The Natural History Museum in London (UK) is publishing a book that's supposed to explain evolution: 99% Ape: How evolution adds up. Here's part of the press release.The book introduces the topic of evolution, and leading experts at The Open University explain this fundamental yet often complex subject, guiding the reader through the latest evidence.I'm certainly curious about what the book might have to say about morality but that's not my major concern.
Charles Darwin was mocked for suggesting that humans have apes for ancestors, but every scientific advance in the study of life in the last 150 years has confirmed the reality of evolution.
Read the latest research about how new species evolve, uncover the flaws in ‘intelligent design’, find out what evolution has to say about psychology, the development of the human mind and morality, and how we are still evolving, in this new book.
My major concern is the title. Out of thousand of possible titles why did they choose one that is factually incorrect? Humans are NOT 99% ape—they are 100% ape. Humans are apes.
If the title is referring to our relationship to chimpanzees then even that is misleading. There are plenty of studies to suggest that the overall percent similarity might be less than 99%, especially if you take indels (insertions/deletion) into account. Why make trouble for yourself by promoting the 99% figures when there are many other titles that could have been chosen?
Judging by the title, this book may do more to contribute to confusion among the general public than to educating them. What a wasted opportunity. (The cover image isn't what I would have chosen either.)
5 comments :
Methyltransferase!
I heard that they were expanding the series to include "74% Mammal" and "43% Vertebrate".
:)
I'm not so bothered about the Ape-thing. I've had fights about this but in the end a common, colloquial definition of Ape is "2. (loosely) any primate except humans" (from Random House Dictionary). I wish that were more precise but for a catchy, popular title it's alright. After all, it was only about 35 years ago that chimps first joined Hominadae, before that humans were kept separate from the (other) great apes. Can we really insist that the common English term "ape" must strictly align with our taxonomical trees?
Besides, I've seen biologists argue over whether humans are fish, talk about your triumph of pedantry over communication.
Silly title notwithstanding, it reminded me this:
The oft-repeated "humans and chimps" are 99% identical" is based on DNA sequence. But when it comes to whole proteins, the picture is different.
85% of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15716009
Keeping in mind that a single amino acid substitution has a potential to dramatically alter protein function, the significance of 85% difference seems huge.
Why can't they concentrate on the single most important thing; explaining the mechanisms of evolution.
r.e. indels, see Reed Cartwright's latest post at Pandasthumb:
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/12/indel-length-di.html
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