Endogenous Retroviruses: Why Creationism is Wrong

But not expected.

Umm, no it doesn't. No matter how fervently I believe in a moon made of cheese the moon does not suddenly turn into cheese because of my beliefs. No matter how hard creationists may believe in unrelated species it does not make endogenous retroviruses or the nested hierarchy disappear.

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“Because they know not the forces of nature, and in order that they may have comrades in their ignorance, they suffer not that others should search out anything, and would have us believe like rustics and ask no reason...But we ask in all things a reason must be sought.” --William of Conches (c. 1090 – after 1154)

An interesting article published in a Discover magazine stated that out of the estimated 100 trillion cells making up the body of a human being, only 10 trillion of these cells actually harbor human DNA. That means 90% of the cells making up your body are not even human; the rest being the likes of bacteria, nematodes, protists, and other forms of life our bodies harbor, support, and also in which maintain and support our personal biological systems. The body is a ecosystem unto itself.

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Retroviruses, and other genetic evidence (such as pseudogenes and Vitamin C synthesis all following the same nested heirchy pattern as morphology, fossils, geography, etc) was the major reason I finnally accepted that common discent did indeed take place.

For fairness, has any of the major creationist organizations put out a discussion about these issues.

I think the Talk Origins piece by Douglas Theobald is interesting and persuasive. For instance:

Excerpt:

It has been shown that the human cytochrome c protein works in yeast (a unicellular organism) that has had its own native cytochrome c gene deleted, even though yeast cytochrome c differs from human cytochrome c over 40% of the protein (Tanaka et. al 1988a; Tanaka et al. 1988b; Wallace and Tanaka 1994). In fact, the cytochrome c genes from tuna (fish), pigeon (bird), horse (mammal), Drosophila fly (insect), and rat (mammal) all function in yeast that lack their own native yeast cytochrome c (Clements et al. 1989; Hickey et al. 1991; Koshy et al. 1992; Scarpulla and Nye 1986).

End Excerpt

This indicates a remarkable unity among all lifeforms, from those weighing hundreds of pounds to the microscopic. This unity is not predicted by Creationism but it is perfectly consistent with evolution and natural selection. It certainly cannot be coincidence.

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I doubt it... those who refer to themselves as "creation scientists" are not scientists in the least. To be a true scientists requires utilizing the rigor of the scientific method. Which is a methodology typically shunned by the creationist community.

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I only recently accepted that common discent is a reality (six months ago), so speaking from my old instant creationist self, I don't think the unity among lifeforms is good evidence of common discent. The statement that similar DNA is used for similar lifeforms by a creater is signifigant enough for me. In this particular case, being able to switch yeast and human (or other creature) genes and still be funtional just shows that God used similar designs for every animal. What IS signifigant, is that the differences (not the simularities) follow a nested hierchy that is independently constructed by morphology (as well as fossils). But even this wasn't completly convincing to me because you could argue the morphology being derived from genes should follow the same pattern, even if designed. But the pseudogenes, and even more so, the viral injections following the same nested heirchy, THAT only has one explanation and that is common discent. It also adds such a tremendous opportunity to faslify evolution. We only need find this viral infection inserted in the same location in Humans and ducks and NOT in any other Apes. Then common descent is falsified.

Of course, God could have put the viral insertions in as well, he could have done anything. But the fact that He did so in such a way to look exactly as if we share a common ancestor, means I might as well argue God created the world 27 days ago, complete with us all having memories of everything that preceeded. I think God created (and yes, I'm still a creationist on this ground) gradually through common discent because if He didn't he could have made that obvious by not created in a nested heirchy, (human designers don't create in nested heirchies), or at least once or twice throwing in retroviruses that do not independently support common discent.

Most of the creationist arguments skirt the major argument, the presence of a nested hierarchy. They tend to focus on ERV's having function, even putative function. Of course, the function of ERV's is not part of the argument. In fact, we know the function of ERV: to make more viruses.

They also mention the rare ERV's that violate the nested hierarchy at the level of humans, chimps, and gorillas. This is easily explained by a common ancestor who was heterozygous for the ERV and the ERV became fixed in some lineages while disappearing in others.

They also do a good job of conflating shared and lineage specific ERV's (as does mark kennedy with PtERV's). It is the ERV's shared at the same genomic position which are phylogenetically informative for primate evolution.

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“Because they know not the forces of nature, and in order that they may have comrades in their ignorance, they suffer not that others should search out anything, and would have us believe like rustics and ask no reason...But we ask in all things a reason must be sought.” --William of Conches (c. 1090 – after 1154)

Actually, you missed out on some evidence in this area. There are genes that do not impact morphology, such as the cytochrome c gene involved in mitochondrial metabolism. Scientists replaced yeast cytochrome c with rat cytochrome c and everything was fine. However, these proteins were not the same. They differ dramatically in sequence. So why would God give yeast and rats different sequences for a protein that has the same function and does not impact morphology?

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“Because they know not the forces of nature, and in order that they may have comrades in their ignorance, they suffer not that others should search out anything, and would have us believe like rustics and ask no reason...But we ask in all things a reason must be sought.” --William of Conches (c. 1090 – after 1154)

Hmmmm... So there ARE cases where a Gorilla and a human share an ERV not found in Chimps. I understand what your saying about the heterozygous populations, and I agree it could happen this way, but now this line of evidence is no longer falsifiable (indeed, I asserted that if this was found it would falsify it, so I should be an instant creationist again . In the case of ERVs, the creatists are right that we are presenting a non falsifiable prediction because any time it doesn't fit our nested heirchy we have this ready made explanation. Are there any examples that are more extreme, like a human sharing with an orangutan but not a chimp? And do we have any rates for how long genetic drift takes? (since presumably the time between the gorilla and human/chimp split was a large number of generations before the chimp and human split) Could we stay heterozygous for that long?

GREAT! Now I have to rethink if I believe in common discent

Could you reword this one. I don't know what "conflating shared and lineage specific ERV's" means.