Separate Studies Converge on Human-Chimp DNA Dissimilarity

[Habitual_Ritual]

The improvement of DNA sequencing technology, along with scientific advances in the field of genomics, is proving to be a profound enemy of evolution. Two new discoveries that challenge the human evolution paradigm were reported nearly simultaneously—one by a secular scientist and the other by myself. Remarkably, the corroborating data produced in both reports are in perfect agreement.

https://www.icr.org/article/separate-studies-converge-human-chimp-dna/

[Maximilian]

The improvement of DNA sequencing technology, along with scientific advances in the field of genomics, is proving to be a profound enemy of evolution. Two new discoveries that challenge the human evolution paradigm were reported nearly simultaneously—one by a secular scientist and the other by myself. Remarkably, the corroborating data produced in both reports are in perfect agreement.

https://www.icr.org/article/separate-studies-converge-human-chimp-dna/

... This level of DNA similarity is needed to undergird the hypothesis that humans and chimps shared a common ancestor three to six million years ago. Based on known mutation rates in both humans and chimps, anything significantly less than a 98.5% DNA similarity would destroy the foundation of the entire theory.

... University of London evolutionist Richard Buggs analyzed the results of a comprehensive comparison of the new chimp genome with the human one and posted his shocking anti-evolutionary findings. He stated, "The percentage of nucleotides in the human genome that had one-to-one exact matches in the chimpanzee genome was 84.38%."

... A 15% DNA difference between humans and chimps is a discrepancy that can't be ignored when no more than about a 1% difference is required to make human evolution seem at all plausible.

[Xavier]

Stunning! This new genetic research constitutes a definitive empirical falsification of the monkey-man myth. It should be the final nail in the coffin that is evolution. People who continue to promote evolution after this should be ashamed. And men especially, because there was a similar very recent report (that the Y chromosome in Men and in chimps was "horrendously different") that, especially taken together with this, gives Christian men absolute scientific certainty that evolution is false.

[Quaremerepulisti]

Of course, none of you actually bothered to click on and read the biologos thread and see the situation is far more complicated than this.  For one thing, the entire human and chimp genomes haven't been sequenced yet, so some of the unmatched DNA may relate to parts that haven't been sequenced - and Dr. Buggs candidly admits his 85% number only represents a lower bound.  For another, yes given known mutation rates and so on chimp and human genomes should be 98.5% or so alike - in Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs), where we are best able to estimate mutation rates, but Dr. Buggs's data shows a similarity of around that number - even a bit more.  The differences also relate to other things such as copy number variants and so on.

But I get it; you aren't really interested in what science has to say or doesn't say.  You've a priori decided "evolution" (even in any attenuated form such as progressive creation) isn't true, and are simply searching for evidence that will confirm you in your beliefs.  What the evidence really says or doesn't say is irrelevant.  Any claim that the data doesn't say what you claim it does will simply be peremptorily dismissed as "desperate evolutionist just-so storytelling" or some similar epithet.

You are entitled to your worldview of course.  It just doesn't happen to be one which I share.

[Sempronius]

Of course we will question everything. Should we just nod approvingly to everything scientists say because "this is not our field and we should not talk about things that we don't understand"?

[Quaremerepulisti]

Of course we will question everything. Should we just nod approvingly to everything scientists say because "this is not our field and we should not talk about things that we don't understand"?

Of course not.  Go ahead and question.  That's different from an a priori decision about what the truth is.

[Michael Wilson]

Quare,
I decided to click on Dr. Buggs paper and read through it, and from what I understand, he appears to have predicted (wrongly) that the match figure of the genomes would be 70%; he then has revised his prediction upward to 85%, but I don't see where he states that this is a low estimate.  He does state that the 95% figure that is now held as the most accurate by Messrs Venema and Schaffner is high. Is this correct?

As 5% of the human genome is still unassembled, and 5% seems to be CNVs relative to chimp, and 4% is unaligned to the chimp genome, I cannot agree with Dennis Venema [here] and Steve Schaffner [here] that "95% is the best estimate we have for the genome-wide identity of chimps and humans". I would accept 95% as a prediction, but not as a statement of established fact.

I predict that the 95% figure will prove to be wrong, because (on the basis of my comparison of the PanTro4 and PanTro6 alignments to Hg38) I think that the CNV differences are here to stay, and I doubt that all of the currently unaligned or unsequenced regions of the human genome will prove to all be 95% the same as the chimpanzee genome.

But does the 95% figure (assuming that it is accurate), not also rule out a common human-chimp ancestry?

[Kreuzritter]

More cognitive dissonance from the Satanic followers of Evolutionism.

[Quaremerepulisti]

Quare,
I decided to click on Dr. Buggs paper and read through it, and from what I understand, he appears to have predicted (wrongly) that the match figure of the genomes would be 70%; he then has revised his prediction upward to 85%, but I don't see where he states that this is a low estimate.  He does state that the 95% figure that is now held as the most accurate by Messrs Venema and Schaffner is high. Is this correct?

As 5% of the human genome is still unassembled, and 5% seems to be CNVs relative to chimp, and 4% is unaligned to the chimp genome, I cannot agree with Dennis Venema [here] and Steve Schaffner [here] that "95% is the best estimate we have for the genome-wide identity of chimps and humans". I would accept 95% as a prediction, but not as a statement of established fact.

I predict that the 95% figure will prove to be wrong, because (on the basis of my comparison of the PanTro4 and PanTro6 alignments to Hg38) I think that the CNV differences are here to stay, and I doubt that all of the currently unaligned or unsequenced regions of the human genome will prove to all be 95% the same as the chimpanzee genome.

But does the 95% figure (assuming that it is accurate), not also rule out a common human-chimp ancestry?

The issue is that about 5% of the human and chimp genomes are still unassembled, so the best everyone can do at this stage is make predictions, and so his is a lower bound assuming no matching of the unmatched human genome to the as-yet-unassembled part of the chimp genome (obviously, you also get an upper bound assuming complete matching).  Also, note that there are differences dependent on how you define "identity".  He defines it as

"The percentage of nucleotides in the human genome that had one-to-one exact matches in the chimpanzee genome was 84.38%."

which is not the same standard as what everyone else is using.  An indel of 100 bp in the human genome would be counted by him as 100 unmatched nucleotides but it could result from a single mutation. 

The creationists, of course, know this and are being intellectually dishonest.  But they don't care.  The truly evil ones (to them) are those who point it out, and their arguments will be peremptorily dismissed just like Kreutzritter here.

So, yes, a 95% match would rule out human-chimp common ancestry if all of the 5% of the differences were the result of SNPs.  But that's not the case.  There are indels and CNVs.

[Quaremerepulisti]

Also, all this is easily reconcilable with Catholic doctrine about the special creation of man: man interbred with non-human hominids afterwards, which also explains all the other DNA evidence (ERVs, pseudogenes, etc.)

But that isn't what this really is about.  It's about jealousy of and hatred for the esteem and prestige and support science and scientists have.  That's what motivates also the anti-vaccine nonsense as well that we see from time to time.

So, I say to them: too bad and grow up.