Yup, I'm afraid ERVs are such compelling evidence that they have forced even this Bible believer to take a fresh look at Genesis. Just as in teaching math--two guys with the same right answer might not have cheated; but two guys with the same wrong answer, definitely did.
One thing I'm curious about, not being a geneticist: how do we know that ERVs are in fact artifacts of retro-viruses, rather than an endogenous structure with some resemblances to a virus?
Unfortunately I'm not a geneticist either, I only play one on FR. I would assume that it's the pattern found that would indicate these ERV sections. There are something like 2000 of them found so far.
You make a good point about the "mistake" in math tests. Another interesting mistake is the primate "Vitamin C" gene, that is broken in several primate species and humans in exactly the same manner. It fits with evolution theory that a primate living in a forest rich in fruit could lose the ability to produce vitamin C via harmful mutation and never be affected. Had the creature lived in another environment with no vitamin C in his diet, he would have died, and the mutation would have died with it.
It fits that science has also discovered that non-functioning parts of genomes accumulate random mutations at a steady rate, while functioning genes are identical across species and over time. That's because harmful mutations are not propagated, while mutations in "dead code" are. This demonstrates that natural selection is necessary for the continued existence of life. Without it, even a "designed" species would eventually die out because of harmful mutations.
Counting the random mutations in the dead code is another method of determining the time since two species split. The more mutations, the more time. And science has found that these clocks fit well with existing morphological estimates for species split.
The news hasn't yet sunk in to the general population, but I'd bet that with the recent microbiological information tracking DNA changes between species has added more confirmation to Evolution theory in the last year or two than has been accumulated since Darwin.
Your question is actually very insightful and interesting. There is a great "smear" of things that are probably closely related including ERVs, Insertional Sequences, Transposons, Integrons. Then there is replicative transposition, which gets closer, lysogenic viruses and lytic viruses.
And then Phase variation. There's a lot of new stuff in these areas and the picture is becoming clearer. There are even transposable viruses. Just about every combination of viral, protoviral, degenerate viral, etc. cn be found somewhere.
Good point, but not the greatest example. It is quite possible in math class for more than one student to make the same error (eg, getting the sign wrong when rearranging an expression). If this is repeated over and over, then...
IMO, better examples are 1) mapmakers who include false features in order to trap plagiarists, and 2) finding the same sentence structure, misspelled words, etc in 2 students' work, or in their work and wikipedia.