We also share large percentages of our genes with other creatures.  We even share 26% of our genes with yeast.  Amazing!  Do you think that's why a lot of people feel a deep affection for yeast, and that that may explain several human maladies?

https://www.koshland-science-museum.org/sites/all/exhibits/exhibitdna/intro03.jsp

Maybe neuroplasticity can help answer this question better, as the brain of a chimp is similar to the brain of a human. Genetically, we match 98% in our genes but 2% cannot bring such a large difference in behaviours. Neuroplasticity helps build connections and these are developed only till a certain age after which all performances are based on these connections. Maybe, if plasticity is enhanced in a chimp by some means we could see a change. I am quite horrified by the movie Planet of the Apes and therefore the feeling of something like this happening scares me... 

We also share large percentages of our genes with other creatures.  We even share 26% of our genes with yeast.  Amazing!  Do you think that's why a lot of people feel a deep affection for yeast, and that that may explain several human maladies?

https://www.koshland-science-museum.org/sites/all/exhibits/exhibitdna/intro03.jsp

Hi Martha, whether today's chimps can evolve into today's humans is unlikely: today's conditions are very different from those existing at the time of the Homo/Pan split, probably about 5 Ma (mill.yrs ago). At the time of the split, our & their ancestors were identical: one branch evolved into Pan (troglodytes & paniscsus) & another branch evolved into Homo (sapiens, but also our fossil relatives, e.g. erectus & neanderthalensis). DNA comparisons suggest that Pan & Homo split c 5 Ma, and H.sapiens & H.neanderthalensis split c 0.5 Ma or so. Where this happened is less certain. IMO the H/P split happened in the coastal forests-wetlands along the E.African coast (Zambesi mouth etc.): there are indications (see attachment) that chimp ancestors remained in the African coastal forest, when human ancestors followed the coastal forests along the Indian Ocean (explaining e.g. the absence of African retroviral DNA in humans, see C.Yohn cs 2005 "Lineage-Specific Expansions of Retroviral Insertions within the Genomes of African Great Apes but Not Humans and Orangutans" PLoS doi org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0030110).

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the info.  We''ll have to look this up!

Hi Martha, I forgot to say: fossil hunters believe that +-all the thousands of hominid fossils they've found in Africa are closer relatives of us than of the apes, IOW, that 1 species has virtually all fossils, whereas the other African species (2 gorilla, 1 bonobo & 2 common chimp) have +- no fossils. Needless to say: 1 species having 1000s of fossils & 5 species having virtually 0 fossils is statistically impossible, unless there's an enormous bias towards humans in discovering fossils. IMO this is an example of pre-darwinian anthropocentrism. Fossil hunters who see 1 locomotor feature that might suggest "bipedalism" (usu.they only see indications of a vertical spine) believe that that fossil is a closer relative of humans than of apes (neglecting the possibility that the African apes might have had more bipedal or at least more vertical ancestors, e.g. for clmibing vertically, of for wading bipedally, e.g. in swamp forests, google "bonobo wading"). The Yohn cs article mentioned above (2005 PLoS on absence of African ape retroviral DNA in humans) suggests that chimp & gorilla ancestors were present in African between 4 & 3 mill.yrs ago, whereas human ancestors were not in Africa then (different lines of evidence suggest IMO they lived in Indian Ocean coastal forests then).  IOW, it's well possible that most or all australopithecine fossils were no ancestors of humans as often believed anthropocentrically, but were instead more closely related to Pan or Gorilla or to now-extinct hominids at the time (see discussion in my 1994 paper "Australopithecines: ancestors of the African apes?" Hum.Evol.9:121-139).

Hi Marc, thanks for all of that.  Another person wrote in to say that IHHO (in his...) we are closer to Orang utan than Pan.  That would go along with the Indian Ocean coastal forests, wouldn't it?

I have to run out right now to a lecture, but will look up your interesting articles when I get back.  Thanks again!

Is this person John Grehan, Martha? see our rather extensive discussion at the researchGate question: "Why does the H.naledi exhibit this dental morphology?"  The DNA is clear: Gorilla & Pan are much closer relatives of Homo than Pongo is. But Homo's dispersal in the S-Asian coastal forests (Plio-Pleistocene) might possibly help explain some convergences with Pongo (who IMO dispersed along the S-Asian coastal forests during the Miocene)?