It makes perfect sense to me that humans and chimps diverged as a species. I am equally impressed with the current insights we gain through DNA research. This is allowing a lot of loose threads to get more closely woven together. It does not sound like this highly debatable topic has been proven as fact though. David Reich's research team has produced controversial evidence that the split between humans and chimpanzee’s occurred a lot differently than has been suspected in the past. It also makes sense the split did not happen based on one event, and then the separation took place. The fact that interbreeding linked us for a theorized ‘several million years’, sometimes with sterile offspring, and other times with favorable traits to pass on through generations, feels like a more complex and thorough explanation of how this split took place.
Not all agree though. Jeffrey Schwatz, who has compiled evidence linking humans to orangutans, feels the data was skewed. He feels that Reich’s team focused solely on evidence to support our connection to chimpanzee’s, but skimmed over evidence of similarities to other primates (Wikipedia). Other controversy is stirring over the origins of intelligence, behavior patterns, and how this ties in with religious communities. This new evidence also offers tantalizing hints that hybridization events up to ten million years ago may have introduced significant amounts of DNA from gorilla and orangutan lineages (Wikipedia).
We will have to see how these recent discoveries unfold once more DNA-data is unwound…
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