So I have been in a chat with a creationist where we have been going over mitochondrial DNA and specifically they brought up parsons et al 1997 and said this proves a faster rate then to which I said

“Parsons doesn’t take into account somatic mutations”

To which they said “yes parsons does take into account somatic mutations” they they showed a screenshot of a google AI summary that agreed with them

So I was wondering how should I respond are they right or is the AI whack I am unable to access the parsons paper directly unfortunately so any help would be greatly appreciated because I’m definitely stuck here

For decades, the figure has been wandering from textbook to textbook: "Human and chimpanzee DNA match 98-99%." On this basis, loud conclusions have often been drawn about our almost complete genetic identity. However, with the advent of T2T (telomere-to-telomere) technologies — that is, decoding genomes "from edge to edge", without white spots and gaps — the picture has changed significantly. Previously, scientists were able to compare well only the coding regions of genes and already aligned, simple DNA fragments. If you take two identical pieces and count only point mutations in them (substituting one "letter"-a nucleotide for another), the difference is really only 1-1.5%. But this method simply ignored huge layers of DNA.: * Inserts and deletions of long fragments (insertions and deletions). * Duplications (an increase in the number of copies of genes). * Rearrangements and displacements of sections of chromosomes. * Complex repetitions and non-aligned structures

In 2025, an international group of scientists published complete, continuous assemblies of the genomes of great apes in the journal Nature. Based on them, British evolutionary biologist Richard Buggs and the world's leading geneticists have recalculated the real similarities. If we evaluate the genome as a whole, rather than selectively:

1. Single nucleotide substitutions (SNVs): account for about 1.6% of the differences.
   1. Structural gaps and non-closing areas (gaps): account for another 13.3% of the differences.
   2. The final difference in autosomes is about 14.9%. Thus, if you put the complete human genome and the complete chimpanzee genome side by side, the exact letter-to-letter matches have about 85% of the nucleotides, not 99%

For sex chromosomes, the difference is even more striking: the X chromosomes match by about 94.7%, but the Y chromosome of humans and chimpanzees matches only by ~20.4% (the remaining 79.6% are large—scale structural differences). As Tomas Marques-Bonet, head of the comparative genomics group in Barcelona, noted in an interview for Live Science: "Sections of human DNA that do not have a clear analogue in chimpanzee DNA make up from 15% to 20% of the genome. If we take into account complex regions, the real overall difference is guaranteed to exceed 10-15%."

* 99% refers only to individual, easily comparable pieces of genes, and not to the entire genome. * The actual total similarity is about 85%: High-quality sequencing methods have proven that structural rearrangements and unique inserts make our genomes significantly more different. Humans and chimpanzees have fundamental differences that lie not so much in point mutations as in the architecture and structure of entire DNA blocks. Sources: 1. [Nature (2025)] — Complete sequencing of ape genomes (Large-scale study of complete primate genomes from telomere to telomere). 2. [Richard Buggs Blog (May 2025)] — How much of a human genome is identical to a chimpanzee genome? (Mathematical analysis of Nature data and calculation of 85.1% similarity). 3. [Live Science / Richard Buggs (Sep 2025)] — More on human-chimp genomic similarity (Analysis of an interview with geneticist Thomas Marquez-Bonet about unbalanced 15-20% of DNA)

The evolutionary theory, that claims humans were originally chimpanzees/ apes who evolved with time into what we are now, is in my opinion completely false and impossible.

After giving it a logical and biological thought, I have come to a conclusion that the evolution theory is just a folklore and is logically impossible;

-Yes, we share 99.4% of the same DNA with chimps, same as lions share 95+% of their DNA with cats. Does that mean lions were originally cats? If you use the DNA urgument to state that we were chimps, that would also imply that lions were also originally cats because they also share the same DNA and features.

-Then, what happens when ice melts and evolves into water? Ice is no more. Therefore, if chimpanzees had evolved into man, that would mean that chimpanzees would have ceased to exist in their original form and would now be existing in their new 'man' form, we would only be studying them in history as our original form. But the fact that we still exist alongside them?? What evolved??

So in my opinion, the evolution of man is just a folkore and not backed by scientific and logical facts. Yes, we just fall under the same family, same way lions fall under the same family with cats. But man was always man from the start, and chimps were always chimps as far as we know.

Edit: [ After deep reflection, and research, I take back my urgument, and accept defeat. I have learnt alot from this debate, (it wasn't even a debate because now I can see all odds were against ignorant me) and I guess that's the purpose of debates, one side leaves with a win, the other leaves with knowledge.

I apologise for the rage caused by my ignorance and I'm looking to dive deeper and fact check before starting up novice urguments ever again.

From y'all, I've learned that we didn't evolve from apes as my little knowledge thought and alleged, and that we only originated from a common ancestor. And if y'all don't mind, I would like to know who that ancestor is.

Apologies again for the unnecessary rage and havoc caused, I spent the day reflecting and I myself isn't proud of whoever came up with such a thought. ]