Mageth

You may be right. This National Geographic article discusses "A recent study [that] suggests that number [98.5%] may need to be revised. Using a new, more sophisticated method to measure the similarities between human and chimp DNA, the two species may share only 95 percent genetic material. "

Does anyone have any up-to-date info on this?

MrDarwin

Hmmm, that little "copyright" notice at the end of the text suggests that this text is... um... copyrighted. As such, unless you are the copyright holder, you are violating the copyright of this text by copying and pasting it here.

Such texts written by other people should be either summarized or very briefly quoted, preferably with a link to the original.

Albion

And it depends where you read your review, too. The review in Nature was somewhat less than ecstatic and accused the author of bias. Here are a couple of paragraphs from the original review, which was rather long so I hope this is a small enough extract to be legal:

"It has been widely recognized that Kettlewell's experiments were indeed flawed. Hooper enumerates the familiar problems: Kettlewell used mixtures of wild-caught and lab-reared moths, released them at the wrong time of day onto unnatural resting places, and so on. As a result, the role of bird predation in the evolution of melanism remains unclear. But sloppiness is not fraud. Eager to push her theme of "ambitious scientists who will ignore the truth for the sake of fame and recognition", she unfairly smears a brilliant naturalist.

Many of the problems with Kettlewell's experiments and the 'classic' Biston story were first aired by the US biologist Ted Sargent. Curiously, when turning from Kettlewell to Sargent, Hooper's criticality evaporates. She claims that Sargent's criticisms of the moth work ruined his career by making him a pariah, rejected by a scientific establishment enamoured with Biston. But this is hyperbole. Sargent's career may have languished because he often published in little-known journals or (as Hooper notes) refused to apply for grants — the kiss of death for a US scientist.

Hooper also champions Sargent's view that industrial melanism was a case not of evolution but of "phenotypic induction" — a developmental change in the colour of moths, presumably caused by the larval ingestion of pollutants. But she conveniently glosses over the simple and unassailable fact that the light and dark alleles of Biston segregate as mendelian variants when tested under uniform experimental conditions. Perhaps Hooper embraces the induction theory because it makes for a better story, but surely good science journalism demands that drama takes a back seat to data. Numerous scientific errors (the American peppered moth is not B. cognataria but B. betularia, the same species as in Britain, for example), mar the book for biologists.

The biggest shortcoming, however, is Hooper's failure to emphasize that, despite arguments about the precise mechanism of selection, industrial melanism still represents a splendid example of evolution in action. The dramatic rise and fall of the frequency of melanism in Biston betularia, occurring in parallel on two continents, is a compelling case of evolution by natural selection. No force other than selection could have caused such striking and directional change. Hooper's grudging admission of this fact occupies but one sentence: "It is reasonable to assume that natural selection operates in the evolution of the peppered moth.""

Valentine Pontifex

Too bad things posted here are not eligible for t.o.'s Chez Watt because this would have a good chance at winning.

Humans are, of course, are NOT more genetically similiar to hamsters than apes. The apes which shows the most similiarities are the two species of chimps (common chimp and bonobos) which shares the most recent common ancestor with humans than any other animal.

Paul

Hm me thinks that I'd better ask my Biology teacher (evolutionist)
where he got that bit of information

wordsmyth

It should also be mentioned that Chimps and Humans are more genetically similar than Chimps and Gorillas.

Paul2

It's my understanding that humans, mice, and apes are all on the same evolutionairy branch. humans and apes are on another branch on the same branch. Mice are closer to our branch than let's say the three toed sloth. This would explain why our dna and the dna of mice and apes are pretty close. yes, no?

Paul

from a creationist point of view we are geneticly similar because we carry out similar processes of life eg coding for production of similar enzymes.

Monkey

*mental note to self, no more attempts at humor*

One problem with creationism is that it can be used to explain absolutely anything, it's not falsifiable. Of course if your just looking at only that particular piece of evidence above, you could conclude that there was some supernatual designer but then it ceases to be science. Given the many lines of evidence from many disciplines of science, biological evolution is the best scientific explanation we have for earths biological diversity.

I hope that makes sence, I'm really tired and I can't think straight.

Paul

And many Creationists say the same thing about evolution

However since Evolution is base completely from a materialistic point of view it should be able to be questioned and be falsifable