In other words, further evidence that HERVs evolved from older retroviruses.
Nope, you have a reading comprehension problem. They were able to separate the new from the old by comparing the whole bunch to those that were found in other species. That's how "The discovery that human-specific retroviruses emerged at the same time other researchers believe humans and chimps diverged was startling" came about. As noted for this happen all of a sudden, all of them working together, is unexplainable by evolution.
Somebody's crabby this morning.
Your statement:
That's how "The discovery that human-specific retroviruses emerged at the same time other researchers believe humans and chimps diverged was startling" came about. As noted for this happen all of a sudden, all of them working together, is unexplainable by evolution.
The rest of the paragraph from the article:
The discovery that human-specific retroviruses emerged at the same time other researchers believe humans and chimps diverged was startling. Equally interesting, however was the discovery that the oldest subfamily of HERV elements is closely related and gave rise to the youngest and most recently active group of these elements. This suggests, the authors say, that "ancient families of HERVs may be capable of retaining the potential for biological activity over long spans of evolutionary time."
I leave it to the discerning reader to determine where the reading comprehension problem lies.
(Maybe this can be a training question for people scoring the new SAT's.)