Smithsonian Exhibit Overstates Genetic Similarity Between Humans and Apes and Should Be Fixed

SEATTLE— An exhibit on human origins at the Smithsonian vastly overstates the genetic similarity between humans and apes and needs to be fixed according to Discovery Institute.

This week the Institute sent a letter to Smithsonian leadership pointing out that an exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) in Washington, D.C. contains serious misstatements of scientific fact.

For example, the NMNH tells visitors that human beings and chimps are “98.8% genetically similar.” But new research published in the gold-standard science journal Nature shows that the real similarity is only 84-86%.

The Smithsonian exhibit makes similar overstatements about the genetic similarities between humans and gorillas and orangutans.

“The Smithsonian is promoting inaccurate information to the public by seriously understating the genetic differences between humans and apes,” says scientist Dr. Casey Luskin, who wrote the letter to the Smithsonian. “The actual difference in DNA between humans and chimps is over ten times greater than what the Smithsonian says.” 

Genetic differences are found throughout the human and ape genomes, and include millions of single nucleotide differences, as well as much larger DNA differences, including differences in the lengths of functionally important repetitive DNA. The data from the Nature paper indicates that human and chimpanzee genomes are roughly 15% different. 

In his letter, Luskin urged the Smithsonian “to correct the Exhibit to reflect more current, accurate scientific data. The NMNH is the nation’s premiere science museum, and it would be inexcusable for the museum to present scientifically inaccurate data about human genetic similarity to apes to the public. To fail to correct this data is to use taxpayer money to miseducate the public about a question of profound scientific, sociological, and philosophical interest.”