No, the hypothesis of common descent is not the simplest explanation.
The simplest explanation is common insertion points.
Common descent requires too many individual infections in single organisms moving to fixation to be plausible.
There are thousands of these things in the human genome alone.
Sure it is.
The simplest explanation is common insertion points.
Uh huh. Sure. You betcha. Except that there is absolutely no plausible mechanism for "common insertion points", and absolutely no evidence (in the field, or in experiments) for retroviral insertions ever having any method for, or any history of, ever performing a "common insertion" (i.e. ending up in identical locii in independent insertion events).
Nice try.
Look, admit it -- you just won't accept the overwhelming evidence of the origin of matching ERVs because you refuse to admit the possibility of common descent. You're rejecting the data because of your dogmatic bias.
Common descent requires too many individual infections in single organisms moving to fixation to be plausible.
No it doesn't. Feel free to try to produce calculations supporting your wild-assed guess, though. This should be highly amusing.
There are thousands of these things in the human genome alone.
Yeah, so? Feel free to show us your math indicating why this is somehow incompatible with their having gotten there in ancestral infections.
By the way, son, if they're *not* there by way of common descent, you've just made your "implausibly many" claim even WORSE, not BETTER, because you've *reduced* the time and population in which these ERVs could have been acquired. If there's any kind of "wow there's too many ERVs in the human genome" problem as you assert (but have provided no argument for), the common descent scenario REDUCES the problem, not makes it worse.
OOPS!
Now, show us your math. I could use a laugh.
The simplest explanation is common insertion points.
How would that explain the tree-like pattern? Are you claiming that these "insertion points" already mimic the phylogeny of the primates?
Also, it's not the simplest explanation. It is simpler to have one insertion event rather than half a dozen.
The phenomenon under discussion is the fact that, say, people, chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all have ERVs, some of which are unique to each species. However, if one is found in two species, then it will be found in others according to the tree-like pattern: if in gorilla and orangutan, then also in people and chimpanzee. If in gorilla and chimp, but not orangutan, then also in people, and not in gibbons. Etc Etc.
So you are saying that the 'dsigner' went to the trouble of inserting each of those 'thousands' ERVs rather than just placing it in a common ancestor? And that is the simplest explanation?
Placing the sequence in thousands of different organisms is easier than placing it one organism and using natural speciation. Hmmm. Interesting.