Why would god create an animal that shares 98 percent of human dna?

Question

If god knew that christians would be so offended by the idea of being a descendant of an ape like creature, wouldn't he have created chimps and other primates with a significantly different dna than humans? Why so close?

Answer 1

I've never understood why that is a legitimate argument against creationism. To me it shows purpose and commonality in design.

By the way the thumbs down button is the one on the right...lol

Answer 2

I'd be more troubled if ape dna were completely divergent from human...even though the similar dna can be used as evidence for both darwinian evolution and intelligent design. The ID explanation is very simple and direct. Similar problem, similar solution.

Answer 3

The writings of the Sumerians, which is the oldest known, tell how modern man was created by gene splicing and then inter-marrying. Later stories in the OT tell how the sons of the gods had children with the earthly women.. Our DNA shows that at one time we had side way insertion of DNA into our helix that they really can't explain!

Answer 4

well if it did not share so much dna it would not look anything like it does. basically the building blocks are defined and in order to make a monkey look like a monkey, it had to have that much of the defined building blocks in it. thats why it dosent have 100% of the same dna, its not the same creature.
every computer program is fundamentally 1's and 0's. does that mean they are all the same program or all evolved from the same program? no, they are all built on the same fundamental building blocks. think about it, i havent

Answer 5

Human/chimp DNA similarity
Evidence for evolutionary relationship?

by Don Batten

The idea that human beings and chimps have close to 100% similarity in their DNA seems to be common knowledge. The figures quoted vary: 97%, 98%, or even 99%, depending on just who is telling the story. What is the basis for these claims and do the data mean there really is not much difference between chimps and people? Are we just highly evolved apes? The following concepts will assist with a proper understanding of this issue:

* Similarity (‘homology’) is not evidence for common ancestry (evolution) as against a common designer (creation). Think about a Porsche and Volkswagen ‘Beetle’ car. They both have air–cooled, flat, horizontally–opposed, 4–cylinder engines in the rear, independent suspension, two doors, boot (trunk) in the front, and many other similarities (‘homologies’). Why do these two very different cars have so many similarities? Because they had the same designer! Whether similarity is morphological (appearance), or biochemical, is of no consequence to the lack of logic in this argument for evolution.
* If humans were entirely different from all other living things, or indeed if every living thing was entirely different, would this reveal the Creator to us? No! We would logically think that there must be many creators rather than one. The unity of the creation is testimony to the One True God who made it all (Romans 1:18–23).
* If humans were entirely different from all other living things, how would we then live? If we are to eat food to provide nutrients and energy to live, what would we eat if every other organism on earth were fundamentally different biochemically? How could we digest them and how could we use the amino acids, sugars, etc., if they were different from the ones we have in our bodies? Biochemical similarity is necessary for us to have food!
* We know that DNA in cells contains much of the information necessary for the development of an organism. In other words, if two organisms look similar, we would expect there to be some similarity also in their DNA. The DNA of a cow and a whale, two mammals, should be more alike than the DNA of a cow and a bacterium. If it were not so, then the whole idea of DNA being the information carrier in living things would have to be questioned. Likewise, humans and apes have a lot of morphological similarities, so we would expect there would be similarities in their DNA. Of all the animals, chimps are most like humans,1 so we would expect that their DNA would be most like human DNA.
* Certain biochemical capacities are common to all living things, so there is even a degree of similarity between the DNA of yeast, for example, and that of humans. Because human cells can do many of the things that yeast can do, we share similarities in the DNA sequences that code for the enzymes that do the same jobs in both types of cells. Some of the sequences, for example, those that code for the MHC (Major Histocompatibility Complex) proteins, are almost identical.
* What of the 97% (or 98% or 99%!) similarity claimed between humans and chimps? The figures published do not mean quite what is claimed in the popular publications (and even some respectable science journals). DNA contains its information in the sequence of four chemical compounds known as nucleotides, abbreviated C,G,A,T. Groups of three of these at a time are ‘read’ by complex translation machinery in the cell to determine the sequence of 20 different types of amino acids to be incorporated into proteins. The human DNA has at least 3,000,000,000 nucleotides in sequence. Chimp DNA has not been anywhere near fully sequenced so that a proper comparison can be made (using a lot of computer time to do it—imagine comparing two sets of 1000 large books, sentence by sentence, for similarities and differences!).

Where did the ‘97% similarity’ come from then? It was inferred from a fairly crude technique called DNA hybridization where small parts of human DNA are split into single strands and allowed to re–form double strands (duplex) with chimp DNA.2 However, there are various reasons why DNA does or does not hybridize, only one of which is degree of similarity (homology).3 Consequently, this somewhat arbitrary figure is not used by those working in molecular homology (other parameters, derived from the shape of the ‘melting’ curve, are used). Why has the 97% figure been popularised then? One can only guess that it served the purpose of evolutionary indoctrination of the scientifically illiterate.

Interestingly, the original papers did not contain the basic data and the reader had to accept the interpretation of the data ‘on faith’. Sarich et al.4 obtained the original data and used them in their discussion of which parameters should be used in homology studies.5 Sarich discovered considerable sloppiness in Sibley and Ahlquist’s generation of their data as well as their statistical analysis. Upon inspecting the data, I discovered that, even if everything else was above criticism, the 97% figure came from making a very basic statistical error—averaging two figures without taking into account differences in the number of observations contributing to each figure. When a proper mean is calculated it is 96.2%, not 97%. However, there is no true replication in the data, so no confidence can be attached to the figures published by Sibley and Ahlquist.

What if human and chimp DNA was even 96% homologous? What would that mean? Would it mean that humans could have ‘evolved’ from a common ancestor with chimps? Not at all! The amount of information in the 3 billion base pairs in the DNA in every human cell has been estimated to be equivalent to that in 1,000 books of encyclopaedia size.6 If humans were ‘only’ 4% different this still amounts to 120 million base pairs, equivalent to approximately 12 million words, or 40 large books of information. This is surely an impossible barrier for mutations (random changes) to cross.7
* Does a high degree of similarity mean that two DNA sequences have the same meaning or function? No, not necessarily. Compare the following sentences:

There are many scientists today who question the evolutionary paradigm and its atheistic philosophical implications.

There are not many scientists today who question the evolutionary paradigm and its atheistic philosophical implications.

These sentences have 97% homology and yet have almost opposite meanings! There is a strong analogy here to the way in which large DNA sequences can be turned on or off by relatively small control sequences. The DNA similarity data don’t quite mean what the evolutionary popularizers claim!

Answer 6

Are you serious?? God doesn't play dice!

Evolution is just a theory...the Bible tells all...it is the greatest scientific manuscript ever written...read the Bible...just go through all the data in the pie charts, graphs and figures..now I must go back and stick my head into the sand

Answer 7

Because, this god you speak of is terribly unimaginative... He also used the same design of bone structure for the human's hand, the whale's fin and the bat's wing.

Or, there is no god, and evolution is responsible.

You know my vote...

Answer 8

He screwed up with chimps, then he got the formula right..and Voila' Humans

Answer 9

Maybe he created them first, and was so close to making intelligent life.

No wait, that wouldn't work, because he's all knowing, so he'd know before hand that they wouldn't be.

Ummmm, laziness perhaps?

But it couldn't be evolution, go read the DaVinci Code, you pro-choice pole smoker.

(kidding, take it all in stride)

Answer 10

2 Thessalonians 2:11
For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie

who knows.