Editor’s note: For the full “Chimps and Critics” series by Dr. Luskin, see here.

In my initial post on human-chimp genetic differences, I noted that the supposed 1 percent genetic difference is an icon of evolution, as Jonathan Wells defined it. And, as Dr. Wells also noted, these icons are often like “zombies” that just won’t go away and die. I added:

If that’s true, then don’t expect the 1 percent statistic to go away anytime soon. In fact, as I mentioned, the new Nature paper makes it very difficult to dig up the figures I’ve quoted here, so I suspect we’ll continue to see zombie numbers quoted, despite what the newly published data shows. 

Unfortunately, this prediction has already been confirmed. Evolution defenders generally accept the new evidence showing that humans and chimps are 15 percent genetically different. So as strategy, they downplay the new number, claiming that most of these great genomic differences are junk and don’t mean anything, focusing instead on the 1.6 percent single nucleotide variation differences. Or, they change the topic to human-human genetic variation, and try to distract us from the toppling of this icon. 

Another Major Mistake

Along the way, critics have committed another major mistake: misstating my arguments. 

Theistic evolutionist biologist Joel Duff at the University of Akron posted two YouTube videos that critiqued my arguments. Although he focused his comments on what various young earth creationists have been saying about human-chimp genetic similarity, he wrongly claimed that I have been arguing that this newly reported evidence of 15 percent genetic differences between humans and chimps refute evolution. Before going further, I need to say something very positive about Dr. Duff: I contacted him privately about his misstatements and he responded graciously and apologetically. I believe the errors were not malicious and I greatly appreciated his response. 

But for the sake of correcting the record, Duff had said that I had claimed that the 15 percent genetic difference refutes evolution and “completely upturns the evolutionary scenario.” I never said that; I’ve been quite clear that I don’t think we yet know what the implications of this new data are for unguided human evolution. It could turn out to be a problem, but nobody has done the analysis yet, so I offer no opinion at this time. 

He also claims that I said between humans and chimps DNA is “so different” that humans and chimps “can’t possibly be related.” It’s true that I’m a skeptic of human-chimp common ancestry, but I’ve also been quite clear that I don’t believe that the percent genetic difference tells us anything about common ancestry. Yes common ancestry is one way to explain functional genetic similarities, but common design can also explain them. The percentage of genetic similarity is simply not a dispositive argument. As I stated:

Whatever the degree of similarity, they could reflect common design based upon a common blueprint as much as they could reflect common descent.

Duff made another mistake — but again I want to thank him. I contacted him about this second error, and he very graciously apologized to me. Again, I raise this simply to correct the record in hopes that other critics won’t make the same mistake in the future.

In one of his videos, Duff criticizes me as “an author who has a PhD in geology and doesn’t have any significant real experience with genetics and evolutionary biology.” That’s not true, as my background includes many courses in evolutionary biology including at the graduate level. But the biggest irony here was that, in critiquing young earth creationists, Duff is himself a biologist who spends much of his time talking about geology! Thankfully, Duff realized that a biologist who talks about geology should probably not critique a geologist for talking about biology. Again, I appreciated his kind response to me on this point. 

Anachronistic Errors

University of Minnesota biologist PZ Myers also wrote a response that provided a classic example of his preference for name-calling. This time around it was things like “the Intelligent Design wackos at the Discovery Institute,” or “lying creationist,” or at one point simply calling me an “a**.” PZ never fails to keep things lively! 

The irony is that his tirade is based upon an anachronistic error. Most of PZ’s post is devoted to attacking a creationist biologist named Jeff Tomkins at the Institute for Creation Research. PZ attacked us because he thought my writing about human-chimp genetic differences here on Evolution News relied upon the writings of Tomkins. He claims I was just parroting Tomkins’s argument, because if not, “they [Discovery Institute] wouldn’t be paying any attention to Tomkins’ nonsense.”

The problem? PZ seems not to have checked the dates to determine who first wrote about this story. 

PZ kindly links to my main article which first posted our primary analysis showing that humans and chimps are 14.9 percent genetically different. It’s dated May 21, 2025. Tomkins wrote an article on this same topic, but it did not come out until eight days later, on May 29. Whoops! 

For the record, I had zero contact with Jeff Tomkins about this topic prior to writing my article that came out on May 21. Tomkins is a smart guy, but what he wrote was his own. I did my analysis totally separate from him, and did not rely upon Tomkins in any way when writing my article that came out eight days prior to his. Perhaps PZ thinks I have a time machine. (That would indeed be cool!)

PZ also falsely claims I accused the authors of Yoo et al. (2025) of “lying.” I did no such thing nor did I ever intend to insinuate such a thing. I think that the paper’s authors and/or the journal Nature should have stated the percent genetic difference between humans and chimps more clearly. That’s all. On multiple counts, PZ is simply misrepresenting what happened. 

Refusing to Acknowledge the Context I Have Provided

A final critic who misstated my arguments is biologist Zachary Ardern. Writing (it seems) in response to me, he says that the “~85% similar claim” can be “false or misleading without giving the necessary context.” I suppose that’s true, though vaguely stated. What’s odd is that Ardern fails to mention the extensive context I have been providing while writing about this subject. 

For example, one aspect of “context” that Ardern feels is important to provide is the fact that much of the genetic differences between humans and chimps represent “repetitive” DNA. He’s right about that. But while accusing me of promoting “false or misleading” analysis that lacked “context,” he failed to acknowledge that I too have been extensively discussing the fact that a lot of the differences between genetic humans and chimps come down to repetitive DNA. 

In my initial series, parts two, three, and five repeatedly discussed the fact that many of the genetic differences entail repetitive DNA. The purpose of my part three was to do a deep dive into the meaning of the repetitive DNA differences between humans and chimps. I cited there a recent paper which shows that this repetitive DNA has great functional importance, and that different copy numbers yield functional differences:

But the technical paper notes that much of the newly sequenced DNA included in these “complete” ape genomes is “repetitive” DNA, and it seems that different copy numbers of this “repetitive DNA” is responsible for much of the “gap divergence” between these genomes. Does that mean we’re just looking at junk DNA? Again, the answer is no. 

And now in this more recent series responding to critics I’ve discussed multiple additional objections to our arguments — again delving into claims that the genetic differences entail repetitive genetic junk, and including looking at human-human genetic differences. I sure feel like I provided a lot of context! 

Dr. Ardern is a good biologist who knows a lot about genomics. But it’s unfortunate that he would accuse me of lacking context, when he himself does not provide adequate context by acknowledging that I have talked about the very things he thinks should be discussed in this conversation. 

Will Critics Call Out Those Who Continue to Promote the Icons?  

To his credit, Dr. Ardern also notes that the “‘98.8% identical’ claim” by itself is “false or misleading without giving the necessary context.” I agree with him on that, and appreciate that he says it, because a lot of folks out there — like the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History — still promote the inaccurate statistic, without acknowledging the context that shows it’s wrong. Will any critics now call them out by name? 

I also appreciate that Joel Duff expressed a willingness to correct the record in the future. I hope that other critics will do the same. But if one of the main responses to my arguments about human-chimp genetic differences has been to mis-state what I’m saying, then I feel encouraged that the critics don’t have strong responses.