Counters to Conservapedia (Part 2): Genetic Diversity

If you remember, Conservapedia has a list of Counterexamples to evolution.  Sadly each of them represent a falsehood, misrepresentation, or error in what evolution actually is.  So I figured would help by countering their list and explaining where they are wrong.  


Here is part 2: 

Lack of genetic diversity among the Homo sapiens species. Were evolution and the old earth true, the human population would show a much larger genetic variance.[2]

 Compared to most species, we show very little genetic diversity.  No matter the ethnicity, you share 99.9% of your DNA with the person sitting next to you on the bus.  We are very similar.  The longer a species has been around, the more genetic diversity can be found in the species.  Because of our small genetic difference, we know that humans are a young species.  


According to genetic studies, the number of differences between humans and chimpanzees suggest they diverged from a common ancestor about 6 million years ago.  To date, fossil evidence continues to support this hypothesis.  


Because humans originated in Africa and have been on that continent much longer, native African populations show more diversity than any population on any other continent.  This supports the Out-of-Africa Theory.  Africa itself holds almost all of the variation found within the human species.


We also know that about 190,000 years ago our species experienced a bottleneck.  as Earth entered a new glacial phase, life for modern humans became very difficult and most died out.  According to genetic studies, our population became as small as 600 reproducing individuals.  Archaeology shows that the small population survived on the southern coast of Africa.  (More information can be found in a recent SciAm article from the August 2010 issue and here is the podcast link as well.)

Human Genetic Diversity: This map shows the greatest genetic diversity exists in Africa.  Because differences in DNA develop over time, the areas with the greatest diversity have held people for much longer.  As humanity began in Africa, we see that continent features the greatest differences in their DNA.