a quick thought about our 'common ancestry'

A common argument for evolution is that we're 99% the same as chimps, so we must have some common ancestor. Isn't out dna also like 98% the same as a flys? maybe we have the closest dna to chimps because we look more similar to them than other animals.

*Removed quote of entire previous post*

Common ancestry goes a bit further than simple percentage similarity though.

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[edit on 26-4-2007 by sanctum]

not percentage of similarity, percentage our dna matches other living things dna

Yeah, I know, but common ancestry is determined by more than just precentage similarity of DNA. Chromosome 2 is a good example - this is a fusion of two proto-ape chromosomes, and clearly shows the evidence of this fuson when compared to chimpanzee DNA.

Another would be the numerous pseudogenes we have in common. steroid 21-hydroxylase is a good example, we have the same 8 base deletion as chimpanzees in a redundant gene.

These phenomena are present across species and fall into a nice nested heirarchy, as predicted by evolution.

If you go back far enough we have a common ancestor with flies too