Wednesday, May 2, 2012 10:56:17 AM
patchgrabber -- I was referring to the 2% difference between chimpanzees and mankind. I understand the other differences you pointed out. I simply don't think there is enough evidence to support the claim, "Everything evolved from 1 common ancestor." To me the null hypothesis should be, "We must assume that everything did not evolve from the same species." I simply think that there isn`t enough evidence to reject that null.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012 7:14:41 AM
2% variation in DNA results in a completely different species First of all, "species" is a subjective term we use to distinguish organisms, the criteria are arbitrary. Second, a 2% difference in genetics is a massive change. One SNP can code a completely different protein and thus have a vast impact on physiological processes, as is evidenced by some forms of cancer. Also, human chromosome 2 is a product of end-to-end fusion of 2 ancestral chromosomes, which if unfused would give us the same number of chromosomes as other Hominidae.