creationists and their double-standard

[Inan3]

I thought you were gap theorist?

I am but don't tell them, okay?

 

[Inan3]

I thought you were gap theorist?

Gap theorists still believe in the flood, though.

 

[Nathan45]

Since we're on the flood...

how did animals, plants, humans, and a tropical rainforest get from mount ararat to south america in 4000 years?

i asked that question in another thread ( and a bunch of other questions too ), but never got much serious response. ( sorry AV, i don't consider you serious )

http://foru.ms/t6257091-some-flood-questions-for-young-earth-creationists.html

 

[ReverendDG]

I guess you have your mind all made up about me so no sense in answering your questions. You guys make it real easy to decide which post to answer and which post not to answer. Thanks. I prefer not wasting my time.

hey its not my fault that you keep asking the same questions over and over again, you aren't really trying.
its rather sad that you aren't willing to answer questions only you can answer.
i made up my mind based on the fact that like a lot of creationists you reject evidence out of hand instead of doing further research, the fact is you ask for examples of evidence. but you want people to tell you why its evidence. You never ask why its evidence, asking both questions is important, but one is not being asked
if you honestly want to know why its evidence go for it, but its not an easy answer people can give you in a sound-bite, and expecting people to is absurd.
the problem i see is, like so many others you expect something like in the bible, but science is much more complex than that

 

[Loudmouth]

More posts like this one. I so appreciate (most) of your posts. They are informative and mostly respectful. I realize at times you might think I am being hard to get along with and that may make you respond negatively but on the whole I appreciate your posts and I believe in time we can work out the negative stuff. So thank you. I still have questions but I assure you I am really not trying to be difficult.

Your welcome, and your honesty is much appreciated.

I may be stubborn but I prefer to say not easily swayed.

What evidence swayed you into accepting the idea of a recent global flood?

Well I'm sure that there are as many different reasons as there are different creationists but I suppose the underlying reason would be (for me anyways) that they

don't give enough convincing information. A blanket statement that "this is this and that is that" doesn't cover it for me.

What convincing information is your creationist stance based on?

My question then, is usually "how did you arrive at that conclusion?" And without more information, I'm just not convinced.

In order to understand the evidence which supports evolution you must first understand the concept of nested hierarchies. Then you must understand the concepts of natural selection, mutation (and why they are considered random), and speciation. Selection is what causes different mutations to propogate or disappear in populations. Speciation is a process where populations are isolated from one another. This results in different mutations accumulating in the two separate populations which leads to divergence, much like languages diverging between two isolated human populations. These mechanisms produce a nested hierarchy, and a nested hierarchy is what we observe in nature.

 

[Loudmouth]

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i2/sisters.asp#f3

for one

Interesting, but hardly convincing. You still need to show how these rocks hardened and were eroded in such a short period. Look again at the picture of the Three Sisters. Imagine trying to shape these features out of mud or wet sand. It wouldn't stand up, would it? Also, cross bedding is also produced by wind. Even today you can cut into wind blown sand dunes and see the same cross bedding. In fact, one of the layers seen in the Grand Canyon (the Cocconino sandstone) was produced by this very mechanism. I don't know about you, but a desert is not what I picture when I think about a global flood. I also find it interesting that the global flood only left sediments on such a small portion of Australia.

Then you also have the dating of the features. AiG just dismisses it out of hand. Even worse, the age of the feature is not based on carbon dating so I don't understand why AiG goes on an anti-carbon dating rant.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Good Post!

Anticipating objections that the minute quantity of detected radiocarbon in this fossil wood might still be due to contamination, the question of contamination by recent microbial and fungal activity, long after the wood was buried, was raised with the staff at this, and another, radiocarbon laboratory. Both labs unhesitatingly replied that there would be no such contamination problem. Modern fungi or bacteria derive their carbon from the organic material they live on and don’t get it from the atmosphere, so they have the same ‘age’ as their host. Furthermore, the lab procedure followed (as already outlined) would remove the cellular tissues and any waste products from either fungi or bacteria. http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i3/fossilwood.asp

I don't think Snelling is being complete straight regarding possible contamination and the the petrified "wood" he sent for dating may not have been wood at all. You need to look at Joe Meert's page on the subject HERE that I pointed to before. He as a letter from one of the labs involved.
From: Alex Cherkinsky[SMTP:ACHERKINSKY@GEOCHRONLABS.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 6:58:55 PM
To: Meert Joe
Subject: Re: Some questions

Dear Joe

I remember this sample very well. So they called it "wood'? It wasn't wood at all and more looked like the iron concretion with the structures
lightly similar to wood. I have told about that to submitter, but anyway they wanted to date the sample. I think maybe this concretion was formed significantly later than Triassic period and I do not think that is a very rare case when you can find younger formation in the old deposits especially if it is sand or sandstones which
could be easy infiltrated with oil solutions. If you have more questions please let me know.

Best regards.

Dr.Alexander Cherkinsky
Radiocarbon Lab Manager

And from Joe

Please note, Snelling seems puzzled that an iron concretion could give a radiocarbon age. This is not at all uncommon and a cursory look at the literature would have given Snelling something to think about when he noticed the iron present in the sample. The first is Snellings description of the 'wood' impregnated with silica and hematite. Hematite is an iron oxide (rust essentially). Snelling adamantly maintains that the sample is wood from the Hawkesbury Formation Indeed, carbonized wood and plant matter is reported from the Hawkesbury Formation, but Snelling provides no detailed description of possible subsequent alteration---with the exception of the 'impregnated' sentence above. However, this alteration is probably the key to the 'dilemma'. It likely explains why Geochron labs identified it as an iron concretion with structures resembling wood. The replacement of wood by iron and silica would give it just that appearance. This alteration immediately calls into question the use of C-14 dating on the sample. There have been studies on iron concretions and 'dating' of them. For example Bird et al. (1994, The Carbon Isotope Composition of Organic matter occluded in iron nodules; Chem Geol, 114) states:
Abstract:

This study presents 13C and 14C results for soil organic carbon and carbon occluded by iron nodules from a quaternary soil profile developed on basalt in western Victoria, Australia. The results suggest that the 13C-value of organic matter in the iron nodules is directly inherited from the surrounding soil profile without isotopic fractionation, and that therefore the 13C-value of organic matter occluded by the iron nodules can be related to the vegetation present during nodule formation. However, 14C results suggest that iron nodules are not closed systems with respect to organic carbon, and that even chemically resistant immobile particulate carbon (of probably microbial origin) has been added to the nodule carbon pool since formation.
Interestingly, the sample run in that study gave d13C values typical of organic material (as in the Snelling study) and the iron concretion also gave radiocarbon dates due to contamination. For example, nodules in the Bird et al. (1994) study gave d13C= -24 0/00. In this study (from a different area of Australia), the nodules gave C-14 ages between 7470-1960 14C (before 1950). So, despite Snelling's incredulity about how one obtains an age from iron concretions, the answer is with some contamination. Therefore, although Snelling claims that cleaning would remove all possible contaminants, the paper by Bird et al. (1994) shows that this is not the case for iron concretions because they do not remove microbial contamination as clearly demonstrated by the study.
Furthermore, it is this microbial contamination that is responsible for the 'apparent age' of the sample. We have Snelling admitting that the sample was altered (silica and iron-rich), the radiocarbon lab manager-- whose specialty is C-14 dating of woody material-- stating that the sample appears to be a concretion and a study that shows quite clearly how such samples can give 'dates' through contamination.

It appears to me from this and several other cases that professional creationists deliberately misuse radiometric dating techniques in their attempts to cast doubt on radiometric dating in general.

You may also find the page entitled Will the Real Andrew Snelling please stand up to be of interest.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Interesting, but hardly convincing. You still need to show how these rocks hardened and were eroded in such a short period. Look again at the picture of the Three Sisters. Imagine trying to shape these features out of mud or wet sand. It wouldn't stand up, would it? Also, cross bedding is also produced by wind. Even today you can cut into wind blown sand dunes and see the same cross bedding. In fact, one of the layers seen in the Grand Canyon (the Cocconino sandstone) was produced by this very mechanism. I don't know about you, but a desert is not what I picture when I think about a global flood. I also find it interesting that the global flood only left sediments on such a small portion of Australia.

Then you also have the dating of the features. AiG just dismisses it out of hand. Even worse, the age of the feature is not based on carbon dating so I don't understand why AiG goes on an anti-carbon dating rant.

The Hawkesbury Sandtones are in a sense "water deposits". The geologic data indicate they were formed by a river system prone to catastrophic flooding similar to what is happening today with the Brahmaputra River. The structures Snelling is deceptively referring to were probably formed when the river was at flood stage. I got this description from Sircombe Sedimentary Geology 124 47-67 (1999).

Antoher paper I have on the subject is the one below.


Massive sandstone facies in the Hawkesbury Sandstone, a Triassic fluvial deposit near Sydney, Australia

Brian G. Jones, and Brian R. Rust

Univ. Wollongong, Dep. Geol., Wollongong, N.S.W., Australia
Univ. Ottawa, Dep. Geol., Canada
The massive sandstone occurs as sheets and in elongate depressions trending perpendicular to the paleoslope, as indicated by the unidirectional mean orientation of abundant cross-strata. Some of the depressions filled with massive sandstone also contain angular mudstone intraclasts, up to several meters in length. Massive sandstone is also associated with deformed cross-strata, formed by progressive loss of lamination during mass movement down forest slopes. Foreset failure is attributed to liquefaction due to falling water level, or to collapse of adjacent mud banks. The latter mechanism resulted in rapid loading of bedform foresets, and introduced large mudclasts into the massive sand. Sand and mudclasts accumulated in transverse scours at the foot of the foreset slopes, but also travelled along the scours, or spilled out to form massive sheet sands. The abundance of massive sandstone in the Hawkesbury Sandstone is attributed to deposition in a large river, in which flood stage bedforms were probably up to 15 m high. Because of the size of the bedforms, large volumes of liquefied sand were generated when foreset slopes failed.--Modified journal abstract.

So the Hawkesbury Sandstones were probably formed by what is called a braided fluvial system similar to some in operation today and certainly not by a mythical worldwide flood.

 

[thaumaturgy]

The Hawkesbury Sandtones are in a sense "water deposits". The geologic data indicate they were formed by a river system prone to catastrophic flooding similar to what is happening today with the Brahmaputra River. The structures Snelling is deceptively referring to were probably formed when the river was at flood stage. I got this description from Sircombe Sedimentary Geology 124 47-67 (1999).

Antoher paper I have on the subject is the one below.


Massive sandstone facies in the Hawkesbury Sandstone, a Triassic fluvial deposit near Sydney, Australia

Brian G. Jones, and Brian R. Rust

Univ. Wollongong, Dep. Geol., Wollongong, N.S.W., Australia
Univ. Ottawa, Dep. Geol., Canada
The massive sandstone occurs as sheets and in elongate depressions trending perpendicular to the paleoslope, as indicated by the unidirectional mean orientation of abundant cross-strata. Some of the depressions filled with massive sandstone also contain angular mudstone intraclasts, up to several meters in length. Massive sandstone is also associated with deformed cross-strata, formed by progressive loss of lamination during mass movement down forest slopes. Foreset failure is attributed to liquefaction due to falling water level, or to collapse of adjacent mud banks. The latter mechanism resulted in rapid loading of bedform foresets, and introduced large mudclasts into the massive sand. Sand and mudclasts accumulated in transverse scours at the foot of the foreset slopes, but also travelled along the scours, or spilled out to form massive sheet sands. The abundance of massive sandstone in the Hawkesbury Sandstone is attributed to deposition in a large river, in which flood stage bedforms were probably up to 15 m high. Because of the size of the bedforms, large volumes of liquefied sand were generated when foreset slopes failed.--Modified journal abstract.

So the Hawkesbury Sandstones were probably formed by what is called a braided fluvial system similar to some in operation today and certainly not by a mythical worldwide flood.

Thanks for the indepth info, Frumy! I knew there was someone on here with more experience in Oz geology.

So maybe Inan can help us understand a braided stream covered by enough water to cover all the mountains on earth.

But let's run with the "catastrophic" nature of such a big flood event that formed these parts of the Hawkesbury. And let's ignore that we see catastrophic flooding events around rivers even unto this day. And ask Inan to provide evidence that the flooding of the paleo "hawkesbury area river" correlates to a world-wide event.

The Hawkesbury Formation is dated to about 225-230million years ago, the Middle Triassic.

On the other side of the planet we find The Mahogany Member of the Triassic Ankareh Formation of north-central Utah. This formation contains an ancient soil horizon (a paleosol)-see here. Clearly a surficial feature.

And soils don't just develop overnight. This dates from the mid to late Triassic, but I can't find specific time frames.

So how do we have a global flood high enough to cover all the mountains of the world everywhere that not only formed a braided stream under water, but also may have allowed for a soil horizon to develop on the other side of the planet?

(I'm kind of skating on this one, I don't know the exact ages of the Loess in the Mahogany member. Still I bet a sufficiently skilled geologist can tell us about some other penecontemporaneous feature that was a terrestrial deposit.)

 

[Loudmouth]

The Hawkesbury Sandtones are in a sense "water deposits". The geologic data indicate they were formed by a river system prone to catastrophic flooding similar to what is happening today with the Brahmaputra River. The structures Snelling is deceptively referring to were probably formed when the river was at flood stage. I got this description from Sircombe Sedimentary Geology 124 47-67 (1999).

Antoher paper I have on the subject is the one below.


Massive sandstone facies in the Hawkesbury Sandstone, a Triassic fluvial deposit near Sydney, Australia

Brian G. Jones, and Brian R. Rust

Univ. Wollongong, Dep. Geol., Wollongong, N.S.W., Australia
Univ. Ottawa, Dep. Geol., Canada
The massive sandstone occurs as sheets and in elongate depressions trending perpendicular to the paleoslope, as indicated by the unidirectional mean orientation of abundant cross-strata. Some of the depressions filled with massive sandstone also contain angular mudstone intraclasts, up to several meters in length. Massive sandstone is also associated with deformed cross-strata, formed by progressive loss of lamination during mass movement down forest slopes. Foreset failure is attributed to liquefaction due to falling water level, or to collapse of adjacent mud banks. The latter mechanism resulted in rapid loading of bedform foresets, and introduced large mudclasts into the massive sand. Sand and mudclasts accumulated in transverse scours at the foot of the foreset slopes, but also travelled along the scours, or spilled out to form massive sheet sands. The abundance of massive sandstone in the Hawkesbury Sandstone is attributed to deposition in a large river, in which flood stage bedforms were probably up to 15 m high. Because of the size of the bedforms, large volumes of liquefied sand were generated when foreset slopes failed.--Modified journal abstract.

So the Hawkesbury Sandstones were probably formed by what is called a braided fluvial system similar to some in operation today and certainly not by a mythical worldwide flood.

Out of curiosity I searched around for responses to AiG's claims and found a rather large .pdf (pg. 49) that said about the same.

What AiG fails to explain is how these sediments solidified in such short order. From my understanding, you have to remove all of the water from the sand before it can lithify, not to mention the long time spans involved in lithification itself. Anyone who has ever built a sandcastle knows how difficult it is to build things with wet sand.

 

[Inan3]

Interesting, but hardly convincing. You still need to show how these rocks hardened and were eroded in such a short period. Look again at the picture of the Three Sisters. Imagine trying to shape these features out of mud or wet sand. It wouldn't stand up, would it? Also, cross bedding is also produced by wind. Even today you can cut into wind blown sand dunes and see the same cross bedding. In fact, one of the layers seen in the Grand Canyon (the Cocconino sandstone) was produced by this very mechanism. I don't know about you, but a desert is not what I picture when I think about a global flood. I also find it interesting that the global flood only left sediments on such a small portion of Australia.

Then you also have the dating of the features. AiG just dismisses it out of hand. Even worse, the age of the feature is not based on carbon dating so I don't understand why AiG goes on an anti-carbon dating rant.

First of all, I told you, you wouldn't accept anything. That used to bother me but what the heck...I'll just keep throwing things I find your way.

Secondly, AIG is just presenting this. The man who wrote about it is a geologist. Albeit he works with them but he's still one of you guys...you know a scientist. How am I to know which one is right? You guys say no, they say yes. More questions.

Thirdly, I need to sift through all the responses here.

 

[Inan3]

I don't think Snelling is being complete straight regarding possible contamination and the the petrified "wood" he sent for dating may not have been wood at all. You need to look at Joe Meert's page on the subject HERE that I pointed to before. He as a letter from one of the labs involved.
From: Alex Cherkinsky[SMTP:ACHERKINSKY@GEOCHRONLABS.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2001 6:58:55 PM
To: Meert Joe
Subject: Re: Some questions

Dear Joe

I remember this sample very well. So they called it "wood'? It wasn't wood at all and more looked like the iron concretion with the structures
lightly similar to wood. I have told about that to submitter, but anyway they wanted to date the sample. I think maybe this concretion was formed significantly later than Triassic period and I do not think that is a very rare case when you can find younger formation in the old deposits especially if it is sand or sandstones which
could be easy infiltrated with oil solutions. If you have more questions please let me know.

Best regards.

Dr.Alexander Cherkinsky
Radiocarbon Lab Manager

And from Joe

Please note, Snelling seems puzzled that an iron concretion could give a radiocarbon age. This is not at all uncommon and a cursory look at the literature would have given Snelling something to think about when he noticed the iron present in the sample. The first is Snellings description of the 'wood' impregnated with silica and hematite. Hematite is an iron oxide (rust essentially). Snelling adamantly maintains that the sample is wood from the Hawkesbury Formation Indeed, carbonized wood and plant matter is reported from the Hawkesbury Formation, but Snelling provides no detailed description of possible subsequent alteration---with the exception of the 'impregnated' sentence above. However, this alteration is probably the key to the 'dilemma'. It likely explains why Geochron labs identified it as an iron concretion with structures resembling wood. The replacement of wood by iron and silica would give it just that appearance. This alteration immediately calls into question the use of C-14 dating on the sample. There have been studies on iron concretions and 'dating' of them. For example Bird et al. (1994, The Carbon Isotope Composition of Organic matter occluded in iron nodules; Chem Geol, 114) states:
Abstract:

This study presents 13C and 14C results for soil organic carbon and carbon occluded by iron nodules from a quaternary soil profile developed on basalt in western Victoria, Australia. The results suggest that the 13C-value of organic matter in the iron nodules is directly inherited from the surrounding soil profile without isotopic fractionation, and that therefore the 13C-value of organic matter occluded by the iron nodules can be related to the vegetation present during nodule formation. However, 14C results suggest that iron nodules are not closed systems with respect to organic carbon, and that even chemically resistant immobile particulate carbon (of probably microbial origin) has been added to the nodule carbon pool since formation.
Interestingly, the sample run in that study gave d13C values typical of organic material (as in the Snelling study) and the iron concretion also gave radiocarbon dates due to contamination. For example, nodules in the Bird et al. (1994) study gave d13C= -24 0/00. In this study (from a different area of Australia), the nodules gave C-14 ages between 7470-1960 14C (before 1950). So, despite Snelling's incredulity about how one obtains an age from iron concretions, the answer is with some contamination. Therefore, although Snelling claims that cleaning would remove all possible contaminants, the paper by Bird et al. (1994) shows that this is not the case for iron concretions because they do not remove microbial contamination as clearly demonstrated by the study.
Furthermore, it is this microbial contamination that is responsible for the 'apparent age' of the sample. We have Snelling admitting that the sample was altered (silica and iron-rich), the radiocarbon lab manager-- whose specialty is C-14 dating of woody material-- stating that the sample appears to be a concretion and a study that shows quite clearly how such samples can give 'dates' through contamination.

It appears to me from this and several other cases that professional creationists deliberately misuse radiometric dating techniques in their attempts to cast doubt on radiometric dating in general.

You may also find the page entitled Will the Real Andrew Snelling please stand up to be of interest.

I'll read them but how do I know they are "being complete straight" about what they present??

 

[Loudmouth]

I'll read them but how do I know they are "being complete straight" about what they present??

How do you know if AiG is being completely straight with you?

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I'll read them but how do I know they are "being complete straight" about what they present??

Well for one thing Joe doesn't publish both creationist timelines and real geology timelines the way Snelling has. Then there is the fact that everyone at AiG including Snelling has signed a Statement of Faith that says the following (bold added).

1. Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation.
2. The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of Creation.
3. The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time.
4. The “gap” theory has no basis in Scripture.
5. The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of Biblical teaching, that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into “secular” and “religious,” is rejected.
6. No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.

And then you could look at the Absurd Nonsense on the Coconino Sandstones that Snelling and Austin wrote.

That should begin to give youi a clue as to who is playing straight with science and who isn't.

Added in Edit: I forgot to provide a link to the AiG statement of faith.

 

[Loudmouth]

First of all, I told you, you wouldn't accept anything. That used to bother me but what the heck...I'll just keep throwing things I find your way.

How does a fluvial plain evidence a global flood? Shouldn't the flood layer be world wide instead of being limited to a portion of Australia?

I fully agree that floods happen. I just disagree that a world wide flood occurred within the last 10,000 years.

You also did not address my problems with AiG's argument.

Secondly, AIG is just presenting this. The man who wrote about it is a geologist. Albeit he works with them but he's still one of you guys...you know a scientist. How am I to know which one is right? You guys say no, they say yes. More questions.

Thirdly, I need to sift through all the responses here.

Why do we say "no"? That's the important bit.

 

[Inan3]

I have to go do some girly things like change my baseball cap and boxing shorts on my character.

 

[RichardT]

Since you are now familiar with ERV's, let's see what Camp says about them.

It is not a prediction of the hypothesis of universal common ancestry or the more specific hypothesis of Neo-Darwinism that the same ERVs will exist in the same chromosomal location in two or more species. Evolution does not even predict the existence of ERVs, much less that they will be found at the same location in two or more species. After all, evolutionary theory was considered robust prior to the discovery of ERVs. This is but another example of taking an observation, claiming it as a prediction of evolution, and then using the fact the observation fits the prediction as evidence for the truth of evolution.

​

Do you approve of this dishonesty, Richard? It gets even worse later on:

Again, it is an unprovable theological assertion that God would not place the same nonfunctional sequences at the same locus in separate species. He may have a purpose for doing so that is beyond our present understanding. The objection that placing nonfunctional sequences at the same locus in separate species would make God guilty of deception is ill founded. God cannot be charged fairly with deception when we choose to draw conclusions from data that contradict what he has revealed in Scripture (see Gibson’s comments in the discussion of Prediction 19).
​

Therefore, God purposefully planted ERV's so that they fall into a nested hierarchy to make it look like they share common ancestry, even though they don't. Hmm, what a great idea, don't you agree Richard? In fact, I don't even see where Ashby Camp even touches on the fact that orthologous ERV's fall into a nested hierarchy. Why is that?

I read a bit from Dr. Liu and it turns out that HERV-W and HERV-FRD contribute to human placenta development. This is beneficial and seems to contradict the endogenization theory. For whatever reason, it's possible that God created us with sequences that resemble those of endogenous retroviruses, and that they were originally beneficial.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n2/were-retroviruses-created-good

"While intact ERVs with positional polymorphism are likely germline copies of exogenous viruses, ERVs with fixed locations and conserved beneficial genes may have been incorporated into the host genome at the time of creation. Exogenous retroviruses may have been created to help the ERVs and to transfer useful genes between hosts."

 

[Loudmouth]

I read a bit from Dr. Liu and it turns out that HERV-W and HERV-FRD contribute to human placenta development. This is beneficial and seems to contradict the endogenization theory.

How does it contradict the endogenization theory? No one has ever claimed that ERV's could not be co-opted for other purposes. No one has every claimed that ERV's must be non-functional in order to evidence evolution. It is the PLACEMENT of ERV's which evidences common descent.

For whatever reason, it's possible that God created us with sequences that resemble those of endogenous retroviruses, and that they were originally beneficial.

Ad hoc much?

God can do anything so any feature whatsoever can be claimed as evidence. A theory which predicts anything is useless.

"While intact ERVs with positional polymorphism are likely germline copies of exogenous viruses, ERVs with fixed locations and conserved beneficial genes may have been incorporated into the host genome at the time of creation. Exogenous retroviruses may have been created to help the ERVs and to transfer useful genes between hosts."

This doesn't explain why orthologous ERV's fall into a nested hierarchy.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I read a bit from Dr. Liu and it turns out that HERV-W and HERV-FRD contribute to human placenta development. This is beneficial and seems to contradict the endogenization theory. For whatever reason, it's possible that God created us with sequences that resemble those of endogenous retroviruses, and that they were originally beneficial.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v1/n2/were-retroviruses-created-good

"While intact ERVs with positional polymorphism are likely germline copies of exogenous viruses, ERVs with fixed locations and conserved beneficial genes may have been incorporated into the host genome at the time of creation. Exogenous retroviruses may have been created to help the ERVs and to transfer useful genes between hosts."

I guess you are talking about work like that in the paper I quote from below. There is another interpretation that doesn't have anything to do with God specially creating ERV's as seen in the part I bolded.

Direct Involvement of HERV-W Env Glycoprotein in Human Trophoblast Cell Fusion and Differentiation
Jean-Louis Frendo,1 Delphine Olivier,2 Valérie Cheynet,2 Jean-Luc Blond,2 Olivier Bouton,2 Michel Vidaud,3 Michèle Rabreau,4 Danièle Evain-Brion,1 and François Mallet2*

Molecular and Cellular Biology, May 2003, p. 3566-3574, Vol. 23, No. 10

Evidence has recently accumulated suggesting that endogenous retroviral gene expression may be involved in mediating the cell fusion observed in the placenta. Indeed, high expression of retroviruses is one of the characteristics of the human syncytiotrophoblast (21, 23). The observation of retroviral particles in the placenta, along with the presence of fused placental cells morphologically reminiscent of virally induced syncytia, led to the proposal that an ancient retroviral infection may have been a pivotal event in mammalian evolution (21).

 

[RichardT]

the proposal that an ancient retroviral infection may have been a pivotal event in mammalian evolution

What sounds more ad hoc to you, that God created us with a beneficial sequence that resembled ERV sequences, or that some virus that somehow contained a sequence of DNA for placenta development in the very distant past inserted itself into possibly a synapsid, and actually allowed it to develop a placenta? Remember, the only mechanism for "new information" is mutations, the placenta developement sequence from the ERV had to come from somewhere as well. Lateral gene transfers will not allow for prokaryote to homo-sapian evolution.

http://www.trueorigin.org/mutations01.asp