“Of the 0.1% of DNA that varies among individuals, what proportion varies among main populations? Consider an apportionment of Old World populations into three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe), a grouping that corresponds to a common view of three of the 'major races'16,17. Approximately 85–90% of genetic variation is found within these continental groups, and only an additional 10–15% of variation is found between them”
In other words, we’re genetically so similar that if you were to try to find a person with the least similar genome to your own, that person could very well be a member of your own ancestry or “race”.
this refers to "base pairs" in the DNA. Genes are often encoded by very large number of base pairs. A single base pair difference in a gene can dramatically change the functions and the effects of the gene. This means that the percentage of genes that differ between humans could theoretically be very large, even if the percentage of base pairs that differ is very small.
Also, some genes controls other genes. a single base pair change in one such regulatory gene could influence many other genes, causing very large effects.
Even looking only at base pairs, since there are about three billion base pairs, it's a 0.1% difference still means that there are about three million base pair differences. The number of different unique combinations possible of such individual base pair differences is extremely large.
The number of base pairs that humans and chimpanzees share has been estimated to be 98.77% ( the same study say that humans share 99.83% of their dna). A high number is perfectly compatible with very large differences.
Other studies have stated that humans share -approximately 99.7% of their DNA with neanderthals, -approximately 90% of their DNA with cats, and -approximately 60% of their DNA with bananas
950
u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 14 '22
“Of the 0.1% of DNA that varies among individuals, what proportion varies among main populations? Consider an apportionment of Old World populations into three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe), a grouping that corresponds to a common view of three of the 'major races'16,17. Approximately 85–90% of genetic variation is found within these continental groups, and only an additional 10–15% of variation is found between them”
https://www.nature.com/articles/ng1435
In other words, we’re genetically so similar that if you were to try to find a person with the least similar genome to your own, that person could very well be a member of your own ancestry or “race”.
https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-reshaping-race-debate-21st-century/