Oh come on, this is just like the old "we all are closely related to cats and whales according to genomic analysis" argument, and just as flawed.
Understand the science and then comment on it. As has already been pointed out it's not the macaques that are converging it's the viruses, and if you think that is nitpicking ask your self how many generations of macaques were used and how many virus replication events occur?
On top of this, the convergent mutations (most of which are I think are single point mutations), are in the epitopes of antibodies. Is it any surprise that these type of random mutations are selected for extremely strongly, and therefore appear independently in many instances.
[This message has been edited by Ooook!, 10-27-2003]
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