Do Humans and Chimps Share a Common Ancestor?

...This documentary, titled "The Genetics of Adam and Eve," displays the validity of the creation story by examining the genetics of all people. Its creator, Dr. Georgia Purdom, a geneticist who has published papers in various scientific journals including the Journal of Neuroscience, recently spoke to Christian News Network about the project.

"A historical Adam and Eve and original sin are the foundation of the Gospel," said Purdom. "The bad news, sin and death, begins in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve sinned."

"One of the most compelling genetic evidences for an original human couple created by God is mitochondrial DNA research done by creation geneticist, Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson," added Purdom. "He clearly shows that the common human female ancestor of us all (biblical Eve) lived within the biblical timeframe of several thousand years ago."

Purdom said Jeanson's work debunks claims made by evolutionists that devolved creatures that eventually became humans were alive 100,000 years ago. She also discusses the notion of humans and chimpanzees sharing a common ancestor.

"In addition, genetics clearly show that humans and chimps do not share a common ancestor. There are many, many differences in their DNA that completely undermine the possibility of shared ancestry only a few million years ago," said Purdom, who believes the documentary will help Christians to better defend the Bible...

See also the links below:

•     Common ancestor of humans & Chimps?( for Chinese version 人類和猿猴來自一個共同的祖先？)

Update on Mitochondrial DNA( mt DNA) EVE from Nova...

•     Adam was late for his first date?
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      The similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA is really in the eye of the beholder. If you look for similarities, you can find them. But if you look for differences, you can find those as well. There are significant differences between the human and chimpanzee genomes that are not easily accounted for in an evolutionary scenario. 

     Creationists expect both similarities and differences, and that is exactly what we find. The fact that many humans, chimps, and other creatures share genes should be no surprise to the Christian. The differences are significant. Many in the evolutionary world like to discuss the similarities while brushing the differences aside. Emphasis on percent DNA similarity misses the point because it ignores both the magnitude of the actual differences as well as the significance of the role that single amino acid changes can play.
  
  Please consider the implications of the worldviews that are in conflict regarding the origin of mankind. The Bible teaches that man was uniquely formed and made in the image of God (Genesis 1 and 2). The Lord directly fashioned the first man Adam from dust and the first woman Eve from Adam’s side. He was intimately involved from the beginning and is still intimately involved. Keep in mind that the Lord Jesus Christ stepped into history to become a man—not a chimp—and now offers the free gift of salvation to those who receive Him.



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Common ancestor of humans & Chimps?

 

A chromosome-by-chromosome comparison of chimpanzee and human DNA. The chimp DNA was cut into slices of varying lengths (see legend on the right), and a similar sequence was searched for on the relevant human chromosome, which is shown on the horizontal axis.

(Copyright Answers in Genesis, published at http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v6/n1/human-chimp-chromosome in a study by Jeffrey P. Tomkins)

 For the whole article, click the link below.

http://blog.drwile.com/?p=9851

...Dr. Tomkins just published a new study, and as far as I can tell, it makes the most sense of any BLAST analysis done so far. In this study, he chopped up the chimpanzee genome into “slices” that were as small as 100 base pairs long or as large as 650 base pairs long. The chimpanzee genome is 2.9-3.3 billion base pairs long, so obviously these slices are incredibly small compared to the entire genome. He then looked for each “slice” on the human chromosome that is supposed to correspond to the chimp chromosome where the slice was found. The two slices didn’t have to match exactly; they just had to be similar enough to think that they could be related to each other.


The graph at the top of this post shows his results. Notice that the similarity hovers around 70% for all chromosomes except the Y chromosome. The size of the “slice” affects the result a bit, but really not much. In the end, this leads Dr. Tomkins to conclude:

Genome-wide, only 70% of the chimpanzee DNA was similar to human under the most optimal sequence-slice conditions. While chimpanzees and humans share many localized protein-coding regions of high similarity, the overall extreme discontinuity between the two genomes defies evolutionary timescales and dogmatic presuppositions about a common ancestor.

Is this the last word on the subject? Most certainly not. I think it is probably the best comparison attempt made so far. Also, the fact that the Y chromosome has a remarkably low level of similarity compared to the other chromosomes is consistent with another study. In addition, the results essentially agree with Dr. Buggs’s analysis, which was based on a completely different strategy. At the same time, however, there is a huge discrepancy between this analysis and Dr. Wood’s analysis. In addition, as we learn more about genomes and how they work, we will probably find better ways to compare the genomes of different organisms.

For right now, however, it seems clear that humans and chimpanzees are not nearly as genetically similar as most evolutionists would have us believe.