1. Comment #397188 by bentleyd on July 16, 2009 at 1:41 pm

These little video snippets should come in very handy for countering creationist fundies with their short attention spans. Thanks Richard and Josh!

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2. Comment #397192 by mannylee on July 16, 2009 at 1:50 pm

So we're just posh apes really. Thinking about it, we're not even posh

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3. Comment #397197 by Primate on July 16, 2009 at 1:56 pm

I wish he had compared their anatomy, too. A human and chimp skeleton side-by-side are nearly identical, save for scale and posture. The side-by-side comparison, I think, is more visually impacting than letter comparison in gene sequences. It's just that this video, as non-technical as it is, may still fly over the heads of people who need it the most.

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4. Comment #397199 by Bruno on July 16, 2009 at 1:57 pm

Would be nice to see an explanation of chromosome #2 within the human genome. I have seen the video of Ken Miller discussing chromosome #2, but seeing Dawkins do it in even a more concise way would be valuable.

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5. Comment #397222 by the archangel on July 16, 2009 at 2:31 pm

These videos are awesome. I hope they keep coming.

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6. Comment #397223 by mattincinci on July 16, 2009 at 2:33 pm

excellnt video ...if you liked the video make a donation to the Richard Dawkins Foundation

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7. Comment #397225 by the great teapot on July 16, 2009 at 2:39 pm

Looks quite good from what I've seen so far.
I'll watch the second half tomorrow.:)
Happy Lunavesary everyone.

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8. Comment #397229 by Deek on July 16, 2009 at 2:42 pm

These really are superb. I've always thought that real genius is clarifying the complex.
Just compare these little gems with the tortured doublespeak of creationists or theologists.
I'd urge the foundation to get these out to the widest possible audience. I confess I don't know how but I'm sure the good people here are loaded with ideas.
Perhaps the Beeb would be interested? a little visual equivalent of "thought for the day"?

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9. Comment #397248 by Mango on July 16, 2009 at 3:13 pm

The link to download doesn't work. [Sorry, just fixed it. - Josh]

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10. Comment #397249 by gyokusai on July 16, 2009 at 3:14 pm

I love this series. Its snack size comes in handy if you don't have much time, they're well thought-out, and beautifully executed by Josh. Richard's just lovely, and I'm not exactly missing any well-worn interview questions (not to speak of live callers).

^_^J.

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11. Comment #397256 by mordacious1 on July 16, 2009 at 3:49 pm

Where's Paabo?

Do they have the evil twin Paabo in the black and yellow shirt?

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12. Comment #397263 by BweWeston on July 16, 2009 at 5:04 pm

Really enjoying these small videos thankyou.

I poked around a little and found a link to this on Paabo's website.

http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/31/problems/

The animation is a little clunky (being my profession I feel it's ok to comment >.<) but i found it interesting as someone not knowing too much about the subject.

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13. Comment #397270 by mmurray on July 16, 2009 at 6:10 pm

If you like the movie the book and T-shirt are good as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Third-Chimpanzee-Evolution-Future-Animal/dp/0060845503/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247793005&sr=8-1

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/sciencemath/9899/

Michael

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14. Comment #397273 by Pluvialis on July 16, 2009 at 6:26 pm

Maybe this is completely dense of me, but for the life of me I don't how you can write out the human genome like that when obviously two people are going to have As, Ts, Cs and Gs non-matching in one or two places unless they're twins.

So...what, do scientists know precisely which As, Ts, Cs and Gs never change from one human to the next? Are they sure? When you see, say, 5% (or whatever the number is) of the letters in a chimpanzee's genome are different from a human's, how do you get from that observation to a general statement like "there are 5% (or whatever the number is) genes that distinguish chimpanzees from humans".

Confused :/

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15. Comment #397279 by AverageSwede on July 16, 2009 at 7:58 pm

Svante Pääbo was recently in the news on the topic of Neandertal genome too. I'd love to see Richard interview him.

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16. Comment #397286 by shekar raghavan on July 16, 2009 at 9:00 pm

How much do the genomes differ? Before the human genome project, we were thought to match with chimps 98%, but now I understand the gap is bigger.

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17. Comment #397299 by Richard Dawkins on July 16, 2009 at 10:09 pm

Maybe this is completely dense of me, but for the life of me I don't how you can write out the human genome like that when obviously two people are going to have As, Ts, Cs and Gs non-matching in one or two places unless they're twins.

You are right, I should have explained better, you are entirely right to be confused by this. Let me try to say what I should have said in the filmed vignette.

If we were to lay out the genomes of two individuals in the same way, say yours and mine, we would again see huge lengths of identical DNA sequences, plus a few little Paabo icons to indicate differences. But the Paabos would be EVEN RARER than when we lay out the genomes of a human and a chimp. When scientists work on 'the' human genome, they either choose the genome of one particular individual (such as Dr Craig Venter himself) or they work on a mixture of, say, 150 individuals and take a statistical average in those few DNA slots where there are differences. The number of differences between a pair of humans is just much less than the number of differences between a human and a chimp.

Richard

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18. Comment #397305 by natselrox on July 16, 2009 at 10:52 pm

Wouldn't the video have been much better if showed more clearly the 'littleness' of the difference? Just a thought.
Nevertheless, keep up the good work.

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19. Comment #397318 by Follow Peter Egan on July 17, 2009 at 12:58 am

Extremely useful vignette. I'm going to forward the link to a few people I know who've shown an interest in this but don't know too much about it yet.

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20. Comment #397326 by Pluvialis on July 17, 2009 at 1:42 am

Comment #397299 by Richard Dawkins

Thanks for the clarification! I get the picture now.

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21. Comment #397502 by markystar on July 17, 2009 at 9:14 am

i've been a long time fan and lurker on this site (i get daily updates via RSS, well, daily... lol). and i finally registered and can comment. so hello to all the faces i already know and after some time, hopefully you'll get to know me.

i was really excited about this series, especially in light of richard's new book "the greatest show on earth" (terrifically accurate title, by the way).

as a long time atheist (but a passive one), i'm more and more inspired to become more activist (because of sam harris, richard, christopher hitchens and pz myers). anyways, the whalesâ†\'rhinos episode was brilliant.

in this episode i was left with a cliffhanger.
the chart was interesting, but i feel it would be unconvincing (to a fence-sitting creationist).

like in the concise whale-rhino episode, i would have liked to have seen more of the diachronic changes of these animals after their separation from the common ancestor.

anyways, this is a brilliant series and nothing will keep me away from this site!!! :)

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22. Comment #397508 by Jos Gibbons on July 17, 2009 at 9:39 am

Comment #397502 by markystar

Glad to have you. It's a hippo, by the way, not a rhino. As for human/chimp intermediates, unfortunately we would be limited to the human side of the lineage, since chimpanzees' post-split ancestors lived in Africa, where fossils simply haven't formed. I know - weird.

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23. Comment #397561 by rod-the-farmer on July 17, 2009 at 1:18 pm

Great stuff. If I might make a small suggestion, I would ask that we have a link to a video that shows how these DNA sequences are found. One can easily imagine the die-hard creationist saying "I don't know where you get all that DNA stuff, I just know I am not related to monkeys".

It would be nice to show how we get the DNA sequencing, and mention the latest technology (see Dawkins/Venter tour video) that enables us to generate DNA sequences for individuals in a few hours.

I also think it would be good for someone who is willing to do the swab thing for Spencer Wells, get their own DNA, and then publish it right here so we can all see what sorts of things are revealed. I' would be willing, I just am a bit short of cash to pay for it at the moment.

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24. Comment #397572 by locutus7 on July 17, 2009 at 1:59 pm

Very good video. My suggestions run along lines similar to above posters:

1. give some sort of sense in overall percentage of difference between chimp and man (say 97% similar, for example).

2. And, use a phenotypic example to show the meaning of a particular difference: example: "here the chimp has a cluster of AAT instead of ATA, and that means he will have a smaller frontal cortex."

As a non-biologist, that would be helpful.

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25. Comment #397573 by ricklend on July 17, 2009 at 2:00 pm

I don't see how one could explain evolution and the makeup of the human genome any better or simpler than Dr. Dawkins does. He seems to have a passion for making sure his explanations are understood by all those who are interested in what he has to say.

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26. Comment #397576 by Sciros on July 17, 2009 at 2:05 pm

2. And, use a phenotypic example to show the meaning of a particular difference: example: "here the chimp has a cluster of AAT instead of ATA, and that means he will have a smaller frontal cortex."

I was under the impression that we're not quite there yet in terms of research. Maybe for some DNA sequences we can draw reliable correlations to phenotype, but I don't think it's very many right now.

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27. Comment #397580 by Gregg Townsend on July 17, 2009 at 2:11 pm

21. Comment #397502 by markystar

Welcome and well met!

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28. Comment #397587 by Bernd_M. on July 17, 2009 at 2:19 pm

Thank you very much for this video....
I would like to have a carpet of those genom-sequences at home :)

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29. Comment #397591 by ridelo on July 17, 2009 at 2:43 pm

Surprised that we do weird things from time to time?

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30. Comment #397616 by HappyPrimate on July 17, 2009 at 4:58 pm

First time I ever saw chimps at the zoo, at about age 4, it was obvious to me that we were very much more alike than different. Maybe that helped me fully accept the concept of evolution when I later learned about it.

Liked the video very much but was sorry Richard omitted to explain more fully about the comparison method. I am sure he explains things far better in his new book which I am anxiously awaiting.

A hardy welcome to Markystar.

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31. Comment #397639 by weavehole on July 17, 2009 at 7:45 pm

I would also like to add my thanks to Josh, Richard and Judy.

On top of that, as an interesting side note, I think I'm right in saying that we also share something like 60% of our genes with bananas.

I think I read that it in an old Steven Pinker book. I remember being struck by how good an illustration it was of the fundamental interconnectedness of all life on this little rock we share.

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32. Comment #397811 by JimmyGiro on July 18, 2009 at 11:30 am

If the differences between man and chimp dna is small, and the difference between two people is very small; does this imply that their is a lot of redundancy of genes in a chromosome?

I ask this in light of the claim that the shrinking Y-chromosome of men is supposed by some as indication of men's eventual extinction; whereas if there is wholesale genetic redundancy, the shrinking Y-chromosome would be a sign of increasing genetic efficiency.

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33. Comment #397881 by michaelbme on July 18, 2009 at 9:18 pm

I love these short videos! I will probably donate some money on Monday (when I deposit my paycheck). Richard Dawkins is an superb instructor. I wish that I could have had him as my biology teacher back in high school.

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34. Comment #397897 by Simonw on July 19, 2009 at 2:48 am

I think the video is too short as despite having read a lot of layman's books on the topic, I've no idea what a lot of difference would look like in a genome.

As discussed above it should show the variation between humans, and perhaps between humans and carrots, or humans and nematode worms, and give me some numbers (or a link to the diagram in question).

Some of these differences are presumably silent mutations, so result in no coding change, so they are less significant as regards making a chimp/human. And I understand mutations might accumulate at different rates depending if the DNA in question is important or not. Looking at a random line without any context in this regard doesn't inform one much about the significance. Perhaps explaining how we know the 6 million years, if it mutation rate, or from fossils, how well do they results correlate?

I'm only 6 million years from a chimp, my brain still leaks, and needs lots of repetition.

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35. Comment #398332 by antd on July 21, 2009 at 2:47 am

I'm confused by Richard Dawkins' comment here.

He seems to say that if you lay out two different human genomes there will be *more* difference than if you laid out a human and a chimp's.

Surely this cannot be true? I would appreciate if someone could clear this up. :)

"But the Paabos would be EVEN RARER than when we lay out the genomes of a human and a chimp"

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36. Comment #398342 by Bacchus on July 21, 2009 at 3:35 am

Comment #398332 by antd

I'm confused by Richard Dawkins' comment here.

He seems to say that if you lay out two different human genomes there will be *more* difference than if you laid out a human and a chimp's.

Richard said

But the Paabos would be EVEN RARER than when we lay out the genomes of a human and a chimp

The Paabos icons that indicate differences between two humans would be EVEN RARER (not occur as often) as the Paabos icons that indicate differences between a human and a chimpanzee therefore the DNA sequence between two humans would be more identical than the DNA sequence between a human and a chimpanzee.
That I what I understand Richard to be saying.

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37. Comment #398379 by antd on July 21, 2009 at 8:07 am

Oh yes, I understood.

I didn't read the word "THAN" in his post XD
If you read the sentence without 'than'....

Silly me :)

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38. Comment #398404 by drmaize64 on July 21, 2009 at 9:50 am

As you might deduce from my user name, I have a thing for corn. In fact, I am a corn breeder. If my 25 years as an applied evolutionist has taught me anything it is that genes do not generally act alone. There are genetic correlations (pleiotrophy), inter-allelic interactions (epistatis), and intra-allelic interactions (dominance/overdominance) that affect the phenotypes of the plants I select. And don't even talk about epigenetics, it's all too much. It's so hard to pin down the best genotypes based on phenotype that it takes multiple years and environments to get a reliable estimate of a phenotype's value. So, in the past several years I have been using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to elucidate these genotypes. What's my point£ Well, although there are just small differences in nucleotide sequences between chimps and humans (or among plants in my breeding nurseries), it is after all those differences that make us what we are. We're on the cutting edge of learning these answers, but I predict the small differences we see in our genomes today will turn out to be larger differences than we expect. BTW, did you know that the genome of maize is similar in size to that of humans£

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39. Comment #398468 by WereGryphon on July 21, 2009 at 12:21 pm

Comment #397286 by shekar raghavan

Here is a good clarification of the subject correcting many creationisty lies:
http://efference.blogspot.com/2008/11/human-chimp-dna-similarities-truth-and.html

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40. Comment #398786 by drmaize64 on July 22, 2009 at 10:00 am

As more genomes are sequenced, we geneticists are learning completely unexpected things. Up until recently, many geneticists believed in the one gene one protein theory. But, with 25,000 genes and 90,000 proteins in humans, we've had to re-think that theory. It turns out that there is a gene based alternative splicing mechanism going on that results in different proteins being made from the same gene basis the cell's needs. Some of it is specific to primates and functions mostly in the brain. This is part of the reason we can share so much with chimps and yet be so different. Does this mean our concept of allelic forms of genes needs some modification£

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41. Comment #399682 by cornbread_r2 on July 26, 2009 at 6:10 am

Anyone:

Is it true that male humans are closer genetically to male chimps than they (male humans) are to female humans?

Thanks and aloha

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42. Comment #399685 by SaintStephen on July 26, 2009 at 6:40 am

Comment #399682 by cornbread_r2 on July 26, 2009

I just watched the Craig Venter video, and this question came up, tangentially at least. Human genomes differ by about 1-2%, while human genomes differ from chimpanzee genomes by about 5%.

I believe this is what Dawkins said in the video clip. The conversation came near the end, and it's 50 minutes long, if you want to verify.

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43. Comment #399966 by drmaize64 on July 27, 2009 at 5:23 pm

Are human males more closely related to chimp males than to human females£ Why would you think we (I'm a human male) are more closely related to chimp males than to human females£ That concept, if true, would turn our knowledge of life upside down! Of course we can't mate with chimp females and produce viable offspring, nor can chimp males mate with human females and produce viable offspring. We don't even share the same number of chromosomes.

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44. Comment #400389 by cornbread_r2 on July 29, 2009 at 6:18 am

SaintStephen: Thanks for the reply and reference.

drmaize64: I'm sorry for my imprecise question. I did not mean to imply that humans and chimps are genetically close enough to be able to breed successfully. It was, as SaintStephen deduced, a question as to how the total number of genetic differences between human and chimp males compares with the total number of genetic differences between human males and human females. I have since read in another source that, excluding the X and Y sex chromosomes, human males and human females are genetically virtually identical.

Edited for clarity.

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