My brother the frog?

[reverse]

I’m trying to get the big picture on genetic variance across all forms of life on the planet.

 

This is an area of biology I have been meaning to learn more about.

 

I was thinking that early categories of creatures were based on obvious physical similarities.

 

Now that we are able to look into each creature’s blueprints as it were.

We can make up a much more proportional picture of their relationships.

 

Anyone got up to data on the % variance between humans and say a chimp, humans and a feline, humans and a reptile…etc I guessing humans and say clay will be something like 100% variance.

 

Is there some sort of periodic table of the creatures so to speak?

 

 

 

Inspired by the recent chimp-human hybrid thread.

[Hellbender]

Chimanzees are 99.9% human, so to speak. I know other apes are pretty close too, orang-utans are 98%. I don't know about reptiles, or other non-primate mammals, but I would be interested if anyone knows more info about this.

[Newtonian]

Lol TOLD YOU SO

[Auburngirl05]

Chimanzees are 99.9% human, so to speak. I know other apes are pretty close too, orang-utans are 98%.

 

I recently read a book review of The Red Ape , and I learned that apparently that orangs and humans have a more common ancestor than chimps and humans, despite the fact that chimps have more common DNA with us. I haven't read the book itself and it was the first I'd heard of that theory, so I don't know much about it, but thought it was worth mentioning.

[coquina]

I’m trying to get the big picture on genetic variance across all forms of life on the planet.

 

This is an area of biology I have been meaning to learn more about.

 

I was thinking that early categories of creatures were based on obvious physical similarities.

 

Now that we are able to look into each creature’s blueprints as it were.

We can make up a much more proportional picture of their relationships.

 

Anyone got up to data on the % variance between humans and say a chimp' date=' humans and a feline, humans and a reptile…etc I guessing humans and say clay will be something like 100% variance.

 

Is there some sort of periodic table of the creatures so to speak?

 

 

 

Inspired by the recent chimp-human hybrid thread.[/quote']

 

Check out this link: http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/T/Taxonomy.html

[Hellbender]

I recently read a book review of The Red Ape[/u'] , and I learned that apparently that orangs and humans have a more common ancestor than chimps and humans, despite the fact that chimps have more common DNA with us. I haven't read the book itself and it was the first I'd heard of that theory, so I don't know much about it, but thought it was worth mentioning.

 

I might check out that book. Thanks for mentioning it to me. But there is a few problems. Orangs are close to us, at least closer than gibbons. The fact that the author thinks that despite the relative dissimilarity in DNA, in other words evidence otherwise, his hypothesis still stands. This strikes me as a little sketchy. Genetic evidence is strong evidence. The DNA, not to mention various morphological and behavioral characteristics of chimps is much more similar to humans than that of Orangs. Orangs are the last known part of the sivapithecids, a group of apes that includes gigantopithecus, and is known to be relatively far from the hominid line compared to chimps/bonobos. I wonder where this guy got the evidence for this assumption. It sounds like the author of that book is going on novelty value (like the aquatic ape hypothesis). But I will have to read it before making any concrete statements.

[Mokele]

Well, don't be so automaticly accepting of genetic conclusions, as they can be wrong.

 

For instance, over the years, people constructed a very good phylogeny of mammals, based on morphology of living and fossil species. Then, a genetic-based phylogeny came out that was completely different, contradicting the prior, well-established phylogeny. Which was right? There was a huge arguement, until someone solved it.

 

The problem was an inherent flaw in genetic methods: they can only sample living organisms. When extinct species were removed from morphology-based trees, they yeilded the same results as the genetics-based ones.

 

So, the moral of the story is that genetics is *not* the final word in phylogeny, especially since we don't fully understand all of the variables that affect genetic change on macroevolutionary time scales. The massively contradictory data given from different genes of the same species is proof-positive of that.

 

Mokele

[Hellbender]

True. i understand genetics is only a part of phylogeny, along with morphology and fossil evidence. new info is found all the time, which is good, but it pays to be critical of new evidence or hypotheses.

[Blackfin]

This leads me again to the conclusion ...

 

It's not what something is that matters so much as how it compares to other things.

 

Systematics, systematics, systematics, people!

[reverse]

Did anyone read a recent press release stating

that the genetic variance between male and female brains is 1%.

 

Spose that means that we males are only 2% variant from Chimps now.

[Mokele]

::looks at the local frat boys::

 

2%? Seems a bit high. Then again, I guess chimps haven't mastered binge-drinking yet.

 

Mokele

[Kleptin]

Speak for yourself, my friend bobo here drinks a gallon of beer a day, don't you bobo?

 

Bobo...?