Endogenous retroviruses

Because cladistics would then not arrive at a single tree, but at multiple different trees.

Because common ancestry is true. I've already explained this.

Because we can draw up a single tree.

If a universal common ancestor would be correct, there would be no reason why we would be able to arrive at such a tree.

The question remains, how do they arrive at that single, and miss the creations on the way? It seems that cladistics simply cannot recognize created kinds in it's way of figuring! You just don't know where to stop, simple as that.

That's what you think! Comon ancestry is true, in my opinion, if at all, only up to the point of the created kinds, thus far, no further. The fact seems to be, that God used simiar life blocks in the different kinds, which you refuse to admit. Therefore you really do not have a clue where to start and stop in the imaginary tree!

No problem, I can draw one that had many branches.
Did you misstate your position here? --If the common ancestor were correct, there would be no reason for your little imaginary tree?!

No it doesn't, because my probability estimate, as I've explained to you a number of times, assumes nothing about the probability of separate invasions at different locations. My probability estimate assumes that parallel transmission of ERV's at orthologous positions is highly probable (never mind that there is no known process for such transmission). And that estimate comes up with an absurdly miniscule probability for ERV's being consistent with no phylogenic tree existing.

You're welcome to try to find one, but the evidence all points towards a common ancestor. I think your search is just wishful thinking.

Let's just take the ERV's found in the Lebedev et. al. 2000 paper. Those alone are more than enough to show that the phylogenic tree exists.

It does assume a germline invasion, the probability is based on seperate germline invasions occuring at the same spot with the same seqeunces. Why don't you check you sources and try that one again.

Mark, it does not matter what the mechanism for these insertions is. Some species have a particular gene that has a particular ERV at a particular location. Other species have the same gene but miss the ERV. In every case where more than one species has the ERV, the commonality is consistent with the phylogenic tree. That is the important point, and if you want to have a hope of arguing that common ancestry is not true, then you're going to have to either:

1) Come up with an alternative explanation for the existence of a strict hierarchy of form (i.e. provide an alternative explanation for the phylogenic tree).

2) Show that there are many more ERV's that exist at the same location in different organisms that are inconsistent with the phylogenic tree than are consistent with it (i.e. show that there is no phylogenic tree as it relates to ERV's).

You have done neither. All of your worrying about uncertainties in how ERV's enter the genome, or how they change once they are within the genome is completely besides the question.

Cladistics knows where to stop just fine. We know that from other analyses, like Eldridges analysis of cornets that I already mentioned.

There is one extremely good explanation why it doesn't stop and that is universal common ancestry.

Your opinion is nice. It's a pity the evidence doesn't support it. I like my opinion more, because it has the added bonus of being supported by the evidence.

Euh, yes, I did indeed misstate my position here

Identify the ERVs you are talking about or talk in circles around these bizzare assumptions based on nothing, it's your call.

I don't care where you keep the books, I just want to know where to find a book in the library. I don't care how they draw up their charts I want to look at these ERVs that you keep talking in circles around.

I did show you an ERV that is in apes but not in humans.

You don't seem to understand that you are agueing in circles around a tree that was drawn up by Darwin.

Well, I think I may do just that. I think what is being said here, is that the ERV orthologue ("orthologs are genes in different species which evolved from a common ancestral gene. " Wikopedia) are similar in different creatures. The interpretation being that it was passed down from a common ancestor?
If so, what is it we actually see here? That an ancient virus, or retrovirus, or something similar that evolved down to it's present form, and was in amny species, and kinds of animals.
Because of the way viruses are now transferred, or come to be in an animal, it is assumed it was also this same way in the past. Then, as an explanation, a common ancestor is needed to pass it on down?

If so, then, the underlying assumption is that the past was pretty well the same as now.
If it was drastically different, and the viruses were able to get around in ways they cannot now do, doing whatever different thing they used to do then, they would end up residing in a wide swath of creatures. Therefore, as the processes changed, and the present came to be, we simply see how it is now passed down. All assumptions of common ancestry become nothing more than assumptions that the past was the same. How we doing here so far?
I'll just float that, before driving home the conclusion.

You're missing the point.

If we examine the DNA of various primates, we will find that they share some endogenous retroviruses in the same location. Spread throughout the genome may be lots and lots of copies of similar ERV's, some due to duplication, multiple infections, translocation, etc. But some will be the same ERV in the same place.

Now, regardless of how the DNA for a retrovirus got into their DNA, absent common ancestry, there is no good reason to suspect that minor differences in these DNA stretches would imply a nested hierachy that matches other ERV's or other pseudogenes, or coding genes, or even morphology. If common ancestry is true, however, this is a necessity.

I've not yet heard any other explanation that deduces the convergence of independent phylogenies as a required consequence.