time?
Isn't that a little harsh?
Then again, looks like you have been here a while, so I guess I'll take your word for it.
But, ouch.
What is your problem?
Notice the next post to you I apologized and said you didn't say common DNA proved common descent? Did you read it at all? Are you intentionally looking for fights where there aren't any?
You stifle dialog as successfully as any of the worst creationists I've ever met.
Eight-plus years of battling the forces of ignorance on these threads will make a cynic of anyone. There are literally people out there who will not consider any evidence that might call into question a story concocted by Middle Eastern Iron Age goatherders. Yeah, they try to fool themselves into believing the evidence doesn't exist, but that facade wears thin after they've been shown that evidence again and again and again.
You evidently didn't address said post to me.
Oh, PH - I was wondering when you'd finally come out of your closet (er...hunting blind).....
None of that Bambi stuff for me! Real men like elk.
Mea Culpa.
"Nobody is talking causality. Where the Hell did that come from?"
It came from you, when you said this:
"everything on the planet shares about 25 percent of its DNA. This is just more confirmation of common descent "
"shares about 25 percent of its DNA" is an observation of commonality and you stated that theis commonality was a confirmation of common descent.
Your analogy about WWII remains can just as easily be a discussion of design as it could be a discussion of evolution.
"You would have us believe, however, that there is no such relationship because God simply zapped an appropriate set of DNA into each individual regardless of relatedness."
That's a silly statement. The relatedness is obvious between people, it can be seen in personalities and appearance, for example. But that doesn't mean that later generations will be a different species.
" There are none so blind..."
I've got one for you: if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.
We have artists, lawyers, and politicians. They just throw their own feces at each other.
Hmmmm, on second thought maybe there's fewer differences than I thought.
"The actual overall similarity of human and mouse DNA (as measured by the same DNA-DNA hybridization technique which gives the 98.5 percent figure for humans and chimps) is roughly 60 percent."
Oh, thanks so much pointing that out.
That changes EVERYTHING.
So now we are 98% like chimps and 60% like mice and 25% like a banana.
Oh, yeah, that cinches the deal. Evolution is definitely the answer.
</sarcasm>
These DNA relationships are as much evidence for design as they are for evolution. IOW, they indicate nothing.
That's sort of true, at least for "design". Any comparative degrees of DNA similarity, or dissimilarity, whatsoever are compatible with design. Evolution and common descent, OTOH, prohibits certain patterns. As noted, if you had been correct that Mice and Humans were more similar in their DNA than Chimps and Humans this would FALSIFY evolution, absent some extraordinary functional explanation for the difference.
100. Prime!
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