Chimp DNA is 99% like human DNA

This is a claim that is used a lot, but is not actually true.

There is a paper in Nature that came out just a few weeks ago and goes into a comparison of the genome of the Great Apes in detail.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08816-3

It uses some abbreviations that might not be obvious (and I hope I got right):

  • HSA - Humans (Homo sapien)
  • PTR - Chimpanzee (Pan troglodyte)
  • PPA - Bonobo (Pan paniscus)
  • GGO - Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla)
  • PPY - Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)
  • PAB - Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii)

Turns out the differences are significant - rather more than 1% - but it very much fits the evolutionary model.

"Our analyses dated the human–chimpanzee split between 5.5 and 6.3 million years ago (Ma; minimum to maximum estimate of divergence), the African ape split at 10.6–10.9 Ma and the orangutan split at 18.2–19.6 Ma ... Consequently, we estimated that the human–chimpanzee–bonobo ancestral population size (average Ne = 198,000) is larger than that of the human–chimpanzee–gorilla ancestor (Ne = 132,000), a result consistent with an increase in the ancestral population 6–10 Ma..."​

The important point is that chimp DNA is closer to human DNA than it is to gorilla DNA. That is what evolution predicts if gorillas split off from us before chimps did. However, this cannot be explained by creationists who hold that the Great Apes excluding man are a "kind", while man is a separate "kind", created in isolation.

Creations make a big deal about the difference between chimp and man, but go quite when gorilla DNA is also considered.

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