From: onar@hsr.no (Onar Aam)
Subject: Re: Creationist CRAPOLA!
Organization: Rogaland University Centre
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 10:00:20 GMT

>>
>>
>>I got a reply earlier doubting the integrity of my facts. I stated that humans
>>and chimpanzees were 99% alike. The person who replied had heard that only a
>>fraction of the genetic data are actually used to code a human being, the rest is
>>junk-DNA. 
>>This is true. Only about 10% actually make up human beings (and chimpanzees for
>>that matter.) If you compare humans and dogs, for instance, we are genetically 
>>about 70% identical. They same goes for chimpanzees. this means that the junk-DNA
>> as well as the "real" DNA has changed. And since humans and chimps are STILL
>>very much alike.This supports a close relationship. 
>>
>
>We're also 90+% made up of water as are watermellons and clouds.  Therefore
>we are 80 somthing % identical to watermellons.
>
>Whats your point with the monkeys?
>
>- JoeB

Even though 90% of the genomes are junk-DNA doesn't mean that they don't contain
information. Comparing junk-DNA to water is like comparing white noise to a sine
 wave. Water is a homogenous fluid - it merely contains molecules of H20 and the 
specific order in which they are organized is irrelevant. In junk-DNA (j-DNA), on
the other hand, there are Four amino acids, A,T,C & G, which can give Four
different combinations: A-T, T-A, C-G, G-C. These combinations are organized in
chains, for instance:(arbitrary sequence)

 .
 .
A-T
A-T
G-C
C-G
T-A
 .
 .

You can easily see that describing such chains, no matter content, requires
INFORMATION. This means that any sequence, making sense or not, is unique. The
probability of two random sequences being identical rapidly converges towards
zero as the sequences increases in length. Thus, two sequences are identical
if and only if they are related to each other.
My point was that these sequences are 99% identical in humans and
chimps DESPITE there being 90% j-DNA. Even the junk sequences that doesn't make up
us are 99% identical.  That supports a close relation even more!! Look at it this
way: If you saw two piles of documents which were 99% identical, it would be
rational to assume that they have a common origin rather than it was "huge
coincidence". This would be supported even more if there beside the two piles
were two trashcans containing documents of nonsense which also are near identical.

I should mention that comparing genomes directly is a relatively new technique.
The older, more standard, technique is to compare proteins of individuals ( which
relies ONLY on the 10% meaningful DNA) and the results are the same: 99%
identical. So there is no need to doubt that humans and chimps are very much
alike. No, the stunning thing, which alone almost proves the
chimp/human-relation, is that also the junk-DNA are alike. 

A final remark is that these techniques have been crosschecked with paleontology.	
The results are stunning. The DNA-dating matches extremely well with the dating
of paleontology. 
Ex:

By comparing the proteins of three different animals (I don't remember which
ones) they found that all three were about 30%(?) different from the other two.
This means that they all had a common ancestor some 40 mill. years ago. And 
"strangely" this is the same conclusion which paleontologists has ended up with. 
Not only does DNA-dating increase the integrity of the existing dating techniques,
it supports and CONFIRMS the theory of evolution even further. 





Onar.