If there’s one fact about evolution that bothered me as a creationist, it’s that humans shared 95 to 98.5% of their DNA with chimps.
But even before these percentages were known, Creationists had the luxury explaining the results either way: If chimp DNA had nothing in common with humans, the creationists say it’s proof of design; if chimps and humans share significant DNA, they say God reused the DNA.
Evolutionists, on the other ha
nd, had much more to lose. If apes and humans had no DNA in common, then DNA could not be the driving force for evolution.
But alas, chimps and humans did share as much as 95% of the same DNA! So what does this mean? For starters, it was exactly what evolutionists would have predicted: animals evolved from one another and share similar, but not identical, DNA. (Even other humans only share 99.9% of the same DNA.) And for the Creationists, it means having to admit that God must have “reused” code rather than creating brand new designs for each species.
Creationists will sometimes try to divert attention away from the similarities by placing the emphasis on the differences, claiming that the roughly 45 million changes in our DNA make us unique. While these changes do make us somewhat unique, it’s a bit like a student plagiarizing a 200 word essay and claiming the 3 words he changed made it unique. The number of differences only seems significant when we ignore all the similarities.
And while Creationism doesn’t consider these similarities evidence enough to infer common ancestry, they do consider it evidence enough to infer a common designer…
“Just as paintings from the same painter look similar, so do the proteins (and thus, genes) from a variety of organisms designed by a common Designer.”
~ Dr. Georgia Purdom, for Answers in Genesis
Still… which explanation is closer to the truth? Did we evolve naturally or did God reuse DNA? Well… if God reused code, we shouldn’t find Him doing bizarre things like using code in humans for things like tales and whiskers, or giving chickens code for teeth. However, if we evolved, that’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect. But more on these later. 🙂
500 Questions about God & Christianity 
I’m not a scientist but would the closeness of the dna have anything to do with the following statement in gen. chapter 2——-from the ground God created all —man,animals and birds.
Another qestion is —-If we come from chimps how come no more humans are walking out of the woods? Is it because there is enough of us?
Hi Ray.
You mean Genesis 2:19? “And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air…”
I’m trying, but I can’t really see how their coming from the ground would explain the similarity of their DNA. I can see how we could conclude that God might have recycled DNA to save Himself some time. Although, having 100% unique DNA would’ve certainly closed the case for creation. Having similar DNA may be a design choice, but it could also be the result of evolution.
“If we come from chimps how come no more humans are walking out of the woods? Is it because there is enough of us?”
I’m assuming what you’re asking is why other apes are not still evolving into humans? Apes might be getting smarter, but it would probably take many thousands of years for such a significant change to occur. Also, organisms usually only evolve in response to changes in their environment (weather, food, predators, etc.). If an ape is perfectly suited to survive in its present environment, there’s little benefit to changing. Also, other factors may now prevent an ape from evolving a brain that works the way ours does.
But in theory, if you were able to change those 1-5% of DNA differences in a chimp to match ours, you’d turn the chimp into a human! That’s a pretty strong argument for us being related (as well as other similarities, such as humans and apes both sharing the same broken code for producing vitamin C.)
Thanks!
We evovled you were , most likely taught that god made everything from a young age , if I was raised to believe that the world was made by a witch and so was I , I would believe that’s what happen ,
Just look at it this way , there’s no evidence for god at all beside , a book that people wrote 400 years ago , how did they know how the world was made and the first humans were if no one ever saw god or witnessed him making the world , this is what happen , man was wondering how was the world made? Who made me ? So they made up god , and
The egytions thought that gods did everything , there’s more evidence for there god then your god , my email is tinkerbella92@hotmail.com if you have any evidence to prove that god is real , besides the bible , just don’t believe what your raised to believe
The latest estimate is more like 70% using the whole genome. Secular scientists claimed in the 1970s that chimp genomes are 98% similar to humans, and it was apparently verified by more modern techniques. But that estimate actually used isolated segments of DNA that we already share with chimps—not the whole genomes. The latest comparison (2016) that included all of the two species’ DNA revealed a huge difference from the percentage scientists have been claiming for years.
Creation Research Institute.
Link to source article?
There is one thing (okay, many things) that people who don’t believe in evolution say over and over and it annoys me to no end:
“If we come from chimps how come no more humans are walking out of the woods?”
We did not come from chimps. Chimps and humans evolved from a common ancestor. A few million years ago our common ancestor started to evolve into many different species. Two of those species eventually turned into what we are today, chimps and humans (as well as gorillas, bononos, orangutans, and many other primate species that died out before present time).
Chimps will never evolve into humans. They will continue to evolve their own way and who knows, they might even evolve so that certain chimps can no longer breed with others (new species). Humans and every other lifeform are in the same boat.
A similar question I see a lot is “If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?” I usually answer: “If Americans came from Europe, why are there still Europeans?”
A few million years ago is the thing that was wrong with that answer. Another thing you also said is that we take a VERY VERY VERY long time to evolve. That’s like me saying Im an alien but hold on see just go back 2 billion years. Do you see where im going with this? TIME MAKES YOU THINK ITS A POSSIBILITY.
If we have 3 billion rungs of DNA, and a Monkey is 98.5% similar to our DNA: Then that implies there are 45 million changes to the programming to make a monkey. 98.5% sounds really close, but over such a large number the difference is huge. As a computer programmer, if I changed 45 million lines of code, I (apart from exhaustion, then death) would end up with a completely different programme.
Howdy Amb, pleasure to meet you.
45 million does indeed seem like a large number, but I think the fallacy here is that all the emphasis is being put on the changes instead of the similarities (which are far greater).
A more appropriate analogy might be a program that has 100 lines of code, and only 1 or 2 lines are changed. When we consider what has remained the same, we see that this program has hardly changed at all.
I note your analogy of plagiarizing a 200 word essay. Only instead of saying 3 words were changed, maybe you should have something like 190 words were changed. Because according to this article the differences in how the DNA. here is an excerpt: .. And Yet So Different
If human and chimp DNA is 98.8 percent the same, why are we so different? Numbers tell part of the story. Each human cell contains roughly three billion base pairs, or bits of information. Just 1.2 percent of that equals about 35 million differences. Some of these have a big impact, others don’t. And even two identical stretches of DNA can work differently–they can be “turned on” in different amounts, http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/human-origins/understanding-our-past/dna-comparing-humans-and-chimps
But what if you wrote a small program that changed a line at random, and then ran the original program and discarded the result if it didn’t work?
Eventually you would end up with a completely different program, but a lot of the core code would still be the same. A lot of functions would work exactly the same way, except they add a bit instead of subtracting, or they accept an integer instead of a decimal. That’s a really close model of how evolution works.
Pingback: 34. Did God recycle our DNA to save time? | 500 Questions about God & Christianity
The fact that all animals share much of their DNA, and chimps and humans a great amount, points to a common designer. If you look under the hood of GM cars over the years, you will see similar (if not identical) engines, placement and design of accessories, etc., because the cars came from the same design and engineering firm. God can be forgiven for coming up with a beautifully complex system and differentiating only enough to accomplish his goals, can he not?
Howdy Bob,
Indeed, similar design could be evidence of a common designer… or common ancestry. But how can we tell the difference? And are their any clues either way? I think there are, and I address a number of them in Question #34.
But to use your car analogy, imagine if GM realized they’d made a mistake in one of their cars, they probably wouldn’t continue to design new cars with the same flaw, they would correct their mistake. Humans, chimps, and most monkeys are unable to produce Vitamin C the way most all other mammals do, because our genes are broken in the same way. This flaw is more consistent with the idea of common ancestry (passing down a defect) than the idea of God designing us independently, but all with the same defect.
To give another car analogy, imagine if GM were secretly designing a device that would allow cars to fly at the same time as a competitor. If they both unveiled the EXACT same flying device, we would suspect that both came from a common designer. However, if they were completely different designs, then we would assume they were designed independently. We see this kind of independent design in “convergent evolution,” when different classes of animals benefit from similar adaptations (such as being able to fly) but they arrive at them though unique designs. If all animals were designed, the designer could simply reuse his existing designs across dissimilar classes. Instead, these similar features (that evolved after two classes of animals have split) all have unique designs, suggesting they evolved without common oversight.
Thanks!
Good points Bob White
But how many parts are found in common with a boat, or a plane, or a washing machine?
Yes, you would expect to find similar parts fulfilling similar functions, but we have many, many locations where the function of an organ is very different than a clearly related organ in a different species. The flippers of a whale have the same skeletal structure as the hands of a human. There is no reason for that in a designed creature.
And if you did look at the boat, would you expect to find a set of wheels that clearly don’t do anything? Because a whale has hipbones that no longer attach to anything else in their skeleton, and don’t serve any biological purpose.
And would you expect to find, from the same designer, multiple different designs that serve the exact same purpose? Bats, Birds, and insects all have wings to fly, but the structure of all of them is extremely different. You can make the argument that the function of insect wings is different, but bat and bird wings function identically, but one uses a flattened arm shape, and the other uses skin between the “fingers”. Likewise, certain molluscs and humans have eyes with similar functionality (independent movement, variable focus, iris, etc), and yet the two are clearly different structures. In the mollusc eyes, the optic nerve runs behind the sensing cells, preventing the “blind spot” that is present in human vision.
The human eye, as amazing as it is, has some seriously backwards “engineering” 🙂 guess the engineer dozed off in class during that chapter lol
You’re wrong.
asl;kdjfoirnvainlkgjlskfjd;soiernafjsjri8yairajfoierfasdfnvdjnvjdfhgsoigeirhgsakfg;sflkgjeoirhgsfhg;ldsfhglkfgsoidfghsdfkghkldfnvjntrbsahg;jkfnv;jfhgsalkfg;lkjfg;klhfgjhioerapijgkvjndfkjsh;gasfdhg;ljkdfhgjdfhg;alsfknv;ldjkfhg;lfhg;lahg;ldkjfhg;fhg;lah;fklhg
Contrast above with below:
The above will evolve to become something meaninful in another 500 years..
Can’t tell if serious… or just trolling and trying to make Christians appear ignorant.
I know it is quite later, but I believe it was a poor attempt at making followers of evolution appear ignorant, while taking the side of Christians (and not helping much I might add). The “above” was meant to be chaotic and random, much like the chaotic nature of how genes mutate, and the chaotic nature of how the systems required for life had to come together with adequate function in the first place.
The “below” was meant to be an example of a planned, structured statement, much like a planned, structured design for each and every life form as a creator would perform. He or she is definitely a troll though, because even if the “below” WERE true, it would debunk the purpose of its intended point because 500 years later the above WOULD be legible and would actually favor evolution.
Obviously, the claim is silly, because if the letters and symbols in the “above” were changed and tested periodically to arrive at some meaning, or if the meaning of the arrangement of the letters and symbols were to change periodically, then yes, given time it could eventually become legible…or at least closer and closer to becoming legible. I highly doubt that it would carry any meaning that could’ve potentially been encoded or intended when it was randomly spewed out though. Instead, it would be a result of the changes (both intentional and unintentional) arriving at a collective conclusion.
The combination of accidental and intentional is the closest to the truth, whether it’s evolution or something very similar to evolution (depending on how strict one’s definition of the concept or theory is).
I think their understanding of the length of time needed for significant evolutionary changes is a BIT below the mark 🙂 maybe 500,000 yrs, but definitely not within 500
sciencegainstevolution,org or it could be .com. they do a very good job of explaining what evolution is. using real refrences from scientific journals and scientist. also you should watch the movie Darwins dillema and case for a creator. cheers!!
the cambrian explosion despite what many scientist say presents a big problem for darwins theory.
No, it really doesn’t. First of all, the latest evidence is that it wasn’t nearly as “explosive” as used to be thought. Earlier fossils are being found all the time.
Second, there are several likely explanations for the sudden increase in the fossil record, most of which don’t actually depend on a similarly rapid increase in biological complexity. Among these are conditions which were particularly suited to the preservation of fossils of soft bodied organisms. These organisms could have been around for millions of years prior, and if the conditions weren’t exactly right, no examples would have been preserved. That this is the case is one of those bits of evidence I mentioned. Rare pockets of significantly older soft bodied fossils have been found, but the conditions weren’t as apt to produce them.
Another factor is the evolution of shells or skeletons. If the Cambrian happened to have conditions that selected for such structures, then many more animals will start leaving fossils even under normal conditions.
And finally, a wide opening of evolutionary niches. A single species developing burrowing capability, for instance, opens a group of niches that the species will evolve different forms to fill.
In summary, nope, no real problem with the Cambrian explosion under our current understanding.
The “current understanding” is that vertebrates appeared in the early Cambrian, and that’s a real problem for evolutionists.
“The first known vertebrate fossils, found at the Chengjiang locality in China, date back to the early Cambrian.” http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/vertfr.html
“The earliest evidence for chordates from the fossil record comes from the Chengjiang Lagerstatte of China, which is of Atdabanian (mid-Early Cambrian age).” Major Events in Early Vertebrate Evolution, Per Erik Ahlberg, 2001.
Also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8USBI0GSSOA
“Short period” in evolutionary terms is not the same thing as what most people understand “short period” to mean… 20-25 MILLION years is actually a long time. Human evolution from our primitive chimp-like ancestors to our current form was accomplished in only a few million (what is it, approximately 4.4Ma being the oldest fossils found to date? Lucy was about 2.5Ma)
Deep Time is tough for creationists to grasp….
But the original narratives surrounding Lucy were fraudulent. Scientists, now, say Lucy was an ape, and not a missing link.
“Dr. Charles Oxnard completed the most sophisticated computer analysis of australopithecine fossils ever undertaken, and concluded that the australopithecines have nothing to do with the ancestry of man whatsoever, and are simply an extinct form of ape (Fossils, Teeth and Sex: New Perspectives on Human Evolution, University of Washington Press, 1987). … The paper by Stern and Sussman also mentions that the hands and feet of Australopithecus afarensis are not at all like human hands and feet … Finally, the quite independent information from the fossil finds of more recent years seems to indicate absolutely that these australopithecines of half to 2 million years and from sites such as Olduvai and Sterkfontein are not on a human pathway.”
Full article: http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/lucy.html
from scienceagainstevolution.org cheers!!
Initially, the Earth was a lifeless planet.
There is life on Earth now.
At some time in the past, life either originated on Earth, or came to Earth from outer space.
Regardless of where or when life originated, it had to originate sometime, somewhere, somehow.
Life either originated by purely natural processes, or else some supernatural element must have been involved.
Science, as defined by the American public school system, excludes supernatural explanations.
Science depends upon the “Scientific Method” for determining truth.
The Scientific Method involves testing hypotheses using repeatable experiments.
If there is a scientific explanation for the origin of life, it must depend entirely on natural, repeatable processes.
If life originated by a natural process under certain specific conditions, it should be possible to create life again under the same conditions.
For more than 50 years scientists have tried to find conditions that produce life, without success.
Fifty years of failed attempts to create life have raised more questions than answers about how life could have originated naturally.
Living things have been observed to die from natural processes, which can be repeated in a laboratory.
Life has never been observed to originate through any natural process.
“Abiogenesis” is the belief that life can originate from non-living substances through purely natural processes.
The theory of evolution depends upon abiogenesis as the starting point.
If the theory of abiogenesis is false, then the theory of evolution is false.
The American public school system teaches that somehow the first living cell formed naturally and reproduced.
There is no known way in which the first living cell could have formed naturally.
The first living cell would have needed some mechanism for metabolism.
There is no known natural process by which metabolism could originate in a lifeless cell.
The first living cell would have to grow and reproduce for life to continue past the first cell’s death.
Growth and reproduction require cell division.
Cell division is a complex process.
There is no known natural process by which cell division could originate by chance.
According to the theory of evolution, single-celled life forms evolved into multi-cellular life forms.
Multi-cellular life forms consist of an assembly of cells that have different functions.
There is no scientific explanation for how a single cell could or would naturally change function.
Single-celled organisms have a membrane which allows the cell to exchange some substances (“nutrients” and “waste”, for lack of better terms) with the environment.
Not all cells in larger multi-cellular organisms are in contact with the external environment.
Larger multi-cellular organisms need some method for the interior cells to exchange nutrients and waste with the external environment.
Very large multi-cellular animals require a complex system (typically including teeth, saliva, throat, stomach, and intestines) for absorbing nutrients from the environment.
Very large multi-cellular animals require a complex system (typically including lungs, intestines, heart, arteries, and veins) for distributing nutrients and oxygen to interior cells.
Very large multi-cellular animals require a complex system (typically including lungs, heart, arteries, veins, kidneys, and bladder) for removing waste from interior cells.
There is no satisfactory explanation how complex systems such as these could have originated by any natural process.
According to the theory of evolution, an invertebrate life-form evolved into the first vertebrate life-form.
Vertebrates have, by definition, a spine containing a nervous system.
The nervous system detects stimuli and reacts to them.
There is no satisfactory explanation for how the simplest nervous system could have originated by any natural process.
According to the theory of evolution, some of the first vertebrates were fish, which have eyes and a brain connected by a nervous system.
There is no satisfactory explanation how optical elements (typically including a lens, an iris and light sensors) could have assembled themselves by any natural process.
There is no satisfactory explanation how image processing algorithms could have originated in a fish brain by any natural process.
If the theory of evolution is true, then every characteristic of every living thing must be the result of a random mutation.
Mutations have been observed that increase or decrease the size of some portion (or portions) of a living organism.
Mutations have been observed that change the shape of a living organism.
Mutations have been observed that duplicate existing features (cows with two heads, flies with extra wings, etc.).
No mutation has ever been observed that provides a new function (sight, hearing, smell, lactation, etc.) in a living organism that did not previously have that function.
Cross-breeding and genetic engineering can transfer existing functionality from one living organism to another.
Cross-breeding cannot explain the origin of any new functionality in the first place.
Artificial selection enhances desired characteristics by removing genetic traits that inhibit the desired characteristics.
Artificial selection is more efficient than natural selection.
There are limits to the amount of change that can be produced by artificial selection.
Mutation and artificial selection have not been demonstrated to be sufficient to bring about new life forms from existing ones.
Similarity of features is not definite proof of common ancestry.
Similarity of features is often observed in objects designed by man.
The fact that one individual was born later than another individual died is not proof that the later individual is a biological descendant of the earlier one, especially if they are of different species.
Many different human evolutionary trees have been proposed.
There is disagreement about hominid lineage because the “evidence” is meager and highly speculative.
Darwin was correct when he said, “Any variation which is not inherited is unimportant for us.” 2
Acquired characteristics are not inherited because they do not cause any change in the DNA.
Explanations for how apelike creatures evolved into humans are fanciful speculations without experimental confirmation.
There is no evidence to suggest that offspring of animals that eat cooked food are smarter than offspring of the same species that eat raw food.
There is no evidence to suggest that mental exercises performed by parents will increase the brain size of their children.
There is no evidence that if apelike creatures sometimes stand upright to see over tall grasses, it will increase the brain size of their children.
There is no evidence that if apelike creatures sometimes stand upright to see over tall grasses, it will make it easier for their children to stand upright.
Sedimentary layers are formed in modern times by such things as floods, mudslides, and sandstorms.
The fossils in sedimentary layers formed in modern times contain the kinds of things living in that location.
The concept of geologic ages is based upon the evolutionary assumption that the kinds of fossils buried in sedimentary layers are determined by time rather than location.
All sedimentary layers formed in modern times are of the same geologic age, despite the fact that they contain different kinds of fossils.
Radiometric dating depends upon assumptions that cannot be verified about the initial concentrations of elements.
Radiometric dating of rocks brought back from the Moon is not a reliable method of determining the age of the Earth.
“Dark matter” and “dark energy” were postulated to explain why astronomical measurements don’t match predictions of the Big Bang theory.
When measurements don’t agree with theoretical predictions, it is generally because the theory was wrong.
“We didn’t see it happen, we can’t make it happen again, and we don’t know how it could possibly have happened, but it must have happened somehow!” is never a satisfactory scientific explanation.
Public schools should not teach any fanciful speculation that is inconsistent with experimentally verified laws as if it were true.
Thanks,
There are certainly a lot of good questions worth investigating (which is the whole point of this blog), but if I tried to address all of these it would take me several days. I am familiar with many of these arguments as I used to make them myself. Many of them are arguments from ignorance that basically boil down to: “We don’t know, therefore God.”
If you’re interested in questions of origin, I’d recommend questions #5 and #6. But for this particular topic I’d like to stick to the topic of the similarity between chimp and human DNA if possible.
I didn’t read your entire post, but the presence, in various mollusk species, of varieties of eye that form a complete evolutionary chain towards the same type of eye found in vertebrates, suggests that some of your basic arguments are wrong.
http://www.molluscs.at/mollusca/index.html?/mollusca/eyes.html
Glancing in a little more depth, it is not at all difficult to explain all of your other examples of “irreducible complexity”. The spontaneous generation of amino acids and RNA in proto-terrestrial conditions has been shown in the lab. The steps needed for those molecules to reproduce in that environment are understood. The particular molecules needed to form a lipid bilayer are understood, and possible in that environment.
Once that bilayer exists, and RNA exists, cell division is not complicated to explain.
The evolution of a circulatory system, waste system, and digestive system is perfectly understandable if you start from a point of slightly enriched sea-water, not from the highly oxygenated, highly enriched sea water we call blood.
And your basic argument against evolution is against Lamarkian evolution, not Darwinian, so it is wrong. An ape that is able to stand on it’s hind legs to see over tall grass does not create that ability and pass it on to it’s children. instead, random mutation creates that ability, and the ape that has it is slightly more likely to live to pass it on to it’s children.
In summary, your basic arguments are all based on a misunderstanding of the fundamentals of evolutionary theory, and an incomplete understanding of both modern biology and the relevant laboratory experiments.
“Highly enriched sea water we call blood” haha I like that! Can I borrow that line from you? I never thought about seeing blood in that particular way, makes sense really.
Imagine if our blood was copper based instead of iron. Would we blush blues instead of reds when we got embarrassed?
and we share 95% DNA not 98%
If I recall correctly, the number differs depending on whether or not you include so-called “junk” DNA. If you count all DNA, the percentage was 95%. If you count what is believed to be the “more important” DNA, the number is higher. Either way, the point remains the same, there is very little difference.
Just letting you know, scientists have recently discovered that there is no “junk” DNA, that every bit of it has a purpose.
According to a report from Live Science last month, the Junk DNA question is still being debated, though it has been shown that some plants can operate just fine without any “junk” DNA.
But even if every bit of it is necessary, there are still far more similarities between humans and chimps than there are differences, for what it’s worth.
http://www.livescience.com/31939-junk-dna-mystery-solved.html
ive also noticed you have made alot of other claims. just thought id say maybe you should show where your getting your information so we can all check!!
I try to link to any sources when necessary, but most of these facts are easily Googled. However, you’re welcome to call my bluff if you can’t find it anywhere but here. I try to avoid saying anything I can’t back up, or (believe me) Christians will immediately call my bluff. 😉
, Dr. Richard Buggs (geneticist at the University of Florida) says:
“I predict that when we have a reliable, complete chimpanzee genome, the overall similarity of the human genome will prove to be close to 70% (and very far from 99%).”
Ref.
99%? 95%? 87%? 70%? How Similar is the Human Genome to the Chimpanzee Genome? http://blog.drwile.com/?p=697
Everything on Earth contains C H N O in different proportions, and all living organisms contain about 90% of the same genes. The Bible and the Bhagavad-gita probably contain about the same percentage of words. Such facts imply nothing about evolution — unless you presuppose it first.
Hi Will, interesting article.
Dr. Richard Buggs is careful to point out that his 70% extrapolation (based on an article that appeared in Science Magazine) is not “a death-blow to evolution” as “some non-scientists have suggested on the internet.”
The original Science article that he used to arrive at 70% can be found here: http://sites.bio.indiana.edu/~hahnlab/MediaFiles/GeneFamilies/Science_2007.pdf
While the original article admits the number probably isn’t 99%, it doesn’t quote a number, but it does say the following:
“When King and the rest of the researchers in the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium first detailed the genome of our closest relative in 2005, they simultaneously provided the best validation yet of the 1% figure and the most dramatic evidence of its limitations. The consortium researchers aligned 2.4 billion bases from each species
and came up with a 1.23% difference. However, as the chimpanzee consortium noted, the figure reflects only base substitutions, not the many stretches of DNA that have been inserted or deleted in the genomes.”
These insertions and deletions represent about 6.4% of our overall genome. These and other changes may or may not actually DO anything, so it can be quite difficult to know what to count when calculating differences. For example, if the chimp has three copies of xyz, but we only have one copy, do we count these extra two copies as differences? Even they are unlikely to do anything? If so, it makes our differences appear greater than they really are.
Regardless of how one estimates the percentage, there’s little debate that humans share more genetic similarities with chimps than with any other animal.
I don’t think it’s really fair to assume evolution for the Bible and Bhagavad Gita since there is no similarity between the two other than words. If they were both written in the same language (for the sake of argument) we might say their last common ancestor was that language itself. But if you take two stories like the Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah’s Ark, their numerous similarities and geographical proximity tell us that one has evolved from the other, more recently than the invention of language.
You write: “I don’t think it’s really fair to assume evolution for the Bible and Bhagavad Gita since there is no similarity between the two other than words. ”
This, of course, would be a greatly uninformed misconception, perhaps due to unfamiliarity with the texts and contexts of these books. That aside, the point of the comment is to recognize that similarity is not a necessary and sufficient reason for inferring evolutionary relation – as I remarked, unless it is presumed. Creative acts, like writing books, are part of the world we experience.
Personally, on the basis of some pretty good, common sense and “scientific” reasons, I find it very hard to believe that the variety of species in the world “evolved” from some simple primitive form. It seems incredulous to me how people can simply assume evolution to be a fact, when it is not obvious at all. Creation may be incredulous as well, but I would not be so quick to reduce the miraculous sense of the world to something so mechanical as evolution, merely because of some “consensus” opinion.
Scientists do not know what life is — how it originates or how it sustains itself. Yet life is fundamental to Nature. Matter exists all over the universe, but Nature exists only where there is life. All the science and all the scientists in the world together cannot create even a single blade of grass, but the smallest spark of life does it easily and prolifically. A grain of wheat is not within the ability of science to produce. Yet, despite their utter dependence for their sustenance on the principle of life, to which they have no access through science, they would foolishly declare that God is an unnecessary hypothesis.
In my humble opinion, a little common sense and sound reasoning goes a long way when considering these important topics related to science and its asseverations. .
“I find it very hard to believe that the variety of species in the world ‘evolved’ from some simple primitive form. It seems incredulous to me how people can simply assume evolution to be a fact, when it is not obvious at all.”
I would agree that evolution is not obvious, and that you shouldn’t accept it just because it’s the consensus. But creationism was also once the consensus, and there was a reason many god-fearing Christians abandoned that hypothesis.
The evidence for evolution is ample but subtle, and most of those who presume Creationism or Intelligent Design (as I once did) will never see this evidence because they either lack the incentive to investigate, or they are unable to put their preconceptions aside.
You say you’ve rejected evolution “on the basis of some pretty good, common sense and ‘scientific’ reasons.” That’s great! Let’s work on getting this scientific evidence published, so we can prove to the scientific community why they’re all wrong, and why your “pretty good” hypothesis should supplant 150 years of evidence favoring evolution.
The evidence you’ve offered here is that “Scientists do not know what life is — how it originates or how it sustains itself.”
Well… even if that’s true… I don’t think any scientific journal would publish that, because it’s an argument from ignorance. We cannot reason that because something is unknown, invisible gods must’ve done it. If something is unknown, it only proves that it’s unknown. And just because it’s unknown, it does not follow that it’s too complicated for human minds to comprehend.
It’s like a crime scene; just because we don’t know who murdered the victim, we don’t assume that God must’ve stabbed them. We assume there IS an explanation, we just don’t know what it is yet. And even if the crime goes unsolved, it doesn’t mean God did it or that the cause was too complicated for humans to understand, it just means there wasn’t enough evidence remaining to prove what happened.
“Let’s work on getting this scientific evidence published, so we can prove to the scientific community why they’re all wrong,”
There are numerous publications, including peer reviewed journal articles, that scientifically challenge the concept of evolution. The “scientific community” is not only made up of people who believe in evolution, but many who already believe it is wrong. This should be the minimal basic knowledge of anyone who has an educated interest in the topic of evolution. Your comments seem to indicate you do not know this. If that is the case, I do not see how you can offer an objective appraisal of the issue for your readers.
If you automatically reject anything that any scientist or philosopher has ever published challenging evolution, then you are missing a big piece of the puzzle, and thus can’t possibly have a complete picture of the whole.The internet offers a vast resource of the numerous scientific arguments opposing evolution. If someone is truly being objective about this topic but does not know this, then it may well be that they “either lack the incentive to investigate, or they are unable to put their preconceptions aside..”
I am a card carrying member of the scientific community, so I certainly don’t worship science as anything but a human endeavor, like any other in this world. You disappoint me by using the old canard of the “argument from ignorance” inappropriately, as most unthinking evolutionists do. To say we don’t have a scientific understanding of what life is, is not an argument from ignorance. It is a true fact. To claim that life is miraculous is also a true reality for one who sees it like that, despite any claims that it is simply a result of mechanical circumstances. Einstein was wise enough to understand that anyone may see the world as if everything were a miracle or nothing was a miracle. Science may take the later view, but that has not undermined the former.
The argument from ignorance involves considering a proposition as true because it has not yet been proven to be false. As such, this can apply to evolution as much as to creation.My argument is that we know we do not know what life is from a mechanical perspective. Philosophers like Kant, Hegel and others have already explained why that is and must be so. The majority of scientists either ignore or are ignorant of those philosophical principles (ignore and ignorant are pretty much the same word).
Philosophically, we can never understand life is based on mechanical principles such as embodied by physics and chemistry. As Kant put it, “There will never be a Newton of a blade of grass.” Empirical evidence has only confirmed that truth. To claim that life comes from chemical reactions is true because it has never been proven false, is an argument from ignorance.
I believe that our daily bread comes from a Life that is more fundamental than matter. The empirical evidence supports that. We observe that life arises from preexisting life only. Why is that not therefore a scientific proposition.Pasteur was able to gain scientific acclaim for that theory in his day, But if the scientific journals will not publish such a scientific fact today. in my humble opinion we should be asking: what is wrong with our journals and our so-called science? We should not be trying to find fault with the facts. Is this not common sense?
Hey, and thanks for humoring my rants with your kind replies.
Refs.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
2. I.Kant, Critique of Judgement
3. GWF. Hegel, Science of Logic
4.T. Nagel, Why Darwinian evolution is almost certainly false.
5. Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarinii, What Darwin Got Wrong,
My apologies if it’s already posted somewhere, but have you addressed the Chromosome 2 fusing question? I find it fascinating that we have one pair fewer chromosomes than the other great apes. I’m no biologist, so some of the articles I’ve looked over were a bit beyond my pay grade so to speak… But it’s a very interesting rung on the evolutionary ladder that our ape cousins didn’t take.
genetic studies have revealed that:
– An elephant shrew is closer to an elephant than to other shrews
– Horse DNA is closer to bats than to cows
– Mouse DNA is the same as 80% of the human genome
– Sponges share 70% of human genes including for nerves and muscles
– Kangaroo DNA unexpectedly contains huge chunks of the human genome
– Gorilla DNA is closer to humans than chimps in 15% of the genome
– Neanderthal DNA is fully human, closer than a chimp is to a chimp
– The chimp Y chromosome is “horrendously different” from our ‘Y’
– The human Y is astoundingly similar all over the world lacking the expected mutational variation
– Mitochondrial Eve “would be a mere 6000 years old” by ignoring chimp DNA and calculating by mutation rates
– Roundworms have far more genes than Darwinist predictions,19,000, compared to our 20,500 genes
– The flatworm man-bug “ancestor” genome has “alarmed” evolutionists and is now dislodged from its place at the base.
– Snake DNA contains a quarter of the cow genome
– The leading evidence for Darwinism, junk DNA, is vanishing, as the journal Nature reports function for 80% of human genome, moving toward “100%”
– Genomes so challenge common descent that PNAS reports horizontal gene transfer must have “transformed vertebrate genomes”
– “Genetic diversity exploded in recent millennia” when “vast number of human DNA variants arose only in the past 5,000 years.”
– Whale and bat DNA share identical astounding sequence: Ha! A wonderful discovery has documented the same echolocation genetic sequences existing in both the bat and whale genomes! Wow! wow! Wow! wow!
– The journal Nature reports that the vast majority of the diversity in the human genome has not accumulated over a million years but over only 200 generations. Likewise, the genome-wide diversity of the Dutch is explained in only 70 generations! Researchers also at the Max Planck Institute showed that Australian Aborigines did not require tens of thousands of years for their genetic (and linguistic) diversity, but only 4,000 to 5,000 years! Just like we creationists have been saying all along!
Hi Ryan,
This seems to have been lifted word-for-word from here: http://kgov.com/list-of-genomes-that-just-dont-fit
Is this your page? If so, I would LOVE to respond to some of the things listed here, but your page does not allow for comments. This is a major pet peeve of mine; I can’t tell you the number of creationist sites (and YouTube videos) that refuse to allow for dialog. What are you folks afraid of? Let’s talk about it! 🙂
That said, there are excellent explanations for everything you’ve listed here. I can’t cover them all, but I’ll grab one as an example.
“Snake DNA contains a quarter of the cow genome.”
This sentence by itself is very misleading, because it suggests cows and snakes are closely related, which is just nuts.
It’s actually the cows’ BovB gene that makes up most of this percentage. The gene is very good at making copies of itself, and has copied itself throughout the cow genome. The BovB gene was most likely introduced to the cow by way of a tick, and the gene invaded the cow’s DNA like a virus does. We know that horizontal gene transfer can occur with things like viruses and the BovB gene, but this gene is completely unrelated to the rest of the cow genome, and is ignored when tracking its actual genetic lineage.
Those interested can learn more about it here:
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/01/how-a-quarter-of-the-cow-genome-came-from-snakes/
By the way, this National Geographic site allows for comments… just in case you want to explain to them how this gene transfer proves creationism.
500Q
No not my site and I have no affiliation with the site other than I find it to have some strong theories for creation. Bob Enyart is the main guy on that site and he debates a lot of people so he might be open for one with you. I think the main point in what I posted is that similar DNA structures in a variety of animals seem to be similar. Some more similar to others that are of different species. I feel that that fact leans more to God using all the information in DNA over and over again, because there is no evidence of one species evolving into another. What we have are, kinds of species evolving into their own kind. Like from a wolf to a pet dog.
“because there is no evidence of one species evolving into another. What we have are, kinds of species evolving into their own kind. Like from a wolf to a pet dog.”
I’m pretty sure you just contradicted yourself there. A wolf evolving into a dog is “one species evolving into another”. I think I understand what you are saying about the “kinds of species” thing, it sounds a lot like what Ken Hamm talks about with Noah’s Ark, but setting up this arbitrary and artificial wall of “kinds of species” is just that, arbitrary and artificial, it doesn’t really *mean* anything. Now, the wolf-to-dog example is itself interesting since that was a combination of evolution by natural selection and evolution by artificial selection and therefore probably happened on a much shortened timescale than evolution by natural selection happens on typically.
Mainly, though, there is TONS of evidence for one species evolving into another. To say otherwise simply demonstrates that one has not looked for such evidence or that one has rejected the evidence for some reason. But it is there. Take, for example, the evolution of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) from the ancestor from which also evolved the hippopotamus. Tons of evidence that one species evolved into several different species.
There are many, many other examples. One just needs to look for them.
“Snake DNA contains a quarter of the cow genome”
Hmm. Before it was a snake and cursed to walk on its belly, the snake, or serpent, was a beast of the field, according to Genesis. Cows, I would say, are beasts of the field.
I recently thought that the reason we share similar DNA to other organism is the fact that those DNA code for essential materials our bodies need to develop.The same way other organisms feed off of others.That our body is very specific and rejects what is considers to be foreign,so as to make it easier to gain the necessary nutrients,we have many similar genetics that allow us to use the necessary material within the food we eat ,that our body is already familiar with.
Man was given a Spirit by God, which removed him from the rest of creation. So, creationism and “evolution” is basically Intelligently directed.
“The word of Yahweh about Israel. It is I, Yahweh, who speaks, who spread the heaven, and founded the earth, and formed the Spirit of Man, within him.” Zechariah 12:1-2
Hey just found your blog when I was searching for some answers on some other questions and now am reading through the rest of them.
I grew up Christian and was never taught real evolution growing up unfortunately.
One excuse I was given growing up was that humans share 50% of there DNA with a banana and that doesn’t mean we are banana’s. I now know that genes are way more complicated to that. It is very sad I was never quite able to question these things as a younger kid as I just took things at face value. Thank you very much for asking these same questions I ask and explaining them in an easy to follow way.
Thanks for the feedback Cblade!
I can’t help but giggle if I hear someone mention bananas in a talk about evolution, it makes me think of Ray Comfort 🙂
Did you know we share about 24% dna with wine grapes? 44% with honey bees? How about 69% with the platypus?
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/125-explore/shared-genes
Chimp and human DNA closely matched? That’s interesting, but does it prove that God had no hand in either of them?
Just think about it: if evolution is responsible for this, then we can say the first cell that spontaneously sprang to life is our ancestor. How long did that first cell(s) live that lived long enough to mutate along the lines of evolutionary behaviour? If it died out before it reproduced, you and I would not exist, unless there were many other cells that spontaneously burst into life, but, strangely, have never done so since.
Why do evolutionists exclude that from their evolutionary doctrine, saying that the two, abiogenesis and evolution are, conveniently, not connected?
I just find that a little of a stretch, and also that we all came from one, surviving cell. What would that first cell have to have in order for it to reproduce itself in the way of RNA and DNA? Did RNA and DNA just spontaneously exist as well?
I was raised Christian, was allowed to make my own choices with that at 13, sort of hoped it was real but didn’t hold my breath waiting for proof and found my own way in life without faith in God. In the 60s I was taught evolution in school and went along with it, however, later in life I had some real problems with it and the way in which it was taught.
For instance, the Scientific Method, as taught to me in grade 5, called for evidence to be presented which allowed the reviewer to make their own call on it rather than follower the leader, as in a religion. (Cold Fusion failed that test) That scientific method presentation of evolution did not take place and it was ironic that the school’s version of preaching the scientific method was not followed by presenting adequate evidence for evolution without the threat of a failing grade if you didn’t follow along with and agreed with the evidence presented, simply what well-known evolutionary scientists were saying about evolution.
If there is so much evidence that proves evolution, how about showing some of it and allowing the person looking at the evidence to arrive at their own opinion?
The biggest fly in the ointment for me, though, is that evolutionists refuse to address the elephant in the room with regard to how the first cell survived long enough to reproduce and what it would have had to have in that cell in order to completely reproduce itself before it died out, as everything does die out.
To answer that question with another supposition or theory is not an answer, but it is the equivalent to a Christian’s reaching for the ‘God did it’ answer to every hard question.
For instance, saying some cells have been produced in some lab somewhere that certainly looks like it backs up abiogenesis and evolution is the equivalent of the ‘God did it’ response from the other side of the argument.