If this is too long for you to watch, do yourself a favor and at least jump straight to 1:14:00 and watch the end. His closing points are ... marvelous. As for the 1% issue: I hadn't thought about that, at all. Doesn't happen often.

*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Saturday, January 9th, 2010 12:09am PST - promote requested by radx.

Also make sure to get the part about James Cameron's Titanic starting at approx. 0:26:00

>> ^radx:
If this is too long for you to watch, do yourself a favor and at least jump straight to 1:14:00 and watch the end. His closing points are ... marvelous. As for the 1% issue: I hadn't thought about that, at all. Doesn't happen often.
promote


It's sad that such a great educator doesn't understand basic genetics. That 1% is totally misleading because only 76% of the human DNA could be aligned with ape DNA for a comparison. It is out of that 76% that was comparable that there was a 1% difference. The actual difference between us is enormous, and is way too complicated to quantify at our current level of understanding of genomics and proteomics.

Also, I don't see why he would be worried about the possibility of extra terrestrial life being orders of magnitude more intelligent than us. Humanity has just begun to unlock the secrets of our genes, and with the advance of computers and technology, it's easy to imagine that the humans of the 22nd century will be vastly superior to us. Of course, hopefully we won't destroy ourselves along the way, ruin our planet, or have our progress hindered by religious nutbags.

Thanks for digging up that 1.5 hour gem. Neil deGrasse Tyson is the Carl Sagan of our time.

To my mind, a 1% difference with something that is so physiologically similar is really huge. I mean, that 99% of our DNA makes up all of us, our spines, ribs, balls, noses, ears, lungs, blah blah blah. Besides our makeshift-ly straightened spines, the majority of the the rest of the non-junk DNA difference is likely neurological change. The vast majority of ours, along with mice, dogs, monkeys and chimps DNA is devoted to the base stuff of forming a veritable mammal. Most of one percent of ALL our DNA being just neurological refinements to me seems like nothing trifling.
It's like saying the jump from Model T to Hybrid is trifling cause they're both based on the same mining and metallurgical technologies.