really good restatement of the case. Were you a debater?
It was an incorrect restatement of the case in a way that he can attack.
That men and apes "suffer from the same virus", paints a picture that both get the same illnesses. That's not what I'm talking about at all.
The issue is that sometimes ERV cell infections don't work as planned, and the cell continues to live, with the virus DNA intact, doing no damage. When the particular cell is a reproductive cell, the virus DNA is passed down to descendants, and eventually every individual in the species has it.
There are several thousand virus DNA sequences inserted in the same places in apes and humans (and in some cases, we do not share a particular insertion). The farther back in time that evolution morphology places the branch between species, the less ERV insertion matches we see. Specific matches between different species map their relationships.
This both confirms the evolution tree, and confirms that we share common ancestors with many primates.