Re:NIH corrects untruthful assertions about funding gain-of-...
by coronqueue on Thursday October 21, 2021 @08:46PM
(#28952591)
"For comparison, today's human genome is 96% similar to our closest ancestor, the chimpanzee. Humans and chimpanzees are thought to have diverged approximately 6 million years ago."
This is disingenuous. I can't fathom why this comparison was chosen, it is incredibly damaging to the credibility of the claims made in the letter.
Opportunities for evolution occur once per generation. The lifespan of a human being is measured in decades. The lifespan of a virus and the number of mutations created in lungs is on an entirely different and much shorter timescale.
Different organisms evolve at different rates, and this comparison seems misleading at best. Saying that humans took 6 million years to diverge by 4% would reasonably be followed by "and this virus could be expected to do it in X"... and that's a MUCH smaller number than 6 million years.
This is disingenuous. I can't fathom why this comparison was chosen, it is incredibly damaging to the credibility of the claims made in the letter.
Opportunities for evolution occur once per generation. The lifespan of a human being is measured in decades. The lifespan of a virus and the number of mutations created in lungs is on an entirely different and much shorter timescale.
Different organisms evolve at different rates, and this comparison seems misleading at best. Saying that humans took 6 million years to diverge by 4% would reasonably be followed by "and this virus could be expected to do it in X"... and that's a MUCH smaller number than 6 million years.