The following data is from the famous 2005 study which announced a 96% similarity between Human and Chimp Genomes.

Question #1: The human genome is about 3.2 Gb. and the chimp genome size used in this study was about 2.7 Gb. This is a difference of about 15%. With this 15% difference in genome size, how do we still get a 99% similarity?

Let's first look at the size/length of the human genome:

"The human genome contains 3164.7 (3.1 Gb) million chemical nucleotide bases (A, C, T, and G)." (Human Genome News, 2001)
"The human genome is 3.3 Gb in length." (Integrated DNA Technologies, 2011)
"The nuclear genome comprises approximately 3 200 000 000 (3.2 Gb) nucleotides of DNA." (Genomes,, 2nd edition, Department of Biomolecular Sciences, UMIST, Manchester, UK, 2002, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/)

So the human genome size is about 3.1 to 3.3 Giga base pairs.

Unfortunately, the chimp genome size they used in this 2005 comparison study was much smaller at 2.7 Gb as shown on the attached Data Tables. This is a size difference of about 15% in comparison to the 3.2 Gb human genome.

By size comparison, the chimp genome size used by the study is about 85% of the size of the human genome (2.7Gb/3.2Gb) = .85 or 85%.

Question #2: What about the remaining 15% of human genome? What was it compared to?

The only way to "perfectly align" both genomes, there would be a left-over of human genome of 15% since it is 15% larger. And with this 15% leftover of the human genome, this is still called a 99% similarity?

So the question is, how does the smaller chimp genome - which is only about 85% of the human genome in size - exactly align to a much larger human genome?

How exact is the alignment between two genomes separated by (3.2Gb - 2.7Gb) = 500,000 bp or 15 %? The chimp genome and human genome were supposedly 99% similar BUT they differ in total length by 15%!

If one genome is 15% shorter, how do they "align" by 99% except by some 'fudging' with the sequences and 'expanding' one genome to 'fit' and "exactly align' with the other by introducing 'gaps' to artificially lengthen the shorter genome to match the longer one?

To make the deception worse, the total Gb of supposedly perfectly aligned chimp DNA was only 88% or 2.4Gb. This 2.4 Gb represents only 75% of the 3.2 Gb human genome. And this is still called a 99% similarity!

Bottom line: if the chimp genome length is 15% SHORTER than the human genome, how do we get a 99% similarity overall? Unless you 'cheat' and space the chimp genome further apart then is natural to do - in order to get the DNA sequences to meet end-to-end with the human genome, there is no perfectly aligned match-up.

If anyone decides to try and make this problem 'go away' by simply and vaguely stating: the 15% difference in genome size is rather large but we are able to 'accommodate' the difference and 'adjust' for the 15% difference by.....whatever disingenuous reason it is, look out for those terms which exaggerate and mislead, such as "close enough", "essentially aligned", "high-quality sequence", etc..

If they used a smaller human genome size (smaller than 3.2 Gb) for comparison and which was closer in size to the chimp genome they used, this is also a problem because that would mean they were missing a significant portion of existing human genome for comparison in their study to work with - which means the study itself is not complete. Not good.

We also need to remember that the term "scaffold" used to "align" the chimp genome. The "scaffold" is referring to the human genome framework which was used as the framework to generate the chimp genome! No surprise that both genomes "align" with each other! This is another biased methodology used to ensure that the HIGHEST level of "alignment" between the two genomes.

So, to recap, can anyone answer the following questions:

Human genome = 3.2 Giga base pairs long
Chimp genome = 2.7 Giga base pairs long
2.7/3.2 = .85

The Chimp genome is 15% SHORTER than the Human genome.

1) How do we get 99% similarity (or even 96% similarity) when one is 15% SHORTER than the other?
2) How did they align each genome when doing the comparison when one is 15% SHORTER than the other?

Edit:
I also suspect that any similarity can be due to the fact that there must be similarity to digest similar foods. For example, studies showed humans and bananas were about 50-60% similar in genomes. Why? Because if we did not have similar proteins produced by bananas and humans, we would not be able to digest bananas for food. This would apply to other foods we eat, hence the genomic similarities to those foods. Just a thought.

Not having much luck on Religious Forums?

https://www.religiousforums.com/threads ... ge-9?amp=1

You could try looking it up.

Not all regions of a genome code for proteins, after all. I mean how similar would you say these sentences are?:-

Code: Select all

This is a sentence.
This  is  a  sentence.  [with double spacing, and hence 4 more characters of information].

Or what about these paragraphs?:-

Code: Select all

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the seaaa@77cason of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the season of Darkness, it was the season of Darkness, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04072
https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/com ... ifferences

Fenrir wrote:Physically a chimp can do everything we can do but they are a bit smaller.

So naturally their genome can likewise do everything ours can do while physically a bit smaller.

Stands to reason really.

Doesn't work that way as far as I know.

You are saying outward physical size plays a role and is somewhat proportionate to genome size? I don't think so.

Thommo wrote:You could try looking it up.

Not all regions of a genome code for proteins, after all. I mean how similar would you say these sentences are?:-

Code: Select all

This is a sentence.
This  is  the  same  sentence.  [with double spacing, and hence 4 more characters of information].

Or what about these paragraphs?:-

Code: Select all

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the seaaa@77cason of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the season of Darkness, it was the season of Darkness, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04072
https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/com ... ifferences

Are you saying the protein coding portions are the same length?

Can you enlighten us by providing those lengths for both humans and chimps so we can see that they're equal?

truelgbt wrote:Are you saying the protein coding portions are the same length?

If you have to ask, then you aren't qualified to take part in this discussion.

It's simple: If I said that, then it will be in that post. Can you see it in there?

Gads this is ancient... surely it would've taken mere seconds for the chap to discover?

https://www.hhmi.org/news/new-view-huma ... ifferences

The traditional comparison cited in textbooks is that the difference is 1.2 percent, based on variations in single base-pairs in gene sequences. “But our data on these duplications shows a 2.7 percent difference, base per base, between chimps and humans,” said Eichler. “So when we talk about how similar chimps and humans are, we really need to be careful that we are referring to variation in the whole genome as opposed to just those single-base-pair changes.”

Meh, they're very similar to many of us, and almost identical to YECs.

laklak wrote:Meh, they're very similar to many of us, and almost identical to YECs.

I'll have you know that chimpanzees have been observed performing very complex tasks!

Oo-be-doo. I wanna be like you-oo-oo...

Pigeons on chess boards. Where do they come from?

You can't explain that!

laklak wrote:Meh, they're very similar to many of us, and almost identical to YECs.

So far as we can tell, chimps don’t worship a vapourware voyeur, which makes them WAY smarter than YECs.

give them time, they'll sink to that level when civilisation comes to them.

We'll make them Safe for Democracy and Jebus!

laklak wrote:Meh, they're very similar to many of us, and almost identical to YECs.

Indistinguishable. A distinct disadvantage to the noble chimpanzee, to be so nearly identical to a typical young earth creationist.

Goes to show that the nature vs nurture debate isn't settled. I've never seen a chimp hand over their hard earned cash to Creflo Dollar. Has to be a learned behavior.

well, you've never seen a chimp earn cash in the first place, all they ever earn is bananas and grape berries... and they've been taught to hand over their rewards to somebody else in exchange for better rewards.

And they're stronger. Better leverage due to the way their muscles are connected to the bone structure.