Wesley J. Smith executes a karate chop on the genetic reductionists. He quotes an article that says,
Consider the fact that chimpanzees share about 98 percent of our genetic makeup....Of course, the reverse is also true: We are 98 percent chimpanzee.
Responds Smith:
Nonsense. This is reductionism writ large. We are no more "98% chimp" then we are 40% lettuce because we share about that percentage of genes with radicio.
For me to add anything would be gilding lilies.
Comments (18)
Let us (!) see the whole quote:
The difference is mainly one of gene expression:
http://www.uchospitals.edu/news/2006/20060309-chimp.html
Posted by Step2 | July 22, 2008 5:23 PM
That's the first time I've seen "radicchio" spelled that way. I would like to know what our shared ratio is to pork, though.
Posted by Todd | July 22, 2008 5:23 PM
Darn it, Todd, I _thought_ it was spelled wrong. I lazily accepted the spelling from WJS despite my misgivings without checking, but I had a feeling you would correct me if wrong. :-)
Step2, I don't agree that the rest of the quotation makes the "we are 98% chimpanzee" statement any less ludicrous. After all, the behavioral similarities can hardly be said--without question-begging--to amount to 98% of the most important traits or something. And it would be in principle possible to have behavioral similarities with creatures that did not "share 98% of the same genes." Clearly he's getting the _number_ not from the behavioral claim but from the "shared gene" claim, which is silly and reductionistic, and that silliness is not mitigated by his throwing some behavioral statements in before the numerical statement.
Posted by Lydia | July 22, 2008 5:32 PM
Actually looks like a slightly common alternate spelling. Regional/national difference, perhaps. Although I wouldn't characterize it as a 'lettuce' either (they split at the genus). I'm going to go away now and let this thread get down to real discussion.
Posted by Todd | July 22, 2008 6:04 PM
A cloud is 100% water. A water mellon is 98% water.
Did a water mellon miss out on being a cloud by 2%?
2% goes a LONG way.
Posted by ASimpleSinner | July 22, 2008 6:30 PM
Consider the fact that chimpanzees share about 98 percent of our genetic makeup....Of course, the reverse is also true: We are 98 percent chimpanzee.
The former is true; however, the latter does not follow especially given the huge gap with respect to genotypic/phenotypic features.
Posted by aristocles | July 22, 2008 6:51 PM
And it would be in principle possible to have behavioral similarities with creatures that did not "share 98% of the same genes."
Basically, I consider behavioral similarities that converge with ours to have equal categorical significance to genetic makeup. Although it is fascinating to connect the similarities between animals more closely related, behavioral similarities can be found throughout the natural world. As a thought experiment, say you discover a warren of rabbits ala Watership Down that have developed a recognizable language and arts. Would their genome be the determinant factor in how you respond to them?
For those who do take a predominantly genetic view, my earlier link describes how we are not 98% similar to chimps in how those genes manifest.
Posted by Step2 | July 22, 2008 7:54 PM
No, I certainly wouldn't. I'm not a genetic reductionist, and I don't think it's important to use silly soundbites about "98% genetic similarity" to make my point. As the fellow Wesley quoted obviously did. He wasn't content with taking his stand on the behavioral arg. He wanted to bolster it with something that sounded more scientific for those ignorant folks like me who don't think the behaviors he cites are anything like the kind of thing that would undermine human exceptionalism. I don't consider learning termite fishing to be sort of "on the way to" having a fully developed language and arts, a la Watership Down. Or New York City.
Posted by Lydia | July 22, 2008 8:58 PM
For those who do take a predominantly genetic view, my earlier link describes how we are not 98% similar to chimps in how those genes manifest.
98% homology is not the same as 98% similarity in gene expression.
Basically, I consider behavioral similarities that converge with ours to have equal categorical significance to genetic makeup. Although it is fascinating to connect the similarities between animals more closely related, behavioral similarities can be found throughout the natural world.
On the contrary, it is due to the very fact that there is such a huge gap between the genomic and phenotypic features between humans vs. chimpanzee that to conduct actual experimental studies in this regard has proven rather difficult, if not, impossible.
Would you care to propose your experimental approach to this (as opposed to the above 'thought experiment')?
As a thought experiment, say you discover a warren of rabbits ala Watership Down that have developed a recognizable language and arts. Would their genome be the determinant factor in how you respond to them?
It wouldn't be their genome that would be the determinant factor but rather ours. It is, as in the aforementioned, due to the unique genetic underpinnings of the human phenotype which make humans capable of both language and art in the first place rather than the animals, including the chimpanzees.
Perhaps this speaks of a Divine Providence actually being involved in all this?
Posted by aristocles | July 22, 2008 9:18 PM
You know guys, this 98% stuff makes a lot of sense to me. It explains both the hair on my back and the leafy green growth in my nether-regions. I'm guessing you all have similar traits, unless I'm just the missing link. In which case, I think I'll call Ross and let him know -- we might have just proved evolution!
Posted by Steve | July 23, 2008 7:38 AM
You can't be serious. 98% had better produce a lot more similarities than hair. Step2 and I don't usually agree on much of anything, but he's already pointed out the gene expression issue. The 98% figure is incredibly misleading, because you can't figure out stuff like that by "counting genes."
Posted by Lydia | July 23, 2008 8:30 AM
Just to add in, the “tool use” thing is way over stated in the case of what Lydia characterized as termite fishing. People love to credit animals with the use of tools without acknowledging that the quantum leap in tool use was not picking up rocks and cracking open things, which many animals routinely do, but picking up a bone and crafting a fish hook and attaching it to a line. Also, crafting and shaping stone from something that it was into a wedge to be used as an axe. Think about the crafting of a weapon from several different components. This type of tool manufacturing involved crafting, reshaping, and a good degree of abstract thought and is a far cry from picking up a twig, smoothing it off, and jamming it into a hole. I am not minimizing the ingenuity of the chimpanzees; I just think that chimpanzees have not quite advanced far enough in crafting tools to start using that as a basis of saying they are practically (Or 98%) human.
Posted by Jay Watts | July 23, 2008 9:51 AM
...because you can't figure out stuff like that by "counting genes."
Lydia,
IF you actually read what I wrote, this is what I was attempting to pointing out.
However, to actually delve into the particulars of homology and gene expression on this blog might just be as productive as my discussing aspects of theology at one of our annual sympossiums.
Posted by aristocles | July 23, 2008 12:17 PM
I was responding to commentator Steve. I think you and I are on the same team on this one, Aristocles. I suppose Steve might have been joking, though?
Posted by Lydia | July 23, 2008 12:30 PM
Sorry, Lydia. Without benefit of address, I mistakenly took your comments to be a response to mine.
It's just that I found some (anti-Christian) remarks made at a recent sympossium quite offensive.
I just hope Christians don't sink to their level and engage in similar ridicule.
Science and Christianity need not be mutually exclusive. After all, the first scientists were actually Christians.
Posted by aristocles | July 23, 2008 12:55 PM
My body is 100% atoms. The chair I am sitting on is 100% atoms. Come to think of it, so is the burrito I just ate.
Lettuce pray. :-)
Posted by Francis Beckwith | July 23, 2008 12:59 PM
I like it, Frank. :-)
Sorry, Aristocles. I figured it would be assumed I was responding to the comment immediately above mine. Actually, that doesn't always work, though, if someone else happens to be posting at the same time. In this case, mine did come right after Steve's.
I don't know about the symposium you're referring to. Should I?
Posted by Lydia | July 23, 2008 2:11 PM
I was thinking the same thing, Frank. Why stop the reductionism at the gene level? Why not go all the way to microphysics?
Posted by Michael S. | July 23, 2008 3:46 PM