Now we are down from 99.8% all the way to 94-95%. A lot of Darwinists now look very foolish.
Article from Nature
Full text here:
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030428/030428-3.html
Donald M
Chimps expose humanness
Preliminary genome comparison points to primate individuality.
29 April 2003
HELEN PEARSON
By studying chimpanzees, scientists are honing their genetic view of
humanity, researchers told this week's meeting of the Human Genome
Organisation in Cancun, Mexico.
A group presented the first detailed comparison between a large chunk of
human DNA and the equivalent from our closest relative. The genetic make-up
of chimpanzee chromosome 22 is hot off the press, having just been
sequenced, and matches human chromosome 21.
The data call for some revision of the estimated genetic similarity between
us and our closest relatives. Previously, human and chimp genetic sequences
were quoted as being nearly 99% identical, with a difference of only a few
DNA's letters. In fact, the similarity may be as low as 94-95%, says Todd
Taylor of the RIKEN Genomic Sciences Center in Yokohama, Japan.
Taylor's team factors in whole segments that they found to have been added
to or subtracted from one of the genomes; previous estimates were often
produced by comparing smaller areas. "There's still not a good way to say
how much we're similar," admits Taylor.
It is not yet clear how these rearrangements and single-letter changes
underlie 'human' characteristics such as talking, abstract thinking and
certain diseases. But, "if we want to find the very fine differences that
make us human we have to look at our closest relative", Taylor says.
The team found that one gene that is linked to Alzheimer's disease - a brain
disorder that does not seem to afflict chimps - produces a slightly
different protein in chimps from the corresponding human version. In all,
around 16% of genes in the compared sequences have such variations. Another
good example, says geneticist Stephen Scherer of the Hospital for Sick
Children in Toronto, was found last year in a gene called FOXP2, which seems
to control human language. Chimpanzees have two key changes in the gene,
which may prevent them from articulating speech.
Taylor's is one of two international groups that are now working their way
through the chimpanzee's genome. They also hope to pinpoint cases in which,
although chimp and human genes are very similar, they are active at
different times or places in the body.
Researchers announced only last week that they have largely completed the
human genetic sequence. But "it's not enough to tell us everything about
ourselves", says Human Genome Organisation president Yoshiyuki Sakaki, also
at the RIKEN genome centre.