From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Mon Apr 28 2003 - 20:03:11 EDT
>Well, if that's true, it only shows what a difference 1.24% can make.
>(Ain't nobody out there who doesn't know the difference.)
>Here's a story you might want to check out:
>http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992833
>The difference could be more than you think, depending on what you choose to COUNT as a difference.<
Part of the question is what you are able to count, as well as choice. The previous message (which I have snipped here) cited 1.24% as the difference in gene sequences. The news story cites other kinds of differences, which are only recently measurable.
It is true that some overzealous advocates of the claim that humans are not really that different from any other ape have exaggerated (more accurately, significantly overestimated without checking) the similarities. I have a copy of an article in Science from several years back that investigated the claim that a frog biologist would probably regard humans and chimps as just two species in the same genus. In fact, based on standard skeletal measurements used to tell frogs apart, humans and chimps are vastly different. This is because all frogs have the same basic build, whereas we are built for upright walking and chimps are built for climbing and knuckle walking. Thus, frogs would probably regard us as very different from chimps, if they could do morphological systematics.
Genetically, we are very similar to chimps. The key differences are what we do with the genes. Gene activity in human and chimp livers is very similar. Gene activity in the brains, however, is quite different.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
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