Chimps and Humans less than 70% of 1.5% DNA match or 98% match?

[BobRyan]

Before reading the rest of this post ask yourself - "what have you been TOLD" in popular media about the degree of DNA match between chimps and humans??

More than 98% match?

More than 90% match?

Or 90% of 1.5% match?

Or less than 70% match?

What were you told to "believe" by the evolutionism-marketing program?

Dr. Richard Buggs, a geneticist at Queen Mary, University of London.

Chimpanzee? - Reformatorisch Dagblad

10-10-2008 17:12 | Dr Richard Buggs
[FONT=&quot]From 1964 to 2004, it was believed that humans are almost identical to apes at the genetic level. Ten years ago, we thought that the information coded in our DNA is 98.5% the same as that coded in chimpanzee DNA. This led some scientists to claim that humans are simply another species of chimpanzee. [/FONT]

Certainly there has been a very strong marketing campaign from 1964 to 2004 (if not to this very day).

[FONT=&quot]Fortunately (for both the status of human beings and the status of genetics) we now know that the 98.5% figure is very misleading. In 2005 scientists published a draft reading of the complete DNA sequence (genome) of a chimpanzee. When this is compared with the genome of a human, we find major differences.[/FONT]

"very misleading" is a synonym for "blind faith evolutionism"


Would you have been very willing to trade in your Bible for "very misleading" marketing about better than 98% matchup for chimps and humans?

If so - well you will have to "do more trading" as those numbers back away from that high level of fiction and start drifting towards real life.

Of our 25,000 protein "coding genes" in the human genome - how many match up with chimps?

Draft genome sequence of the common chimpanzee

Analysis of the genome was published in Nature on September 1, 2005, in an article produced by the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, a group of scientists which is supported in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute, one of the National Institutes of Health. The article marked the completion of the draft genome sequence.[4] A database [5] now exists containing the genetic differences between human and chimpanzee genes, with about thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes, five million insertion/deletion events, and various chromosomal rearrangements. Gene duplications account for most of the sequence differences between humans and chimps. Single-base-pair substitutions account for about half as much genetic change as does gene duplication.


Typical human and chimp homologs of proteins differ in only an average of two amino acids. About 30 percent of all human proteins are identical in sequence to the corresponding chimp protein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee_genome_project

Wait! they did not have chimp mapped until 2005?? where did the 1964-2004 claims come from?? Well "less than" understanding -- making do with what they had.


in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

[FONT=&quot]Before our DNA was sequenced, people thought we'd have 100,000 codi[FONT=&quot]ng [/FONT]genes - but it turns out we have around 25,000 protein[FONT=&quot] coding genes[/FONT]. Why were they convinced we would have 100K??

Well -- for example "[/FONT][FONT=&quot]The little worm C. elegans, which only has about 1000 cells, was found to have 19,000 genes."


Maybe they were thinking that C. elegans was not just 6,000 prote[FONT=&quot]in coding [/FONT]genes from being human?

[FONT=&quot]Or maybe they are "clueless" when it comes to "making a cell" much less 'making a human'[FONT=&quot] -- is it all the genome[FONT=&quot]? Is it 70% the epigenome vs the Genome? ... so many questions when you don't know[FONT=&quot] how to [FONT=&quot]actually "make one".[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[/FONT]

 

[SkyWriting]

Before reading the rest of this post ask yourself - "what have you been TOLD" in popular media about the degree of DNA match between chimps and humans??

I don't care if the building blocks are 100% the same.
Don't let them draw you into a fake argument.

 

[Willtor]

If you consider simple substitutions and indels, our genomes are about 1.2% different from chimps. If you also take the mass duplications, substitutions, and deletions into account, it comes to a little less than 5% difference.

You ask about what they did before the genomes had been sequenced: they probably did statistical studies based on what they had sequenced. They were pretty close.

 

[Resha Caner]

Why does it matter how similar we are to chimps? What is the theological issue?

 

[BobRyan]

If you consider simple substitutions and indels, our genomes are about 1.2% different from chimps..

How long BEFORE they mapped the Chimp genome where they making that false claim??

To compare the two genomes, the first thing we must do is to line up the parts of each genome that are similar. When we do this alignment, we discover that only 2400 million of the human genome’s 3164.7 million ’letters’ align with the chimpanzee genome - that is, 76% of the human genome.


Some scientists have argued that the 24% of the human genome that does not line up with the chimpanzee genome is useless ”junk DNA”. However, it now seems that this DNA could contain over 600 protein-coding genes, and also code for functional RNA molecules.


Looking closely at the chimpanzee-like 76% of the human genome, we find that to make an exact alignment, we often have to introduce artificial gaps in either the human or the chimp genome. These gaps give another 3% difference. So now we have a 73% similarity between the two genomes.


In the neatly aligned sequences we now find another form of difference, where a single ’letter’ is different between the human and chimp genomes. These provide another 1.23% difference between the two genomes. Thus, the percentage difference is now at around 72%.


We also find places where two pieces of human genome align with only one piece of chimp genome, or two pieces of chimp genome align with one piece of human genome. This ”copy number variation” causes another 2.7% difference between the two species. Therefore the total similarity of the genomes could be below 70%.

 

[BobRyan]

Why does it matter how similar we are to chimps? What is the theological issue?

Well lets say when we look at the chimp dna - you are its identical twin. You "sure" that does not matter??

 

[Willtor]

Why does it matter how similar we are to chimps? What is the theological issue?

No theological issue, unless someone is taking "image of God" in a physical sense. But theologians have said "no" on that point, anyway, so it would be a personal theological problem -- not a general theological problem.

 

[Willtor]

How long BEFORE they mapped the Chimp genome where they making that false claim??

It isn't a false claim. It's just the way it is. But to answer the question: they were pretty close because they were doing statistical studies on what they _had_ sequenced. If you choose a good sample, you don't need to sequence very much to get pretty close with high confidence.

 

[Resha Caner]

Well lets say when we look at the chimp dna - you are its identical twin. You "sure" that does not matter??

That's not what is being claimed.

But even if it were true, I still don't see the issue. As Willtor implies, this seems more an issue of human pride than any theological issue. But if there is an issue, you'll need to be more explicit.

 

[BobRyan]

There is a limit -- you would not accept that you are a DNA identical twin with a chimp -- you would expect from the Genesis account to find that your DNA and that of a frog are identical.

each kind is made as distinct creation in the text.

It would be surprising indeed to find that they all have the same DNA and simply activate it as the environment dictates so that sometimes you can be human and at other times -- frog.

There are "limits" dictated and common sense would notice it based on the text.

If I look at my fingernail and that of chimp and find that they are strikingly similar - I am fine with that. It would not surprise me at all to find that the ability to see - the mechanism for the eye is pretty much the same between a chimp and a human for example.

Your argument that "pride enters in" is not at all in this picture. We are talking common sense implications that we would expect based on the content of the actual text of Genesis.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

It isn't a false claim. It's just the way it is. But to answer the question: they were pretty close because they were doing statistical studies on what they _had_ sequenced.

they had a tiny bit of data - they made huge assumptions in favor of blind-faith evolutionism. Now with more data - well less than 70% is the more common sense conclusion and even at that - we still don't have all the data analyzed for the set of differences.

"Very misleading" is the other name - for blind faith evolutionism.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Resha Caner]

... each kind is made as distinct creation in the text ...

Chimps and humans are distinct. "Similar DNA" does not mean "same DNA". I have no idea where the issue of frogs came from. You seem to be throwing out strawmen at random.

"Common sense" is not a theological touchstone (Jeremiah 51:17).

 

[SkyWriting]

Chimps and humans are distinct. "Similar DNA" does not mean "same DNA". I have no idea where the issue of frogs came from. You seem to be throwing out strawmen at random.
"Common sense" is not a theological touchstone (Jeremiah 51:17).

What I find so interesting is that all the research done has
the flavor of cult religion research. Rather than
drawing conclusions from the data, (which may be wrong anyway)
all the research begins from a premise, then seeks to
support that premise. Of the dozen I've read...they all say
"While we expected ______, what we found diverges from
what we expected to find, so we need to dig further to figure out
why the data doesn't fit our world view."


It's all about fitting the facts to the fable rather than the discovery of data.

Similar articles for PubMed (Select 17024666) - PubMed - NCBI

 

[Willtor]

they had a tiny bit of data - they made huge assumptions in favor of blind-faith evolutionism. Now with more data - well less than 70% is the more common sense conclusion and even at that - we still don't have all the data analyzed for the set of differences.

"Very misleading" is the other name - for blind faith evolutionism.

in Christ,

Bob

70% is not correct. On the whole, we're roughly 95% genetically similar to chimps. If we're only talking about conserved regions, we're just shy of 99% similar. This is pretty close to what was predicted before the genomes were sequenced completely. Again, if you have a good sample, you don't need much to get accurate numbers.

Also, you keep calling it evolution, but this is genetics. You're fighting against genetics.

 

[Willtor]

There is a limit -- you would not accept that you are a DNA identical twin with a chimp -- you would expect from the Genesis account to find that your DNA and that of a frog are identical.

Identical twins are 100% similar in DNA. The total human genetic variation is half of a percent. And it's much less if you're only talking conserved regions.

98.8% similarity with chimpanzees is threatening to you because you think it sounds like a tiny difference. And it _is_ pretty small, since we're closely related. But "twins" is not something you would hear a scientist say.

 

[Resha Caner]

Also, you keep calling it evolution, but this is genetics. You're fighting against genetics.

Right. That's a good point. I tried to say something similar, but I don't think it came through.

The argument is really against common descent - not even all of evolutionary theory. The similarity of chimps & humans is a finding of genetics, and so isn't really even relevant to the debate. It sometimes feels like if the Journal of Evolutionary Biology were to include an advertisement for chewing gum that some people would suddenly be against chewing gum.

 

[Open Heart]

Chimps and humans are distinct. "Similar DNA" does not mean "same DNA". I have no idea where the issue of frogs came from. You seem to be throwing out strawmen at random.

"Common sense" is not a theological touchstone (Jeremiah 51:17).

Of course humans and chimps are not the same species. Is anyone saying anything any different? All anyone is saying is that because humans and chimps evolves apart from a common ancestor relatively recently, we still share an enormous amount of DNA.

 

[Marshall Janzen]

The 70% figure seems to come from Vern Poythress, and it's recently been addressed in some detail by Dennis Venema. As Willtor already noted, this comes from a study analyzing small fragments of the genomes. And second, the 28% of DNA that had alignment problems was excluded because it matched in more than one location, not because it didn't match at all. It was too similar, not too different.

Source

 

[lesliedellow]

Why does it matter how similar we are to chimps? What is the theological issue?

They might dress it up in theological language, but they consider it to be beneath their dignity to share their ancestry with chimps.