Evolutionists Backing Away from Human-Chimp Similarity

Admitting a greater difference,
but no apology for misleading the
public on this key Darwinian claim

How much damage has been done by the claim that humans and chimpanzees are 98% similar genetically? How many students lost their faith in God as Creator by this assertion? How many gullible people swallowed this claim as verified science? At the Discovery Institute in Seattle, ID spokesman Casey Luskin has been pressuring the Smithsonian to drop the claim, based on a 2025 study that found up to a 15% difference in genes between humans and apes when the entire genome is considered, not just portions that appear to line up. Look at all his recent articles on the topic.

Now, a few voices from Big Science Media are admitting the differences are greater than once claimed. But there is no repentance, no remorse, no apology. The backtracking is too little, too late. Here’s the spirit of the new confession: we were partly wrong, but evolution is still a fact. Long live Darwin!

Do humans and chimps really share nearly 99% of their DNA? (Live Science, 6 Sept 2025). Look what the “experts” are now telling Lie Science.

Chimpanzees, along with bonobos, are humans’ closest living relatives. In fact, you may have heard that humans and chimps share 98.8% of their DNA.

But is this actually true? And what does “similar DNA” actually mean?

The truth is that the frequently cited 98.8% similarity between chimp (Pan troglodytes) and human (Homo sapiens) DNA overlooks key differences in the species’ genomes, experts told Live Science.

As far as we can tell, no non-Darwinian experts were consulted, so who’s on first?

Some scientists and reporters had even claimed the similarity is 99%. Here is the heart of the backtracking. Notice, however, that evolutionary common ancestry is still assumed. The article even embeds a video about Darwin and evolution that displays the debunked “Human Evolution Progression” drawing (see 4 Dec 2024 and 12 Aug 2025).

But the 99% figure is misleading because it focuses on stretches of DNA where the human and chimp genomes can be directly aligned and ignores sections of the genomes that are difficult to compare, Tomas Marques-Bonet, head of the Comparative Genomics group at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC/UPF) in Barcelona, Spain, told Live Science in an email.

Sections of human DNA without a clear counterpart in chimp DNA make up approximately 15% to 20% of the genome, Marques-Bonet said. For example, some bits of DNA are present in one species but missing in the other; these are known as “insertions and deletions.” In the course of evolution from a common ancestor, some pieces of DNA in one species broke off and reattached elsewhere along the chromosome.

So, while earlier studies suggested a 98% to 99% similarity, comparisons that include harder-to-align regions push that difference closer to 5% to 10%, Marques-Bonet said. “And if we account for the regions still too complex to align properly with current technology, the true overall difference is likely to exceed 10%,” he said.

The 99% myth was on the cover of Time Magazine more than once.

Earlier studies did not merely “suggest” the 98% to 99% similarity. They declared it as a scientific fact. That lie has been told countless times across the world for a quarter century!

The scientists quoted in this story are still misleading people. If Darwinian evolution were responsible for these differences, which amount to millions of base pairs, there would not be time for all the mutations that brought us language, art and reasoning (if such a notion could be imagined to occur!) or time for them to achieve fixation in the genome. The probability of that happening is so low as to rule out Darwinian evolution. The story that “In the course of evolution from a common ancestor, some pieces of DNA in one species broke off and reattached elsewhere along the chromosome” cannot be established by observation; it is alleged only by assuming evolutionary theory.

Katie Pollard from UCSF is oblivious to the logical flub in her ending statement to Lie Science:

So, while chimps and humans share the same genetic tool kit, how those tools are used makes a big difference. “Humans and chimps are made up of essentially the same building blocks (proteins), but these are used in somewhat different ways to make a human versus a chimp,” Pollard said.

Watch and share the Short Reel about this article! Click to view now.

Ask the question: who, or what, is “using” the “genetic tool kit” that makes us human instead of ape? Do you see the personification fallacy there? Only intelligent designers “use” a “tool kit” for a purpose. Putting it in passive voice (“are used”) doesn’t help. This is nuts. Chance cannot “use” genetic tools to create beings capable of abstract thought, reason, art and a longing for eternal life and purpose. No amount of scrambling of chimp genes is going to cause such things to “emerge” by materialistic Darwinian processes.

Some Darwin stories are made for LOL. This one is made for anger. We’ve been misled by the same Darwin Party that created scientific racism. They have turned their exceptionally human God-given abilities for lies and for evil. The time has come to shame these scoundrels out of science unless they truly repent, apologize publicly, and change careers.