The fact that the DI "scientists" haven't attacked it yet is evidence to the fact that they haven't found a good spin against it. But I'm sure that we can count on them to come up with something, just like OJ's lawyers did.
Thank you for the link to the other thread. It was interesting.
Forgive me if I observe something though.
We have only recently sequenced the whole human genome. We simply do not have the requisite level of knowledge to be able to state with anything like the certitude that the case was made in that interesting article, that that which we call "junk" in the human gene sequence really is junk.
DNA is only made of four chemicals. We have the chain. We can isolate these chemicals. Once we have reached the level of technique where we can build our own DNA, atom by atom, and test what replication of each strand leads to, I we will be able to say that something is junk.
I recall when I was a kid, whenever anyone's tonsils flared up, they cut them out of there. We were told that tonsils served no purpose, like the appendix. Now we know that they do serve a purpose. We have been told for 20 years that Tylenol is preferred over aspirin. But now they perscribe daily doses of aspirin to keep down heart attack rates and recidivism, and warn against Tylenol.
My point is not that science is always wrong. It is that we ought to have learnt by now by embarrassing fumbles and errors to not be so cocksure of ourselves.
That there are these DNA markers is indeed good evidence for cladistic evolution. That those DNA markers are pure "junk" however is simply not knowable given our present limitations of knowledge and technique.
I suspect that several of them will not turn out to be junk at all.
Thank you, I think I understand the nature of the purported retrovirus evidence. I'll try to study it more.