Samples - New! Improved! 3.5% Less Chimpanzee!

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New! Improved! 3.5% Less Chimpanzee!
First published February 24, 2003 in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus

Not too long ago I read about a study that concluded that humans and chimps have less in common genetically than anyone had previously thought. It seems that a biologist named Roy Britten at the California Institute of Technology has used his computer and a whole bunch of numbers to demonstrate that the genes of humans, once believed to be about 98.5% identical those of chimps, are in fact only about 95% the same.

What a relief!

Here we sit at the top of the food chain, feeling like we have a pretty good handle on where we fit in the world (top of the food chain…), and along come a bunch of latter-day Charles Darwins trying to use their precious 98.5% figure to prove that we really are descended from apes, just because chimpanzees have more genetic material in common with the human species than your brother-in-law.

These evolutionist swine were always happy to throw the statistics in our faces. "98.5%," they would giggle, "Have a banana, Monkey Boy!" They were always using their "science" to argue against the obvious fact that mankind was created in one afternoon from a handful of mud, a couple of twigs and some duct tape.

Ok, I know what a lot of you are thinking, that Jennifer Lopez is really pretty good looking, even though her image is sleazy and her music is completely derivative. But those of you who are still paying attention to this column are thinking that the difference between 95% and 98.5% isn’t all that big of a deal.

How wrong you are. It’s 3.5%!

3.5% is enough to account for opposing thumbs, which virtually define human endeavor. Without opposing thumbs, chimps can’t build modern civilizations, unfasten bra straps with one hand, hitch hike, juggle three running chain saws, or properly grip a handgun.

3.5% was enough to give Michel Lotito of Grenoble, France the imagination to go boldly beyond the chimp’s humdrum diet of leaves, vegetables and the occasional cockroach. He chose instead to eat bicycles, supermarket carts, TV sets, chandeliers, a coffin, and a Cessna aircraft (I’m not making any of this up). Being French, Lotito probably ate all this stuff slathered with béarnaise sauce and garlic, but still…

3.5% was enough to let mankind move out of the primitive forests and circuses where chimps live, and move to subdivisions where we are free to mow the grass and throw potlucks without having to pick the lice out of our neighbors’ hair.

3.5% is enough to let us stop hanging out in trees, foraging for food and swatting flies. Instead we can build cities and factories to produce miracles of technology like deodorant, SUVs, cheap firearms, bra straps that can be unfastened by anybody with an opposing thumb, global warming, leaching landfills, nuclear waste, and acid rain.

3.5% is enough to let us develop spoken language so we can recite poetry, sing songs and shout obscenities at right fielders. It’s also enough to let us develop rap music, so millionaires in baggy pants can shout obscenities at teenagers.

3.5% is enough for us to maintain a detailed record of human history. Unlike chimps, who are not even aware that they keep making the same mistakes again and again, we humans have the ability to recognize and write down our mistakes each and every time we make them.

3.5% was enough for ancient men to grow beyond hitting each other over the head with sticks like chimps do. We’ve spent the past 25 million years technologically evolving so that we could develop really good weapons to blast people into being peaceful (there’s hardly anybody more peaceful than somebody who’s been blown to bits). In this way we can make sure that everybody agrees with our version of the detailed record of human history.

So I say thanks, Roy, for that extra 3.5%.

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