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From: vac@cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,talk.origins
Subject: Crossing Humans and Chimpanzees
Message-ID: <1991Jun14.195209.12987@cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 14 Jun 91 19:52:09 GMT
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Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
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Michael T. Peterson:
>There are a host of reasons why Humans and Chimps are
>unable to cross-breed.  [...]

A host of reasons why Humans and Chimps *might not* be able
to cross-breed.  Unless you have put and egg and sperm
together (if so please tell) I don't think you can say they 
are "unable".  

>By the way, one of the operational tests of speciation is
>whether breeding can be successfully accomplished.  Said another
>way, if A can breed with B, then A and B belong to the same
>species.  If A can not, the A and B are of a different
>species.

No.  If A and B can not cross, then they are not of the same species.
However, if they can cross it does not mean that they are the same
species.  Look at dogs and wolves, or donkeys and horses.  So just
having two different species (names and all!!) does not mean
that they can not cross.  We name different species because the
gene pools have been separated for some time (i.e. they have not
been crossing (much) and have significant differences).  

Does anyone know where I could get a list of which common species can 
cross with other species?  Also, is there anywhere that I can get a 
nice table of DNA correlations between these different species?

Thanks for any info,

   -- Vince