Wasn’t darwinism as a whole disproved by the found information on DNA? And that we couldn’t have possibly evolved from Monkeys, or even those Neanderthal guys?
I know you have already had a few answers to this question, but they don’t really give any of the evidence, so I thought I would add to it. These are just two pieces of evidence that show we are related to chimpanzees. There are more… many, many more actually. But these are two good ones to start with:
- Malfunctioning L-gulono-gamma-lactone oxidase (GLO). Most mammals can synthesize Vitamin C. Humans, chimps, and oddly enough… guinea pigs, can not synthesize Vitamin C. In other words, if they don’t get it in their diets, they get sick.
Geneticists know that it is unlikely that big sections of genetic material to disappear, so they expected to find a malfunctioning genes to explain why we can’t. GLO is what they found. Not amazingly, chimpanzees had a malfunctioning GLO that was very similar to that in humans. Also not surprisingly, the malfunction in chimps and humans were much closer than the malfunction in humans an guinea pigs.
It makes sense that humans and chimps would have similar DNA to contend with similar environmental challenges. But why would they have similar mistakes in their DNA?
- Endogenous retroviruses. Retrovirus is a virus that survives by transcribing its RNA into the DNA of the host cell. When the cell replicates the virus’s RNA replicates right along with it. Usually, it dies when the host dies, but it become endogenous if it gets into the gametes. In that case, all of the children of this individual will carry the virus in their DNA.
Not surprisingly, for evolutionary scientists, we are able to identify the same endogenous retroviruses, in the same places, in chimps and humans. The simplest explanation is that all chimps and all humans descended from one ancestor who had this virus.
I was going to give you more pieces of evidence, but I’m getting tired of writing. I’ll leave you with this thought…
Imagine that you were in a court room deciding on a murder trial. The prosecution tells you that the victim scratched the attacker, and samples of the DNA were found under her fingernails. The defendant in the trial matches the description given by neighbours, and the defendant has scratches on his face.
You might not be convinced at this point. After all, lots of people look alike, and lots of people have scratches on their face. But then you find that the defendant has a rare genetic mutation and a disease that affected their DNA. Both the mutation and the retrovirus are found in the DNA under the finger nails.
What would you think then? Would you think that it was just a coincidence?