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To: AndrewC; johnnyb_61820; ahayes
I found the abstract of the article by following the link. I think your conclusion that this does grievous damage to using ERV insertions to track evolution is not supported.

From the article: We identified a human endogenous retrovirus K (HERV-K) provirus that is present at the orthologous position in the gorilla and chimpanzee genomes, but not in the human genome. Humans contain an intact preintegration site at this locus.

This paper is a study of one ERV site. We have found something like 2000 such sites. When finding an insertion in gorilla, chimp, but not human genomes, that says that the human ancestor split off from the common ancestor of gorilla and chimp before the insertion occurred. Unless you're making a claim that this contradicts the species split sequence assumptions, then what's the problem here? Even if you are saying there is a species split sequence problem, then science will re-evaluate this with other information and correct the false sequence.

From the article: These observations provide very strong evidence that, for some fraction of the genome, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas are more closely related to each other than they are to humans.

Ok. What's wrong with that?

From the article: They also show that HERV-K replicated as a virus and reinfected the germline of the common ancestor of the four modern species during the period of time when the lineages were separating and demonstrate the utility of using HERV-K to trace human evolution.

The authors are saying that ERV insertions help trace when species separation took place. Well, yeah. That's what I've been saying, although I can't always detail everything in every post.

In short, studying ERV insertions supports the earlier morhpological separation points. The more recent the species separation, the more common ERV insertions we find, which is a cross correlation of the earlier morhpological studies done decades ago.

Darwin was a pretty smart dude, eh? He gave us a scientific theory that says that if we find a specific piece of information (and genome sequences are most definitely information copied through the ages like copying an analog tape of Star Wars over and over, each time with slight errors), then it should tend to confirm other studies based on morphology and fossil finds. And guess what, it does!

ERV insertions are the smoking gun of common descent, and the smoking gun that demonstrates that the various species came into existence via evolution.

If you want to believe that God directed it, like He directs thunderstorms, fine. But just like evaporation and condensation explains how He makes thunderstorms, evolution explains how He made species, including humans.

371 posted on 03/07/2006 8:04:37 PM PST by narby (Evolution is the new "third rail" in American politics)
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To: narby
Darwin was a pretty smart dude, eh? He gave us a scientific theory that says that if we find a specific piece of information (and genome sequences are most definitely information copied through the ages like copying an analog tape of Star Wars over and over, each time with slight errors), then it should tend to confirm other studies based on morphology and fossil finds. And guess what, it does!

ERV insertions are the smoking gun of common descent, and the smoking gun that demonstrates that the various species came into existence via evolution.

If you want to believe that God directed it, like He directs thunderstorms, fine. But just like evaporation and condensation explains how He makes thunderstorms, evolution explains how He made species, including humans.

I will start with the last statement. It is a red herring.

Your first statement ends in "And guess what, it does". Yes, and I showed the reason for that. You can explain anything with Darwinian logic. Again, the test for the ERV shows two possibilities, All or odd man out. The All outcome results in whatever tree you want. The odd man out outcome results in whatever tree you want. This experiment is complete verification of that.

Common has E+V
Gorilla leaves has V loses E
Chimp has V loses E
Human has E loses V
Voila! Tree one

Different result? OK?
Common has E+V
Gorilla leaves has E loses V
Chimp has E loses V
Human has V loses E

Voila! Same tree.

Different result? OK
Common has E+V
Gorilla leaves has V loses E
Chimp has E loses V
Human has V loses E

Voila! Same tree

Etc.
Your second statement is last. Smoking gun? That's kind of like drawing the bullseye around the arrow.
400 posted on 03/07/2006 8:38:11 PM PST by AndrewC (Darwinian logic -- It is just-so if it is just-so)
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To: narby
 
.....evolution explains how He made species, including humans.
 
Matthew 19:4
  "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator `made them male and female,'
Note that there is no reference to a bunch of goop  GOD 'created',  that, after following built-in 'laws',
would someday 'evolve' into all the stuff we see around us today.
 
 
 
 
See the RED words?
 
If that Jesus guy can't be trusted as to what He has said; who can?

460 posted on 03/08/2006 6:07:28 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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