In the leadup to the Nye–Ham debate, over at Mother Jones, Chris Mooney tells us, “This Picture Has Creationists Terrified: And no wonder: It’s the most powerful evidence for evolution that you can imagine.”
Naturally, I thought they had discovered a man actually morphing into a fly.
It turns out, Mooney provides only primate gene sequences showing similar chromosomes of humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. Which mainly shows what genetics doesn’t do.
That is, if someone wants us to know that a (frequently claimed) 98% similarity between the guy fixing a computer and the chimp throwing poop proves something, I’d say it sure does. It proves that genes are only a tiny part of the story of inheritance. Seems we got a long ways to go to understand that.
I sometimes wonder why appreciation of that fact isn’t a sort of sanity test. You should see the comments over at MJ.
Next question?
Oh, and by the way, if that’s really the most powerful evidence for (Darwinian) evolution, things are way worse over in Darwintown than we thought. We thought their hat had way more rabbits.
– O’Leary for News
PS: In fairness, some people dispute the high figures. See also: Genomics scientist Jeffrey Tompkins takes issue with BioLogos’ we are 98% chimpanzee claim
Also: Epigenetic differences between humans and chimps (vs. 98% similarity claims)
Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose
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