Endogenous retroviruses

So, why would you consider it useful that the lifeform you claim appeared chose to make creatures as they now are? Why not three eyes, or asexual, etc?

Telling us more than what it is can be a tall tale.

Not true. At least in the way I have described it.

Wrong! We still have the evolution from the original kind. In fact, if one were clever, realizing the actual facts here, one might miss some mistakes others might make, assuming a common single ancestor.

As much as yours, look at the elephant tree! The only thing we can't test is your bit, about it coming from a worm!

False, we expect the original kinds.

Mine can be tested as much as yours, and mine doesn't break down from the elephant to the worm!

I have plenty of that from the original kinds, so it is a moot point!

So does mine.

Evolution is NOT the issue here! You are beating a dead horse. It is your claim there was nothing but evolution.

The evolving of creations is not doubted by me either. The elephant from the worm is not what is supported.

I never said it was victory. (not that I don't realize it is)

I simply noted that I gave a position on ERVs, that no one can seemingly refute. That the ancestor of the RV used to get around differently than junior now does, and, has been passed down since then in the various creatures it had resided in.

Wrong. All you've said is. "It was different once, and using some mechanism I cannot describe, and have no model to explain it, ERV's used to be able to magically insert themselves into different species in identical locations in such a way as to later infer a phylogeny supporting common ancestry of these species."

You are not yet ready to be disabused of your misconceptions about what evolution expects to find in biology. I'll just note that none of this would be predicted by evolution.

No, explaining our observations within a testable, predictive model is called science.

Your explanation doesn't predict anything about the evidence. You've admitted yourself it can accommodate any hypothetical observation. Cats with wings? whales with feathers and gills? You have no problem with these.

One prediction from the concept of specially created kinds is that cladistics should reveal multiple nested hierarchies, each one rooted in one of these created kinds.

However, we have already seen that you can weasle out of the falsification of this prediction by handwaving some unspecified alternate past where magic wound the genetic histories of unrelated species into a single tapestry of perceived ancestry.

Dissapointment in the findings of science doesn't constitute a refutation.

And when they are not found, you handwave.

Yours cannot be tested because you can always appeal to an ad hoc magical explanation for why the evidence fails to support you.

Except that these created kinds are an unevidenced fabrication.

No it doesn't

Evolution is the scientific contrast to your unscientific proposal.

Actually, the ancestor of all Bilateria, which includes elephants, would have likely been some sort of worm. We know this due to actual science.

Wrong. All you've said is. "It was always like this, and using the "same mechanism" that I cannot begin to support was in place then, and have no model to explain it, ERV's used to magically be as they are now.
Insert themselves into only the same species in identical locations in such a way as to later infer a phylogeny supporting common ancestry of these species."

So, cut the big claims as if we know what the state of the past, and how cells worked precisely, and etc. You don't! Plain and simple.
Until you can offer some modicom of evidence, rather than long winded assumptions only, that's not an explanation. It's hand waving. It really is.

Well, you don't predict pink unicorns, because we don't observe them, and you assume the conditions of the past were a certain way. I'll just say that.

The only testable part is the present, why is is hard yo unabuse you of the idea you can test the past?

No idea what you are talking about. We had the original created kinds, and then the adapting had to work from that. Where was this flying cat in Eden??

Cladistics is the running of facts with your assumptions all the way from start to finish.

Why do you claim an elephant should produce many NHs? It is beginning to sound like you do not know what it is you are talking about.

Thank you. Sorry that all the evolving as well as the created kinds totally throws you.

Now you claim that it is science that the elephant came from the worm! Easy to say I guess, if the universe came from less in your books! Hec, who needs proof, with the PO poof!?

Funny, almost like you read my mind here. Don't try to lay your act on me!

Newsflash, you need a same past to support your magical explanations, you do not have one, stop making claims. Back to kindergarden, and do your homework this time.

The are as evidenced as the elephant, how can you miss that? What is unevidenced is that elephant coming, as you claim, from a worm!

Of course it does, in spades, to the tenth power, with ease, and in totality.

No evolution is a small part of my proposal. You can't see the elephant, cause the worm is too close to your eyes!

Ha! Hear that people, there it is in case you thought I was kidding!!!!!!!!!! Behold, the theory!

Actually, what I've claimed is that:

1. Retroviruses can insert themselves into a germ cell and then be inherited by all the descendents of the resulting offspring.

In the offspring who have inherited such an endogenous retrovirus, it will appear in the same location, as that's how genetic inheritence works.

1. Over many generations, mutations in the ERV will accumulate.
2. This descent with modification will produce a family tree of actual relationships due to actual ancestry.

Cladistic methods can be used to infer this actual tree of relationships, using these accumulated mutations.

The above works across many generations, even through speciation events, and can be used to infer how species are related.

Note the lack of special pleading in this argument. I'm not claiming there is some impeneterable wall where the past must be assumed to be different from the present. I'm not arbitrarily excluding things that I don't like. I'm just using the methods and data at my disposal and coming to reasoned conclusions.

You've been given plenty of evidence. You've yet to explain why we should assume the past was substantially different from the present.

Yes they can, and so??


Right, it woks that way, now, and so... did you have some point here relating to how it used to work??

They now wil do this and that, etc. not the issue here, we are addressing what happenned long long ago.

It can be used to try to trace the present onto the past, but that is meaningless. Unless the object is merely to erase the trace of the creator, and hope no one notices that you have no idea in reality of what the past actually was like!

It works across your imagination of the past, but in reality is something that goes on now.


You are just arbitrarily including the unknown past into how it now works in the present with no proof whatsoever. That is where your methods and data come from, in case you missed that!


I have been given assumptiuons the past was the same with no evidence whatsoever, but simply taking evidence and reading your baseless same past into it.
Whatever reason the past was different really should not matter, any more than the reasons it may have been the same. What matters is that we be able to demonstrate solidly it was the one way or the other, not just sit on our assumptive thumbs, and build castles on the sand.
You can't sit there claiming some concrete foundation for your sand castles, when we can see you are right there on the beach in the sand, and there is no solid foundation to be found.

You are not qualified to understand what evolution predicts. Not until you've got a better grasp of it.

Because you are wrong. Any hypothesis about the past that makes predictions we can test in the present makes that hypothesis testable, and scientific.

You've been told how ERV's help us to test hypotheses about the past.

If cat with wings existed, creationism could accommodate that. We call this a hypothetical.

If whales with feathers and gills existed, creationism could accommodate that. Evolution could not.

Such findings would falsify evolution. NB: A cat with wings that were homologous with the front legs of other cat species could be accommodated in evolution.

Actually cladistics is a set of statistical algorithms that infer the most parsimoneous phylogeny based on a character matrix. It is an entirely objective process.

The data doesn't support rapid radiation from an initial set of created kinds.

Unfamilarity with the evidence doesn't make the evidence disappear.

Handwaving is your bailiwick. I prefer testable, predictive models.

That the universe operated in the past in essentially the same way it operates in the present is the most parsimoneous assumption.

Unless you've got a good reason to think otherwise, that's the assumption of science.

Elephants exist. Your created kinds do not show up anywhere but in your imagination. Taxonomy falsifies them.

Your proposal of created kinds has been falsified.

Yes, the ancestor of all bilateria would have had the most simple bilaterian body plan, that of a worm. A top half, a bottom half, a front and a back. There is over half a billion years between this ancient bilaterian worm and elephants.

You've not given any reason to assume the past was substantially different from the present.

What kind of an imaginary past would change the rules of inheritence?

You can't just make stuff up and then claim that fantasy invalidates science.