[extropy-chat] BIO: Chimps and Humans

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Harvey Newstrom wrote:

> You posted the link to that article when you started this thread.  But when
> I use it for counter-evidence, you say it is unreliable?

If I had to agree 100% with every link I posted it would be
a really short list.  :-)  But seriously -- though I'm not
positive I think I posted (sometime in the last 2 years) a
link to a discussion regarding the fact that the differences
between humans and chimps may be greater than is usually
assumed.  If not, I offer up [1] as a figure different
from that quoted in the NY Times.

These generalizations are very iffy from a biological
standpoint as one would expect the evolution rates
of gene coding sequences to differ from those of gene
regulatory regions to differ from random junk DNA.
Trying to fit multiple types of selection pressure
under a single hat is probably poor science.  But
such is what one has to deal with when moving the
knowledge from the lab to the public.

Robert

1. Chromosomal speciation and molecular divergence--accelerated
   evolution in rearranged chromosomes.
   Navarro A, Barton NH
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12690198&dopt=Abstract