I remember a TV show where the hero, a kindly veterinarian, rescues a chimpanzee from an abusive environment. He angrily proclaims, "He has 98 percent of our DNA and should have the same constitutional rights as the rest of us!" Recent news articles trumpeted the results of the now completed mapping of the chimp genome, which reveals a similarity with humans of 96%, as "the most dramatic confirmation yet" of Darwin's theory that humans and apes share a common ancestor. Let's think carefully about these claims for a moment.
     I find no mention in the news that the 4% difference now being reported is twice as large as previous estimates of 98-99 percent similarity. DNA's information storage capacity is so vast that a 4% difference is still a great deal of information, representing about 40 million mutations events (when "inserted" and "deleted" nucleotides are included).  Indeed it could well be interpreted as a fatal blow to the idea of common ancestry. According to evolutionists, the hypothetical chimp/human ancestor lived about 5 million years ago. But evolutionist J.B.S Haldane has done the math to demonstrate that because human/chimp reproduction rates are low, and the vast majority of mutations are harmful or neutral, it would take at least 6 million years to fix just 1000 beneficial mutations in humans through natural selection while avoiding our extinction (Journal of Genetics 55:511-524). 1000 is a long way from 40 million.
     Moreover, the actual difference in the information on chimp and human DNA is many times greater than 4%, since similar nucleotide sequences can be read differently by a cell's transcription mechanisms. I've read that we share half of our genes with the banana, but even a "couch potato" is not 50% banana!  When concentrations of 532 proteins in chimp and human brain cells were compared--DNA codes for protein production--significant differences were found in 31%. Some proteins exist in the human brain at ten times the concentration found in chimp brains (Enard, Science 296:340-343).
     Not surprisingly, there was no mention in the news that the data fit the hypothesis of common design quite well. Since chimps and humans are anatomically and physiologically similar, one would expect them to possess a lot of the same DNA information if they shared the same Creator. The Bible tells us that chimps and humans were created separately, and that humans were uniquely created in the image of God. This might explain why humans write constitutions, sequence their own DNA, and argue with each other about whether they were created or evolved--but chimpanzees do not.

Pastor Charlie Scott
c. 2005