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We are 98.4 identical genetically with chimpanzees. In other words, if another entity, not humans, created the biological kingdom taxonomy we would end up being called the same species.



This is an oft proclaimed bad take, because there is no point of reference for this comparison.

Humans are 95% identical with dogs, are we mostly dog? We're 60% identical with bananas, are we really all just part of the banana family?

Clearly the answer is no. Broad genetic similarity is just a bad metric.


Could you use dog's blood for transfusion? No. But you could use chimpanzee blood in humans.


We can't reproduce viable offspring with chimps, so no, we wouldn't be characterized as one species in any conventional meaning of the word.


This is like looking at statically compiled binaries of some FPS game and Office suite and concluding "these are 90% similar because most of the code is standard libraries".




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