Photograph by John Trawick.

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In academic circles, various figures are cited regarding the genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees. Some studies estimate the differences to be around 1% to 5%, while others suggest they might be as high as 13% to 15% or more. Creationists claim that recent research has debunked the so-called “1% myth.” In doing so, they aim to cast doubt on the evolutionary relationship between humans and other primates, and accuse evolutionary biology of clinging to outdated dogmas. However, in order to make their argument persuasive, they deliberately omit crucial information. Casey Luskin of the evangelical think tank Discovery Institute even went so far as to crop a graphic published in the scientific journal Nature, intentionally removing key data.

Few scientific discoveries have shaken humanity’s self-image as profoundly as Darwin’s insight that our origins lie within the animal kingdom. The idea that we are not uniquely created beings standing above nature, but instead share a common ancestry with chimpanzees, gorillas, and other primates, remains intellectually challenging for many. This notion is particularly unsettling for religious individuals who view humans as the “crown of creation.” The fear of losing a sense of human uniqueness runs deep.

The realization that only 1.2% of our genes differ from those of chimpanzees hit like a bombshell; our shared evolutionary history becomes unmistakably clear. It’s no surprise that evolution deniers—broadly speaking, creationists—who reject our ancestral roots in the animal world, constantly question, downplay, and attack this close genetic relationship, branding it the “1% myth.”

Recent studies, however, appear to support the creationist narrative. Some no longer report 95% or 99% genetic similarity, but instead present significantly lower numbers—sometimes as low as 85%.

A recent study published in the journal Nature (YOO et al., 2025) confirms this approximate figure. An international research team offers a comprehensive reassessment of the genomic similarity between humans, chimpanzees, and other primate species, based on complete genome sequencing and comparative analysis of multiple primate genomes. The study combines high-resolution sequencing technologies with advanced bioinformatic methods to systematically detect both point mutations and structural genomic differences. The result: the total genome-wide difference between humans and chimpanzees is between approximately 13.3% and 14.9%.

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One-hundred years ago, on a hot and humid summer day in the Tennessee River Valley in southeast Tennessee, teacher John Scopes, the ACLU, Clarence Darrow, and various lawyers and scientists tried to challenge the state of Tennessee’s ban on teaching human evolution. The national press descended on Dayton, and the audio was broadcast across the country in the first “Trial of the Century.”

The expert testimony was blocked, and Darrow, Scopes’s defense attorney, in frustration, asked to call prosecutor William Jennings Bryan (leader of the anti-evolution crusade, three-time presidential candidate, former Secretary of State, and populist politician) as a witness. Somehow this was allowed, and due to the heat, the proceedings were moved out onto the lawn. Darrow examined Bryan on the Bible and evolution, Bryan held his own, both sides concluded they were right, the national press lampooned the fundamentalists, but Scopes was convicted and fined (overturned on a technicality in 1927), and Bryan’s laws against teaching evolution remained on the books in many states and local jurisdictions until overturned by the 1968 Epperson v. Arkansas Supreme Court case. The term “creation science” emerged right around then (Matzke 2009), rebranding Flood Geology and young-earth creationism as science. As that strategy failed in the 1981 McLean vs. Arkansas case, creationists began work on a book called “Creation Biology”, which later became Of Pandas and People, the original vehicle promoting “intelligent design” in schools. The history of Pandas was uncovered in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover case, covered right here on the Panda’s Thumb blog.

And so here we are in 2025! Today, I am finishing the 2025 Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) meeting in Melbourne, Australia, where myself and collaborators talked about our research (my bit: a Structural Phylogenetics of the Bacterial Flagellum poster). And I am getting on the plane and flying to Dallas, then Nashville, for the Scopes 100th meeting at Vanderbilt, which will also have a bunch of the people involved in Kitzmiller v. Dover. While the antievolution issue has receded somewhat, challenges to science and science education are ever-present and can come from either political side, so I think the lessons of the Scopes Trial and its descendants are ever present. The main question is whether or not we will learn from them.

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Photograph by John Harshman.

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