You are misreading the article you cite:
The problem with the old studies is that the methods did not recognize differences due to events of insertion and deletion that result in parts of the DNA being absent from the strands of one or the other species.
What the above means is simply that because of deletions in each species, the strands selected did not align properly, hence a simple 'alphabetic' comparison of the sequences gave a wrong number. What Britten did, and the reason he revised the figures, is he properly aligned the strands according to what was the purpose of them. In this way he came up with the more accurate 5% number.
Now as to neutral mutations, they just cannot spread throughout a species - according to studies made by evolutionists themselves when they were trying to solve the problem posed by genetics. The basis of population genetics is the Hardy-Weinberg principle which says that in a stable population the genetic mix of the population will remain stable absent any genetic advantage of a particular genetic makeup. What this means is that a neutral mutation in a population of 1 million organisms will continue to be in only 1 millionth of the population if it is neutral. In fact it will likely dissappear completely due to chance (if you play a game at odds of 2 to 1 with two dollars long enough you will lose both dollars), so neutral mutations cannot be in any way responsible for these differences in any significant way.
Due to the above, yes, the differences are 5%. Yes, you need some 150 million mutations. Yes, mostly all of them have to be favorable to have survived.
You are misreading the article you cite:The problem with the old studies is that the methods did not recognize differences due to events of insertion and deletion that result in parts of the DNA being absent from the strands of one or the other species.
No, you're misreading it. Britten came up with a more accurate figure for the differences in sequence. He was not trying to measure the number of mutations needed to produce those differences in sequence.
What the above means is simply that because of deletions in each species, the strands selected did not align properly, hence a simple 'alphabetic' comparison of the sequences gave a wrong number. What Britten did, and the reason he revised the figures, is he properly aligned the strands according to what was the purpose of them. In this way he came up with the more accurate 5% number.
But the DNA hybridization technique "involved collecting tiny snips of the DNA helix from the chromosomes of the two species to be studied". Now, stop & think what this would mean if you had a child that doubled its parents' chromosomes (ex.: from 10 to 20): The hybridization technique would not detect any difference between the two genomes! It would "think" it was just seeing twice as many snips of the child's DNA sample as it was "seeing" of the parent's sample, and would declare the genomes to be exactly 0% different.
In reality such a doubling of the number of chromosomes required one mutation, but the newer sequence comparison technique would correctly conclude that there was a 50% difference in total sequence between parent & child. See? The two techniques are measuring two different things.
Now as to neutral mutations, they just cannot spread throughout a species - according to studies made by evolutionists themselves when they were trying to solve the problem posed by genetics. The basis of population genetics is the Hardy-Weinberg principle which says that in a stable population the genetic mix of the population will remain stable absent any genetic advantage of a particular genetic makeup. What this means is that a neutral mutation in a population of 1 million organisms will continue to be in only 1 millionth of the population if it is neutral. In fact it will likely dissappear completely due to chance (if you play a game at odds of 2 to 1 with two dollars long enough you will lose both dollars), so neutral mutations cannot be in any way responsible for these differences in any significant way.
Please see this page from Kimball's Biology Pages. Scroll down to the section titled "When the Hardy-Weinberg Law Fails to Apply". Then find the subhead "Genetic Drift:
Genetic Drift
As we have seen, interbreeding often is limited to the members of local populations. If the population is small, Hardy-Weinberg may be violated. Chance alone may eliminate certain members out of proportion to their numbers in the population. In such cases, the frequency of an allele may begin to drift toward higher or lower values. Ultimately, the allele may represent 100% of the gene pool or, just as likely, disappear from it.
IOW, Hardy-Weinberg only helps you if you're talking about a species that does not separate into tribes, so it really is one huge interbreeding population. It might help you if we're talking about promiscuous ocean-dwelling fish, or birds that live in huge flocks, or modern humans, etc. But it does not help you with prehistoric humans.
Due to the above, yes, the differences are 5%. Yes, you need some 150 million mutations. Yes, mostly all of them have to be favorable to have survived.
In conclusion, no, no, and no.