A subject of frequent discussion among creationists and evolutionists is

the remarkable genetic similarity between humans and apes, somewhere

in the neighborhood of 98 to 99 percent. This curious situation leads to
some questions. Why is it so di"cult for evolutionists to determine the
human-ape connection from fossils, if we have a common ancestry, and
why would God create something so similar to man, if we don't?
In the rst place, many mammals have a high degree of genetic similarity
(Spetner, Not by Chance, page 69). For example, the cytochrome C of a
dog is about 90 percent similar to that of a human, and the hemoglobin of
a horse is about 88 percent similar to that of a human. In view of this, a 98
percent genetic similarity between apes and humans is not surprising. It is
interesting that some sources put the di#erence between humans and
apes much higher, as high as 10 percent. At least for one gene, human
and chimpanzee alleles seem to di#er by 13 base pairs out of 270, for a
di#erence of about 5 percent. (See Science, 6 Jan. 1995, pp. 35-36.)

There are also some notable di#erences, apparently. Mammals in general
can drink and breathe at the same time, according to a posting on
talk.origins. But humans cannot. This is the price we pay for being able to
speak. It would seem that this must involve quite a bit of genetic
di#erence from the apes.

The following quotation from ReMine, The Biotic Message, page 449,
calls into question the signicance of DNA similarity:

There are two species of ies (Drosophila) that look alike but have only 25
percent of their DNA sequences in common. Yet the DNA of humans and
chimpanzees share 97.5 percent. This means the DNA of two virtually
identical ies is 30 times more di#erent than that betweens humans and
chimpanzees.

It should also be noted that chimpanzees have 24 pairs of chromosomes
and humans have 23 pairs, so there is a denite discontinuity.
Many of the similarities between humans and apes derive simply from the
structural similarity of their skeletons. Given any animal that is partially
upright, with grasping hands on its forelimbs, there may just be one
optimal way to design the rest of the organs. For example, such an animal
will need extra intelligence to control its hands. It will also tend to be
exible and adaptible, and not so tied to the seasons as other animals
are; thus it is more reasonable to have a reproductive cycle that permits
o#spring at any time of year, rather than only at certain seasons. Thus
much of the genetic similarity may simply be a result of structural
similarity.

This does complicate the fossil picture, however. The similarities of the
skeletons, combined with the various races of man and the various
species of apes, can make the evolutionary task of determining ancestry
very confusing. Add to this the fact that one does not always have a
complete skeleton, but only a few bones, or fragments of bones.
Furthermore, what makes humans unique is not the structure of our
skeleton but intangibles such as language, culture, and thought, which
are very di"cult to infer from the fossil record. Even if these di#erences
arise from one or two percent of the genome, this is a very signicant one
or two percent.

And in fact, there appears to be a notable division between the skeletons
of apes and humans. Glenn C. Conroy of Washington University in St.
Louis reported in the journal Science in June, 1998 that "Mr. Ples," the
name given for the fossil of an Australopithecus africanus, a hominid that
lived in what is now South Africa, had the brain capacity of about 515
cubic centimeters. Another A. africanus skull had a brain capacity of 370
cc. Modern humans have a brain size of about 1,350 cc., while 370 cc is
the size of a chimpanzee brain.

There is also a striking division in speech ability between humans and
apes in the fossil record. The following information is taken from a news
item:

A report published in April, 1998 in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences states that scientists at Duke University have
explored a new avenue of fossil anatomy and found surprising evidence
suggesting that the Neanderthals, relatives of modern humans, could
have had the same gift for speech as modern man. The research was
conducted by Dr. Richard F. Kay and Dr. Matt Cartmill at the Duke Medical
Center in Durham, N.C., with the assistance of a former student, Michelle
Balow. The Duke scientists directed their research at the hypoglossal
canal in all primates. It is a hole at the bottom of the skull in the back,
where the spinal cord connects to the brain.

Through the canal run nerve bers from the brain to the muscles of the
tongue. On the basis of comparative measurements of hypoglossal canals
of modern humans, apes and several human ancestor fossils, the
researchers concluded that the canals of modern humans are almost
twice as large as those of modern apes -- the chimpanzee and the gorilla
-- which are incapable of speech. They also found that the canal size of
austrolopithecines, earlier human relatives that died out about one million
years ago, did not di#er signicantly from that of chimpanzees. To narrow
the range, the scientists examined skeletons of Neanderthals and also of
species of the Homo genus that lived as much as 400,000 years ago.
These included Kabwe specimens from Africa and Swanscombe fossils
from Europe. Their hypoglossal canals fell within the range of those of
modern Homo sapiens."By the time we get to the Kabwe, about 400,000
years ago, you get a canal that's a modern size," Cartmill said. "And
that's true of all later Homo species, including Neanderthal."

Without accepting the time scales given in this announcement, the
information about speech abilities is still worthy of note.
Another recent study of Neanderthals, from The New York Times,
December 1, 1998, Tuesday, Science Desk section, "Neanderthal Or
Cretin? A Debate Over Iodine," by John Noble Wilford, suggests that the
neanderthals were modern humans with an iodine-decient diet. Iodine
deciency produces features remarkably similar to those observed in
Neanderthal remains.

An article from Creation in the Crossre, a creationist publication, of
November 1998, states "The human ear has three main parts to it and the
inner part of the ear has a canal that determines location in space and
time. The shape of the inner ear canal is related to the form of locomotion.
When the australopithecines were examined, it was shown that they did
not have the right kind of inner ear canal for bipedality." (The
australopithecines are another purported link between humans and other
primates.)

In real life, there is no problem distinguishing between humans and apes. I
have never seen a gorilla that I would confuse with a human, or vice
versa, despite the unusual appearances of various rare individuals. I never
heard of a gorilla or a chimpanzee escaping from the zoo and disguising
itself as a human for several months before it was found out and returned
to captivity. Even if an ape should evolve to a human stature with an ape
brain, it would be far from a human being. If we saw the creatures from
which fossils arose in real life, we might have very little di"culty knowing
whether they were humans or apes, but the scarcity of evidence leaves
plenty of room for interpretation.

One can understand in evolutionary terms why there should be animals
such as apes that are so close to humans. But why would God create a
creature that is so close to a human, but not quite? To answer this, we
have to reason from what we know or can infer about God's motives in
the creation. This may lead us to considerations that seem far removed
from those that are expected in this context. The original creation was
intended to contribute to the happiness of man and animal. We can
assume that in many cases the Lord created animals that would be a
delight to man, and created man to be a blessing to the animals. Even
today, both children and adults enjoy seeing gorillas and chimpanzees in
zoos. It is reasonable to assume that these creatures were partly made for
just this reason, to be a joy and entertainment to us. In a similar way, we
can speculate in unorthodox terms that an animal such as the koala bear
was created because of its cuddly appearance, which is a delight to
children and many adults. Even if such creatures don't seem well adapted
from our viewpoint, they serve their purposes very well.

"The Ape-Human Connection." The Ape-Human Connection. N.p., n.d.
Web. 16 May 2014.