Fellow [SBer Tara from Aetiology][tara] pointed me at [this bit of inanity][loonytune], which I can’t resist mocking:
[tara]: http://www.scienceblogs.com/aetiology
[loonytune]: http://www.wdcmedia.com/newsArticle.php?ID=2306
>The mystery of the human genome has come into clearer focus as scientists have discovered that each
>individual person is at least ten times more different than another person than scientists
>previously thought, discounting even further the theory of evolution so widely taught around the
>world. A group of scientists from 13 different research centers in the United States and Britain
>published their findings in scientific journals earlier this week. The results: previous concepts
>that all humans were 99.9% alike were blown apart by the research conducted on 270 people of various
>races that confirmed that 2,900 genes could vary within people, making over a million combinations
>possible.
>
>This discovery means that of the nearly 30,000 genes in the human genome that can consist of nearly
>three billion genetic “letters,” 10 percent of those genes can be multiplied in each different
>individual. Instead of being 99.9% alike, humans are more than ten times different from one another
>genetically. Instead of having two copies of each gene–one from each parent–humans have some genes
>that are multiplied several times. Scientists are excited about this discovery, which they say is
>the most revealing since Gregor Mendel’s initial work with the genetic code in the 1860’s.
>Scientists believe it will help them bring about curing individuals who have devastating diseases by
>using their own genetics.
Now, I admittedly have a bit of a hard time parsing this (I guess these creationists are illiterate as well as innumerate). But after correcting for grammar as well as I can, what I end up with is,
to put it mildly, pathetically stupid. Alas, they don’t provide *any* link to a *source* for this, so I can’t be sure of just what the heck they’re talking about, so I can’t completely correct their math. (You need *data* to do accurate math!) But I’ll do what I can. Read on, beneath the fold.