Came across this comment in William James' essay, The Importance of Individuals, which is worth a read.
An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: "There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important." This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter.I attended a public lecture once by a primatologist, discussing chimpanzees in Africa. At some point in her presentation she commented on the unthinking nostrum often repeated that humans and chimpanzees share 99% of their geneitc material in common. She then made the point that James' carpenter makes of the importance of that small difference by highlighting a number of life forms and the percentage of genetic material which we share. I believe she got down to dandelions, with which, if memory serves, we share 7% of our genetic material.
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