That depends on the meaning of “our”. A smaller and smaller subset of genes is being considered, as you shift focus from chimp to human to sibling. In the chimp example, the statistic may as well have been made for your entire genome, including stuff like genes coding for cell membrane (which doesn’t vary wildly with species/taxonomy, more likely to vary with tissue type—don’t know, not a biologist). In the sibling example, you take for granted that the greatest part of your genome is going to be shared by virtue of both of you being human, exclude those genes, and only count the rest.
If you establish similarity/difference by counting the same set of genes (for instance all of them, like with chimps), the difference between you and your sibling might only differ by very, very few percentage points down from 100%, and that’s not exactly telling us anything useful, is it?
At least this is how I understand it, and why that type of sentence doesn’t confuse me. Again, not a biologist, sorry for possible stupid mistakes/inaccuracies.
That depends on the meaning of “our”. A smaller and smaller subset of genes is being considered, as you shift focus from chimp to human to sibling. In the chimp example, the statistic may as well have been made for your entire genome, including stuff like genes coding for cell membrane (which doesn’t vary wildly with species/taxonomy, more likely to vary with tissue type—don’t know, not a biologist). In the sibling example, you take for granted that the greatest part of your genome is going to be shared by virtue of both of you being human, exclude those genes, and only count the rest.
If you establish similarity/difference by counting the same set of genes (for instance all of them, like with chimps), the difference between you and your sibling might only differ by very, very few percentage points down from 100%, and that’s not exactly telling us anything useful, is it?
At least this is how I understand it, and why that type of sentence doesn’t confuse me. Again, not a biologist, sorry for possible stupid mistakes/inaccuracies.