Episode 33 – The Cheat: 99% Similar to Chimpanzees?

Introduction: an accusation of cheating

Anis: May God give you strength, Doctor. The Doctor: Anis, welcome. Anis: You asked me to come to the office, Doctor? Is something wrong? The Doctor: Anis, you are accused of cheating in the laboratory reports! You copied from your colleague—your colleague Shamshon. Anis: Me?! The Doctor: Yes, don’t deny it: all the evidence is against you! Your reports are 98.8% copied! Anis: How, Doctor?! The Doctor: I brought your reports and his and compared them. The same numbers, with insignificant changes, you cheat! Why… why, my son?! All you had to do was take the number from the machine, multiply it by itself with its digits reversed, and get the result. Why cheat! Anis: Slow down, Doctor! Before you accuse me of cheating, show me how I cheated. And by 98.8, too! The Doctor: Come… come… sit down; take these two reports as an example. Anis: Where is the cheating in these numbers, Doctor? The Doctor: All these matching numbers, and you can’t see the cheating?! Anis: Then let us examine them line by line and see where the cheating is. The Doctor: These numbers are complicated, and it is not easy to identify the cheating in them. Anis: Doctor… The Doctor: Be quiet! Forget these numbers; I am going to strike them out. Come here: this number is 58. Since you cheated, the number 5858 can be considered the same number, only repeated. Anis: Doctor, how is that copied?! I multiplied my number by itself with its digits reversed and the result is correct—completely different from Shamshon's result! If I had copied from him and made an error while copying, this product would not come out different from his… and correct as well! Do you see, Doctor? The Doctor: Coincidence, coincidence… Anis: How can it be coincidence?! The Doctor: Yes, coincidence, you cheat! I will not wrong you; to be safe… let us remove it from the calculation as well. Look here too: 992… look. Anis: Fine, what does it have to do with 2262?! The Doctor: Well, because you cheated, it can be considered the same as this 92 of yours, only in another place; you copied it incorrectly and, in your haste, dropped a 9. Anis: Doctor, how could it be by mistake?! It is in a different place from Shamshon's number! The product with the number’s digits reversed is correct! If I had copied it from Shamshon, it would not come out different and correct. The Doctor: Coincidence, coincidence… Anis: Doctor, how can it be coincidence?! The Doctor: Yes, coincidence, you cheat! But I still will not wrong you: I shall count it neither for you nor against you; remove it from the calculation. Come look here: 222. Since you cheated, it can be considered the same as 2262, only you added 6 by mistake. Anis: Doctor,… The Doctor: Quiet, quiet, quiet! Without your saying anything, I understood you: coincidence… and we shall remove it! Neither for you nor against you. Come look here: exactly the same numbers—25, 25, 75, 75, and 125, 125; a complete match! Cheating beyond all cheating! Anis: Doctor, these are necessary numbers, shared by all my colleagues and me; we use them to calibrate our instruments. The Doctor: No, no, you are a cheat. Come, I will regard these two numbers as different: 105, 101, 225, 255. Although they resemble each other greatly, there is only a one-digit difference; but never mind, I do not like injustice, so I will give you your due. In the same way, I went back through all your previous reports, Anis, and found that the matching rate between them and Shamshon's reports was 98.8%—a rate that convicts you one hundred percent. Is that not shameful, my son?! Why will you not learn?! Why cheat?! Why betrayal?! I want what is best for you, Anis…

Circular reasoning in the cheating case

Anis: Doctor, slow down! Before you start with the same old refrain of “I want what is best for you”… and “what”… and “why”… how many times did you say to me, “Since you cheated”?! You crossed out many numbers on the assumption that I cheated, and when you got 98.8, you concluded that I cheated. Is that not called circular reasoning? The Doctor: Reasoning what, my dear?! Anis: Circular reasoning: the evidence and the conclusion are the same thing.

Applying circular reasoning to genomic similarity

Anis: “Since I cheated,” as you say, “the matching rate between my report and Shamshon's is 98.8”; and since the matching rate is like that, I cheated. By the same method, the followers of the myth reached the claim that the rate of similarity between human and chimpanzee genetic material is 98.8%. It is one of their most widespread and comical jokes: an engaging story from the stories of the manufacture of false science; follow along with us.

How did they arrive at 98.8%? Since humans and chimpanzees evolved from a common origin, their genetic material can be compared through methods that assume they came from a common origin. With a few fabrications added, the similarity rate becomes 98.8%. Since the rate is so high, they must have evolved from a common origin. That is, the evidence is built on the claim: this is circular reasoning.

Let us see how this was done in five steps: first, striking out a large part of the genetic material in which there is no similarity between humans and chimpanzees; then using software that already assumes evolution is true; then interpreting the results by assuming evolution is true; then choosing one kind of difference in genetic material and ignoring the other differences; then ignoring studies that give results different from the desired percentage in advance. The first three steps take place in laboratories, and the final two take place in media propaganda.

We shall first clarify a point related to the second step, then proceed through the steps in order. Recall that the word “genome” means the genetic material of a living organism. In the third edition, published in 2015, of “Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics”—a globally recognized genetics textbook taught in universities—you find, at the beginning of its third chapter, the following summary statement very clearly: two genes or proteins are similar if we consider that they evolved from a common origin.

That is, in their comparisons of genetic material they use computer programs. The people who designed these programs assumed, in their design, that evolution is true and that humans and chimpanzees evolved from a common origin. Without that assumption, the similarity rates they speak of would not emerge. The book explains that common software for comparing genetic material—such as BLAST and HMMER—is designed in the same way: on the basis that evolution is true.

So what research says is: human and chimpanzee genomes are similar if we consider that they evolved from a common origin. Yet the propaganda of the myth altered the research conclusion into: human and chimpanzee genomes are similar, and therefore they evolved from a common origin. As usual, it is a magic touch from the followers of the myth: it changed “if” into “therefore.”

The kitchen of manufacturing the myth: the five steps

Let us now enter the kitchen in which the myth is manufactured and see its steps in order. We will begin with one of their best-known studies, published in 2002 in the American Journal of Human Genetics. What happened in that study? A partial sample of the chimpanzee genome was taken: 3 million pairs of nitrogenous bases. For simplicity, we will represent each pair by a letter. Thus they took 3 million letters from roughly 3 billion letters—“3 Giga Base Pairs,” the number of letters in the complete chimpanzee genome. Consequently, the sample they took was about 0.001 of the chimpanzee genome. They compared this sample to the human genome.

Step one: striking out dissimilar parts

The first step was to strike out part of this sample because there was no similarity in the first place. The researchers observed that two thirds of this sample resembled the human genome, while 28% of the sample was excluded from the study: it was not compared with humans for reasons that made comparison difficult. They also excluded 7%; why? “no region with similarity could be detected”—there were no regions of similarity between the two genomes. In other words, they struck out a total of 35% of the 0.001 chimpanzee sample they had chosen. Imagine, brothers: 35% was different and had been crossed out in advance, then the followers of the myth speak to you about 99% similarity. Remember how the Doctor crossed out large parts of the two reports from the start: the same method.

Step two: using software that assumes evolution

The second step is comparing what remains of the chimpanzee sample with humans. How did they compare it? By using software that already assumes evolution is true and that humans and chimpanzees have a common origin. Some people think, brothers, that when it is said there is a given percentage of similarity between human and chimpanzee genomes, this means they took chimpanzee genes and directly compared them one by one with human genes: the gene responsible for producing blood pigment with its counterpart in chimpanzees, the gene responsible for producing a digestive enzyme with its counterpart in chimpanzees, and so on. This is not correct.

Rather, they break up the genetic material of humans and chimpanzees and compare it using matrices built on mathematical equations. These matrices and equations assume evolution is true, as we showed from the book on bioinformatics. For example, the research under discussion compared genetic material using software called “Blat,” similar to BLAST, which the bioinformatics book states is based on evolution being true. The comparison is not direct; it contains complicated details explained in the bioinformatics book and in the original studies on which this software relied. In those details, they assume evolution is true.

Step three: interpreting results by assuming evolution

Now the results come out of this software, and the third step follows: interpreting the results on the basis of the assumption that evolution is true. That is, parts of the chimpanzee genome appear different from the human genome, yet they interpret the difference evolutionarily. For example, these two strings of letters are different from one another and have no relation to each other. Evolutionists tell you: no, what happened is that they came from a common ancestor, which passed the string unchanged to the chimpanzee; whereas in the human case, two letters inserted themselves by mistake through a random mutation at the position indicated by the red arrow. We will call this insertion “Insertion.”

That is, like the Doctor accusing Anis of copying the number 222 from his colleague and mistakenly adding 6, making it 2262. But wait… even if you assume that, differences still remain between the two strings in some letters: “T” is not “C,” and “G” is not “A.” They said that, since they evolved from a common origin, these two letters changed—in the human case—by a process we will call “Substitution,” which turned “T” into “C,” and another substitution process turned “G” into “A.”

That is, like the Doctor comparing 105 with 101 and 225 with 255 in Anis's and Shamshon's reports: a one-digit difference in each number. By what right did you decide this happened?! How did you grant yourselves the right to build this scenario?! They tell you: because they evolved from a common origin. But wait: if this is what really happened, those random processes would have disrupted the function of this part of the human genome. It has become agreed that long DNA sequences are not junk, as followers of the myth promoted before the results of the ENCODE project in 2012. Damage to genetic material generally ruins its function. For example, if these two strings we compared are two different genes in chimpanzees and humans, each gene produces a different, correct protein with a function different from the other—just as the products of Anis's numbers and Shamshon's were different and correct at the same time. (Anis's voice) Doctor, how is that copied? (Anis's voice) I multiplied my number by itself with its digits reversed and the result is correct, completely different from Shamshon's result. (Anis's voice) If I had copied from him and made an error in copying, the product would not be different from his… and correct as well! They tell you: coincidence… coincidence!

In the same way, researchers compared other parts of human and chimpanzee genomes and interpreted the differences through various explanations, all assuming common ancestry—just as the Doctor built his explanations on the assumption that Anis copied Shamshon. At one time they say that one or more letters fell away during descent from the common ancestor, calling this “Deletion,” the opposite of insertion. This is like the Doctor considering 92 a copied version of 992, with a 9 mistakenly dropped, even if the places of these letters are different on the chromosomes, just as the places of the numbers are different in the two reports. At another time they explain the difference by a repetition of some letters, calling it “Duplication,” just as the Doctor considered 5858 a copied repetition of 58.

In this way the study concluded that there were thousands of random substitution mutations and thousands of random insertion and deletion mutations. Each of these alleged insertion and deletion mutations ranged in length from one letter to 65 letters. Imagine, brother, that they regard 65 letters as having inserted themselves into a string by mistake, while this disrupted string still performs its proper function!

Here, at the third step in the kitchen of the myth, the role of laboratory research ended and the role of propaganda began. Notice, brothers: the subject of scientific research such as the study we discussed was not proving evolution through a similarity rate. Instead, researchers begin with the assumption that evolution is true; they know this, and they know that they use software that assumes it. Their research concerned the kinds of mutations they claim occurred and that, they say, separated humans from chimpanzees. Their research question was not whether evolution occurred, but how evolution occurred—that is, how humans and chimpanzees evolved from a common origin. Our problem with this research is its false starting assumption, the assumption that evolution is true, whose scientific invalidity we have shown and continue to show. The problem of the myth's propagandists is that they altered the studies, turned assumptions into results, and conveyed the false message that, without any assumptions, the difference between humans and chimpanzees is 1.2%, and that evolution is therefore a fact.

Step four: selecting one kind of difference

Let us see how the propagandists did that and move to step four in the kitchen of the myth. The propagandists looked at the results of the study mentioned and said: what is the percentage of differences resulting from the alleged substitution mutations that separated humans from chimpanzees, relative to the chimpanzee genome sample after a large part of it was struck out? The percentage is 1.24%—that is, 1.24%. What about the alleged insertion and deletion differences? The propagandists simply ignored these differences. If they included them, they would not obtain the resounding 98.8% figure; so they simply excluded them and highlighted only the rate representing alleged substitution differences, just as the Doctor excluded every type of difference between Anis's and Shamshon's reports and counted only what resembled substitution. What was the rate of substitution differences in the study? We said it was 1.2%… ah, 1.2% difference. 100% minus 1.2% equals 98.8% similarity! Therefore, human and chimpanzee genomes are 98.8% similar, and the myth is ready to be served at the tables of false science. Bon appétit to the rented minds.

35% of the sample was struck out from the outset; then the large differences that they claimed resulted from insertion and deletion were ignored; then a minor number that appeared in the study was selected to fool superficial people: the 1.2% figure. This is how the 98.8% myth was made. Notice how they display it to one decimal place—98.8—and do not round it to the nearest whole number, being so scrupulous about right and wrong, as the saying goes: to give you a feeling of scientific precision in this supposedly solid, sacred figure, while the real figure is neither 99 nor 98, nor 90, nor 80%. Remember this five-step recipe, brothers, for it is used to prepare many genome dishes in the kitchen of the myth.

Applying the five-step method to the 2005 study

For example, years after the study we have finished, in 2005 the journal “Nature” published the best-known study comparing chimpanzee and human genomes. Let us apply our five-step method to it step by step.

Step one: striking out a large part of the genetic material in which there is no similarity between humans and chimpanzees. Estimates of the human genome ranged from around 3 billion to around 3.6 billion. The researchers in this study simply struck out hundreds of millions of letters in the human genome and compared only 2.4 billion letters with the chimpanzee. What does “only” this amount mean? It gives the “Best alignment,” the greatest similarity. Thus between one fifth and one third of each of the human and chimpanzee genomes was struck out from the start because it showed no similarity. Consequently, the similarity rate ultimately calculated cannot reach—not even 90%, in fact.

Step two is using software that already assumes evolution is true. Indeed, they used “BLASTZ” and “Blat,” software that already assumes evolution is true.

Step three is interpreting the results evolutionarily. The researchers interpreted the differences between human and chimpanzee genomes in the same manner as the Doctor did with Anis's and Shamshon's reports: substitution, insertion, deletion, duplication, and others. What percentage of letters were allegedly substituted? 1.23%. And what percentage of letters allegedly underwent insertion or deletion? 3%. Before we continue: this 3% of immense genetic material means 5 million insertion or deletion operations, each reaching 65 letters, as we saw in the previous study. You claim millions of random operations happened this way, and yet they produced a human and a chimpanzee, each complete and coherent. They tell you: yes… by coincidence. But what are these coincidences that make millions of changes at particular places in genetic material without changing sensitive regions in the rest of it?! A single change is sometimes fatal, so neither a human nor a chimpanzee forms. They tell you again: coincidence… do you not know the saying, “What a happy coincidence!” In any case, let us return to their rates: 1.23% substitution differences and 3% insertion and deletion differences. As the researchers expressed it, this 3% “dwarfs the 1.23% difference”: the 1.23% rate is much smaller and looks dwarfed beside 3%. Here comes the role of the propagandists on the production line in the kitchen of the myth. Let us move to step four: selecting one kind of difference and ignoring the others. They ignore the large figures and mention only the dwarfed figures. The propagandists, simply—and I do not say innocently—ignored the 3% caused by insertion and deletion, ignored other figures, and mentioned only substitution. Naturally, they also ignored what is more important than all of this: that one fifth to one third of the genetic material was deleted in advance in step one, and that the software assumes evolution in step two. Once again, 100% minus 1.2% equals 98.8%. So the show-stopping figure has been established beyond doubt, and another dazzling dish is served to rented minds. On the myth-supporting channel “Minute Earth,” there is a very simple film titled “Are We Really 99% Chimp?” It explained part of what happened: the clipping performed on the large differences in the genomes of chimpanzees and humans—that is, step 1 in our method. Let us follow part of that video: the researchers simply excluded all the large, different parts, deleting a total of 1.3 billion letters, then compared the remaining 2.4 billion letters letter by letter and found them 98.77% identical. Thus, yes, we share 99% of genetic material with chimpanzees if we ignore 18% of their genetic material and 25% of ours. So the researchers simply excluded large differences, removed large parts of chimpanzee genetic material and other parts of human genetic material, and compared what remained.

Step five: ignoring contrary studies

There are studies, by researchers among the followers of the myth, which observed that there is no justification at all for ignoring one type of difference and considering another. They concluded that the difference rate should be 4%, not 1%. Here comes the fifth step in manufacturing the myth: the art of ignoring, which the myth's propaganda masters in order to preserve the show-stopping figure of 99%; it ignores such studies. Another study reached a 95% similarity rate; the propaganda ignores it to preserve the 99% figure. A later study found a 23% difference, meaning 77% similarity rather than 98 or 99%; the propaganda ignores it for the 99% figure. In an even later study in 2013, the researchers did not perform clipping and striking-out operations, so the resulting similarity rate was 70%, with some leniency—as the researchers mentioned—without which it could have been lower. Naturally, the propaganda ignores it for the 99% figure. This 99% figure is dear to the hearts of the followers of the myth. You see them say that about 99% of scientists support evolution; God willing, we will address this joke too. Incidentally, it is the same percentage by which Arab presidents win elections among their peoples: the same percentage… and the same credibility. Do not be surprised, brothers, by this great variation in percentage because the methodology differs: the selection of the sample, clipping, striking out, and the way the software that compares human and chimpanzee genetic material is designed. The comparison is not simple and direct, free from manipulation and assumptions, as the propaganda of the myth leads you to imagine.

Similarity figures with mice

Of course, if you confront the followers of the myth with some of this and tell them, “How did you grant yourselves the right to assume the myth is true, produce percentages, and then build the truth of the myth on them?” their usual answer comes: similarity in genetic material is not the only evidence; we have much evidence… from many methods… fossils… and so on… and so on. Go with them to the fossils: why did you interpret this fossil on the basis that evolution is true? Is that not a form of circular reasoning? Then they tell you: no, we have evidence from the 98.8% similarity between human and chimpanzee genetic material. A myth with neither head nor tail!

Anis: Is that not called circular reasoning? The Doctor: Reasoning what, my dear?! Anis: Circular reasoning. The Doctor: Neither circular nor square! It is not only the 98.8% rate that proved to me you cheated; I have other evidence. Anis: What evidence, Doctor? The Doctor: Lots of evidence: the success vitamin in Dutch tomatoes that explains their superiority; the button in a car with no function; how the lizard turned into a bird; Riyad who stole the million; and the external shape of your report resembles Shamshon's report. I have even given the fact of your cheating a name: the “Shamshonese Theory.” The matter is finished… and I am now collecting more evidence for this fact.

One more question: since, according to you, the matter is about headline-grabbing percentages without looking at details, are chimpanzees the only creatures for which we can see a rate such as 99% with humans by your method, followers of the myth? No. According to research in the well-known evolutionary journal Nature, 99% of the genes of one species of mouse have counterparts in humans. It is a figure different in meaning from the previous figures, but it too can impress superficial people. Why do you not promote this number as evidence for evolution too? Is it because convincing people of close common origins with mice is harder than convincing them of common origins with chimpanzees? Is it because this exposes the absurdity of comparison in this way? Is it because it shows your evolutionary trees are worthless—trees built on morphological and structural similarity, whose comedy we showed in the previous episode, and genetic similarity, whose comedy we are showing in this episode? Is it because it is another miserable story of laughably inconsistent figures? With different comparison methods, striking out, and clipping, you see a rate of 99% in a Nature paper, while on the website of the United States National Institutes of Health, “NIH,” the similarity rate in regions translated into proteins is 85%, while in the overwhelming majority of genetic material the similarity rate is below 50%. Despite all this, evolutionists show an image of 92% similarity between humans and mice to convince you of gradualism: that randomness and blind selection have worked over millions of years, such that the greater the genetic similarity, the greater the resemblance to humans. The Natural History Museum in London, with the University of Chicago Press in America, produces this book: “99% Ape: How Evolution Adds Up”—99% ape: how evolution adds up. Another chapter in science tailored to order: there is some 99% similarity rate with mice, and 92%, and 85% in some parts, and below 50% in others; there is 99% similarity with chimpanzees, and 96%, and 95%, and 77%, and 70%. Take, propagandists of the myth, whatever you like, ignore what you do not like, then go out to people with a conclusion that evolution is true and with drawings of evolutionary trees. Thus science is bent to serve Darwinian creed. This is the story of 99%. Once you understand it, brother, smile as you read in popular science magazines such as Scientific American—which educates the public—that we share 99% of our genetic material with chimpanzees. Smile when you see Dr. Richard Dawkins speaking; smile when you see him addressing his followers like children, giving them the impression that the matter is simply a random mutation that happened by mistake one day here and another mutation there, producing humans and separating them from chimpanzees. Then laugh heartily when you hear the authorities of the myth say that molecular heredity and genetics have settled the matter, confirmed evolution, and ended the case.

Conclusion: the fallacy of circular reasoning

Anis: Dean, you do not accept injustice. The Doctor: Dean, I have proved that Anis cheated by 99%. The Dean: 99%?! What does that mean? Explain it to me, brother, please. The Doctor: His reports and Shamshon's reports are the same: 99% alike. The Dean: Your name is Anis? Anis: Anis. The Dean: Out… quickly! Quickly! Out, out! Come, Doctor, let us talk a little. The Doctor: Certainly. (Voice in Anis's head) Anis, I heard you cheated, from Shamshon by 99%! Shame! Oh, oh, oh—99%! 99%! Shame, shame! 99%!

Adnan Ibrahim: 99% of the chimpanzee genome matches the human genome! About 99%! It is the closest to us at all; something extraordinary! This undoubtedly caused humans great pain.

Nidhal Guessoum: We found that they are indeed identical at a rate that reaches… that is, exceeds—at least for these primates—94–95%; some reach 99% identity.

Thus, beloved brothers, in this episode we discussed the fallacy of circular reasoning, which evolutionists use frequently at the level of genetic material and elsewhere. Together we saw what happens in the kitchen of the myth: a large part of genetic material is struck out; then software that assumes evolution is true is used; then its results are interpreted on an evolutionary basis; then a number representing one type of difference is selected to manufacture the action figure while larger figures representing other differences are ignored; then other studies that yield numbers entirely different from the desired figures are ignored; then the same operations are performed with other creatures such as mice; then numbers suited to the alleged gradualism are selected; then it is claimed that these numbers indicate common origin. Eight steps: “Darkness, some of it upon other darkness” [An-Nur 24:40]! Yet the ninth and most important step remains. You may think, brother, that in this episode I was eager for the similarity between human and chimpanzee genomes to be as low as possible. That is not true. All I wanted to show is that we are dealing with liars and that the 99% figure is media propaganda, repeated by some through ignorance or lies. After that, there is no difference to us whether the similarity rate in genetic material is 70%, 99%, 99.9%, or 100%. Similarity is explained and expected; however high it may be, it never affects our observation of God's greatness in His creation. Rather, whenever we see similarity in one measure and difference in another, we increase in reverence, glorification, and submission to the One who said: “Indeed, all things We created with predestination.” How? We will see that in the next episode, where we will see a chapter of the greatness of creation, and with it a chapter of the comedy of evolutionists—not only in fabricating numbers, but in interpreting numbers as well. That is their ninth step in manufacturing the myth. Follow along with us, and peace be upon you.