Chimpanzees and Humans share a lot of genes: so what?

You may have read or heard that chimpanzees and humans share a lot of genetic material. The exact amount is not clear, but whether it's 97%, 99%, or something in between, doesn't really matter. It seems clear that our genetic material is quite similar, but, of course, not identical, to that of chimpanzees. So what?

There are, in fact, two different species of animals that have been called chimpanzees. One is Pan troglodytes, the other, first recognized as a separate species less than a hundred years ago, is Pan paniscus, the bonobo, sometimes called the pigmy chimpanzee. The fact that there are two species is not well understood by the general public.

Studies on the genetic diversity of chimpanzees and bonobos have been undertaken. See here and here for reports on one such study, from 1999. This research, based on a small portion of the DNA of chimpanzees, found that chimpanzees were more unlike each other than humans are. The report led at least some scientists to propose that humans were, as recently as 100,000 years ago, a very small population. (This is consistent with the descent of all humans from Adam and his family, and/or Noah and his family.)

A book reviewer in Spiked claims (based on a recent book that makes the same claim) that sharing 98.4% of our genes doesn't really make chimpanzees very human. The reviewer, and, apparently, the author (I have not read the book) say that much of that 1.6% is regulatory genes, which have profound effects, meaning, as it were, that humans and chimpanzees are less than 98.4% alike. (There is no way to quantify this, in reality, any more than, say, you could give an unambiguous quantitative answer to the question "How much like your spouse are you?")

For more on chimp DNA, see the Wikipedia article on the chimpanzee genome project. (Yes, there is such a thing. There are similar projects on several other organisms, each interesting in its own right.) That article says that 30% of human and chimp proteins are identical. (This doesn't necessarily mean that the DNA which coded for them is identical, as different combinations of DNA bases can lead to the same amino acid. It also doesn't mean that we are as much as 70% different from chimpanzees. It is likely that the differences between some of our proteins, compared to those of chimpanzees, are considerably less than 1%.)

Leaving aside the statistics, it is obvious to anyone that humans and chimpanzees are quite a bit alike. Facial expressions, body structure, and behavior show this. I have never read any credible source, from young-earth creationists to atheists, who would try to deny this similarity. No other animal, even gorillas and orangutans, seems to be so much like we are.

So what?

1) We did not descend from chimpanzees (or they from us). No reputable scientist believes that. Many reputable scientists believe that chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor. Perhaps they are right, perhaps not.

2) Similarity does not prove that chimpanzees should be given the same rights as humans. A dead woman, or a convicted axe murderer, shares a lot of DNA with me, you, and President Obama. But neither of these should be given the right to vote, and one of them is not even alive, therefore they are not given the same rights as you, the President, and I. Chimpanzees, and other animals, should be cared for, under the God-given stewardship of human beings, and not treated cruelly, killed without reason, or deprived of their God-given habitat without very serious consideration. But they should not be given the right to hold office, or protected from killing at all costs. Early in Genesis, animals were killed for a cause, namely to provide clothing for Adam and Eve, by God Himself (Genesis 3:21). Also, in Genesis, animals were killed for another good reason, namely for sacrifices to God, which God accepted (Genesis 4:4).

(See here and here for posts on our responsibility for caring for nature.)

3) There are three possible reasons for the similarity between humans and chimpanzees.
One of them is that the two species have, indeed, come from a common ancestor.

The second is that God created the two species in separate creative acts, but chose to make them similar. (If that were the case, DNA similarity would cause and maintain other types of similarity.) A young-earth creationist would say that they were created a day or two apart. A believer in Intelligent design would say, I believe, that God designed them to be alike, even to using the same genes, or similar genes. A theistic evolutionist (this is too simple -- there are several categories of such) might say that God knew in advance what would happen, and designed the evolutionary mechanisms of living things so that humans would eventually come about, or that God took a pre-existing animal and specially endowed it with some special properties, that is, gave them a soul.

The third, which I don't think anyone really believes, is that the similarities are accidental.

4) Although we should understand that new findings may change scientific beliefs, we should also understand that there is a broad consensus among scientists about most of the fundamentals, in all fields of science, and Christians should not be anti-scientific. The consensus, for decades, has been that chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor.
Just because there is consensus doesn't mean that the scientists are always right. There used to be consensus that protein was the genetic material, and that DNA wasn't. The consensus on the common ancestry of humans and chimps may also be wrong. The Bible seems to be unambiguous that humans are special -- Their origin is described separately, and in more detail, than that of all the other animals. They alone are singled out as being in the image of God. (Although, in some sense, all of His creation must have some of His image -- His characteristics.) Humans were given special responsibility for other organisms. To most Christians, this argues for a special creation of humans. I suppose most of them would suppose that God specially created them, body and soul, in one event. Some Christians (Billy Graham among them) are willing to accept that possibly God took a pre-existing human-like being, and endowed that creature with His image. (Graham is not wedded to that belief, but is willing to entertain the possibility, and doesn't believe that it would contradict scripture.) Science is never going to give clear answers on the origin of the God-like qualities of humans, and Christians will probably always disagree over the exact process used.

5) Nothing in these discoveries should pose a serious new challenge to Christian faith. It is true that the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly against young-earth creationism, but that was true before we had statistics on the similarity between humans and chimpanzees. A believer in Intelligent design would be unable to present scientific evidence proving that theory for the origin of humans, and a Christian who believed in an important role for natural selection would be unable to demonstrate that God had a hand in the way things are now, but these were true before DNA was even known to be the genetic material. It is also true that no scientific experiment has ruled out a role for God in creation, or in making or keeping things the way they are now, so an atheist, also, is on less than solid ground.

6) Can chimpanzees sin, or be converted? There is some evidence that chimpanzees have a moral sense, and understand that some things are right, and some wrong. There is no evidence in the Bible that chimpanzees, or any other animal, can sin, and be converted, except that the whole creation is said to be fallen, in Romans 8, and it needs redemption from the consequences of human sin.

Thanks for reading. Let's act more like Christ than chimpanzees do.

Note: A recent review (Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Sept 2009, pp. 201-203, by Darrel R. Falk, which is not yet available on-line) of More than a Theory: Revealing a Testable Model for Creation, by Hugh Ross, quotes Ross as being way off the mark on the amount of similarity between us and chimpanzees: ". . . the most complete analyses performed so far show that the similarity is closer to 85 to 90 percent." (Falk is quoting from pp. 183-4 of Ross.) Falk says that Ross, whose book was published in 2009 by Baker Books, wasn't even aware of the Chimpanzee Genome Project, which I referred to above. Ross, a prominent old-earth creationist, is, as Falk says, not a biologist. Even if Ross were right, it really wouldn't change the issues very much, if any.