Another Myth Laid to Rest

Darwinians have for a generation or so regaled us with the statistic that we share 99% of our genes in common with chimpanzees and that this is strong evidence that both species have evolved from a common ancestor and are closely related.

Now it's turning out that the 1% difference is incorrect. Not only that, but researchers have discovered that most humans differ genetically from each other by about that same amount. In other words, even were the 1% figure true (It appears that the correct difference is closer to 6.5%) we would have to conclude that humans were as genetically different from each other as they are believed to be from chimps, and that therefore chimps would be as closely related to us as are our fellow humans.

This is nonsense, of course, and most scientists are quietly putting the human/chimp myth to rest in the same graveyard as the myth of the vestigial appendix has been recently interred.

RLC

A Little More Honesty, Please

ProteinWisdom offers some examples of how the left is framing President Bush's SCHIP veto:

"I disagreed with the president's position because he wants to leave out all the children." Dennis Kucinich, Democrat Presidential candidate

"We're holding these members of Congress accountable for standing with President Bush and against our children." Noah Winer, head of MoveOn.org's health care campaign.

"You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement." Congressman Pete Stark

"Why does President Bush hate American kids?" Keith Olbermann host of MSNBC's Countdown

As each of these men knows, the President actually wants to increase, not cut, the number of children covered by the program, but he wants to keep the focus of coverage on children in the lowest rungs of the middle class. The Democrats want taxpayers to pick up the coverage of millions of children who are already covered by private insurance. The President wants to expand SCHIP by 5 billion dollars, the Democrats by 35 billion.

Over this disagreement his opponents are willing to say the kinds of things that are quoted above.

It really is sad that the public debate can't be conducted with more integrity than this.

RLC