08.30.06
It’s a bird, it’s a chimp. . . No, it’s a man!
Every once in a while I run into something that makes me go, “Hmmm. . . ” Well today I experienced one of those “Hmmm. . . ” moments. It came by way of a book called, Bones of Contention by Marvin L. Lubenow. In chapter 30 of his book Lubenow quotes part of an article from Science* which read, “For almost 30 years, researchers have asserted that the DNA of humans and chimps is at least 98.5% identical.” And another journal called NewScientist** wrote that the 98.5% figure is touted so widley it has almost become a mantra. In the many times you’ve read and heard that claim, have you ever questioned it?
Well, side by side chimps and man look so very different, one would be suspicious that there is only 1.5% DNA difference between the two. Now, now ladies, I know we’ve seen some men that act like chimps, but that’s another topic. . . My “hmmm moment” didn’t occur yet until I read the next paragraph where Lubenow points out that the first draft of the entire human genome, the project of sequencing or mapping the entire human DNA, was not completed and published until 2001. That’s when it happened. Hmmmm. . . If the entire human DNA sequencing wasn’t completed until only 5 years ago, then how was it determined 30 years ago that humans and chimps have at least 98.5% identical DNA? What was the bases for that statement that has been widely disseminated to the public for 30 years? Apparently, there were two separate teams working on the human DNA genome and published their results separately. One was published in the journal Nature, and the other was in the journal Science. The two results had considerable differences. Then to top off my Hmmmm experience, Lubenow stated that “a project by a five-nation consortium to sequence the full genome of the chimpanzee was not even organized until 2001.” Double Hmmmmm!!!!
I don’t know about you, but it’s stuff like this that make me wonder about the competency of our scientists. Or is it their honesty?
*Elizabeth Pennisi, “Jumbled DNA Separates Chimps and Humans,” Science 298 (25 October 2002): 719.
**Andy Coghlan, “Not such close cousins after all,” NewScientist (28 September 2002): 20.
