Creation Moment 11/2/2024 - That 98–99% figure of Human / Chimp DNA

"According to God’s Word, man and chimps were separate creations by God. In Genesis 1:24–25, we read of God creating the land animals by His spoken word “according to their kind” (which would include the kind that chimps belong to). 

In Genesis 1:26–27, we read of the creation of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, not only as separate creations from the animals but also as unique creatures because they alone were made in the image of God. So clearly, from a Biblical perspective, man didn’t evolve from any creature. 

*This is very different from the evolution story, and both cannot be correct.

The 98–99% figure comes from comparing only DNA between

humans and chimps that “aligns.” 

This refers to any genetic sequence that is similar enough (although not a 100% match) that a computer program can align them. And within this aligned region there is only one type of difference that evolutionists typically count. 

These differences are called substitutions. 

For example, human DNA might have a T but chimp DNA in the same location has a G. Evolutionary ideas propose that the common ancestor of humans and chimps likely had a G in that position but a mutation changed the G to T in the line that eventually led to humans. These types of differences account for the often-touted 1–2% difference between human and chimp DNA.

Q: What about the other differences within the aligned DNA, such as gaps where whole sections of human DNA have no match to the sequence in chimp DNA (and vice versa)?
A: There are other differences as well that total approximately 16%. That’s 480 million base differences!
Q: What about the DNA that does not align? 

A: Millions of DNA bases outside the aligned regions in human DNA have no match in chimp DNA and vice versa. Approximately 4% of human DNA has no alignment to chimp DNA. That’s a glaring 20% total difference between human and chimp DNA!

Q: If there are so many other differences besides substitutions, why do scientists typically focus only on the 1–2% difference? 

A: Time. 

Proposed evolutionary processes require slow, random processes. To account for all the other differences in the DNA, there would need to be more time since humans and chimps supposedly shared a common ancestor. The current ape-to-human time frame of six million years is simply not enough time.

In addition, even if there was more time and those mutations could occur, they don’t do what evolution needs them to do. Mutations don’t cause the gain of novel traits—the gain of genetic information—necessary to change from one kind of organism into another.

---DNA is more than just a sequence of bases. It’s a library that encodes the information on how to produce all the proteins necessary for each living organism. Genes are distinct sequences of DNA that encode the information for making the proteins, but a lot of other regulatory information is encoded in the DNA, determining when, where, how much, and under what conditions those proteins are produced. Chemical tags modify DNA and influence how the genes express the proteins. These tags are referred to as epigenetic markers because they exist outside of (epi-) the actual sequence of DNA (-genetics).

Genetic evidence confirms that man and chimps do not share a common ancestor and is consistent with the Biblical account of creation." 

AIG