Endogenous retroviruses

[dad]

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

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.

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

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!

Because we can draw up a single tree.

No problem, I can draw one that had many branches.

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

Did you misstate your position here? --If the common ancestor were correct, there would be no reason for your little imaginary tree?!

 

[Tomk80]

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.

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.

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!

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.

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?!

Euh, yes, I did indeed misstate my position here

 

[mark kennedy]

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.

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.

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.

Rest assured I am not bothered by what I am finding and I will continue my research as I see fit. Common ancestry is quite extensive but it is finite none the less. There is no mechanism for turning bacteria into eukaryotes and there is no way to evolve a human brain from a chimpanzees.

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.

I have a better idea, why don't you identify these ERVs you are making so much fuss about and really look at them. I don't really care what kind of charts they draw up, I want to compare chimpanzee ERVs to human ERVs.

"Horizontal transmissions between species have been proposed, but little evidence exists for such events in the human/great ape lineage of evolution. Based on analysis of finished BAC chimpanzee genome sequence, we characterize a retroviral element (Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus 1 [PTERV1]) that has become integrated in the germline of African great ape and Old World monkey species but is absent from humans and Asian ape genomes."

Lineage-specific expansions of retroviral insertions within the genomes of African great apes but not humans and orangutans.

Using an array of 2460 human bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) (12% of the genome), we identified a total of 63 sites of putative DNA copy-number variation between humans and the great apes (chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, and orangutan).

Large-scale variation among human and great ape genomes determined by array comparative genomic hybridization.

Second, while all lineages showed more gene copy number increases than decreases, this was most pronounced in humans, with 134 cDNAs representing increases and only six representing decreases. This increase-to-decrease ratio (22.3:1) was significantly greater than that of any of the great apes, which showed ratios ranging from 2.75:1 (chimpanzee) to 1.18:1 (orangutan).

Lineage-specific gene duplication and loss in human and great ape evolution.​

Let's talk about the actual evidence and compare the genes and DNA of apes and humans.

 

[Chalnoth]

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.

 

[mark kennedy]

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).

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.

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).

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. It was well before there was such a thing as biology and now we have genomics. Identify the ERVs you are talking about or talk in circles around these bizzare assumptions based on nothing, it's your call.

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.

Frankly all I am worried about is that I am wasteing my time. Now tell me what ERVs you are talking about and I do mean I want to know what their location is. Otherwise this is going nowhere which is exactly where I knew we would end up.

 

[dad]

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

What post? Cornets?

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

No, that is nothing more than assuming there was no creation. You have no clue where to stop. What would you look for? That is why the fantasy is worthless.

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.

It does. All the way. You haven't shown anything it doesn't.

Euh, yes, I did indeed misstate my position here

OK, I'll ignore that.

 

[dad]

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

..... Is that too much to ask? Come on people back up your claims, or stand down, tail tucked in.

 

[Chalnoth]

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.

If you're really interested, go through Lebedev et. al. 2000 and find them yourself. I am unconcerned as to the details of the research, only that it shows that those ERV's which are orthologous between species follow the phylogenic tree. That is all that I care about, and to know that I don't need to concern myself with specific ERV's.

If I was so interested in the research to go into the nitty gritty details, I'd be working in evolutionary biology instead of cosmology.

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

I believe you've posted two, actually. One of these did not have the ERV's existing in the same locations in the genome, and as such the ERV's in question could not have been due to common ancestry, and thus had no reason to follow the phylogenic tree.

The second existed in a part of the genome which had more than one copy before the original insertion, and some of these copies were deleted in some species but not others.

But this is all immaterial. Finding one or two exceptions that are easy to explain does not destroy the phylogenic tree. To do that, you would need to find many more "exceptions" than ERV's that actually follow the phylogenic tree, since there are many, many more ways for ERV's to not follow a phylogenic tree than there are ways for them to follow one.

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

Darwin didn't discover the phylogenic tree. He just explained it. And we have since learned of many errors in the phylogenic trees of Drawin's era.

 

[Ondoher]

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.

 

[dad]

You're missing the point.

But am I? Sounds like you may be missing something here.

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.

If we had a created common ancestor, in a different past, where the retrovirus ancestor was able to get into different kinds of animals, we would expect it to be passed on as it is, no?

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.

But common ancestry to a point is true, is what I an saying here. And that point is the created ancestor.

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

You have now.

 

[Ondoher]

But am I? Sounds like you may be missing something here.

Yes, you are. And you still are.

If we had a created common ancestor, in a different past, where the retrovirus ancestor was able to get into different kinds of animals, we would expect it to be passed on as it is, no?

No, we expect it to be passed on with modification. And we expect those modifications to infer a phylogeny consistent with that derived from other molecular and morphological data. Like we actually see.

But common ancestry to a point is true, is what I an saying here. And that point is the created ancestor.

And yet when we actually examine the data, we find that the nested heirarchy of species actually unites all plants, animals and fungus, and quite possible bacteria and archaea too. The data just doesn't support specially created kinds which would produce multiple nested hierachies each one rooted in one of the originally created kinds.

You have now.

Odd, then I must have missed it. Perhaps you can repeat it.

 

[dad]

No, we expect it to be passed on with modification. And we expect those modifications to infer a phylogeny consistent with that derived from other molecular and morphological data. Like we actually see.

So do I! And the created common ancestor is where the buck stops.

And yet when we actually examine the data, we find that the nested heirarchy of species actually unites all plants, animals and fungus, and quite possible bacteria and archaea too.

Unites with the common creation building blocks that were used. Nothing says we came from fungus! Show us the precise link, and I will show you a joke.

The data just doesn't support specially created kinds which would produce multiple nested hierachies each one rooted in one of the originally created kinds.

Oh yes it does, to a tee. Your taking the observed adapting and evolving to some fungi for parents is absurd speculations. ERVs do not say that at all. So, what does, exactly, precisely? Oh, right, nothing.

Odd, then I must have missed it. Perhaps you can repeat it.

The common ancestor that passed down the trace retroviruses in the dna, was a creation of God. Rapid evolution gave us the many species, etc. So, there was some evolution passing things down, I think, from your evidences. That evolving started, however at a created kind!

 

[Ondoher]

So do I! And the created common ancestor is where the buck stops.



Unites with the common creation building blocks that were used. Nothing says we came from fungus! Show us the precise link, and I will show you a joke.


Oh yes it does, to a tee. Your taking the observed adapting and evolving to some fungi for parents is absurd speculations. ERVs do not say that at all. So, what does, exactly, precisely? Oh, right, nothing.


The common ancestor that passed down the trace retroviruses in the dna, was a creation of God. Rapid evolution gave us the many species, etc. So, there was some evolution passing things down, I think, from your evidences. That evolving started, however at a created kind!

I will repeat this again. If special creation was true, then there would be multiple nested hierarchies, each one rooted in one of the specially created kinds. That's not what we find. What we find is a single nested hierarchy, uniting all species.

Your specially created kinds do not show up in the data, they appear to be no more than fantasy.

your explanation does not explain the single nested hierarchy as a necessary consequence. Have you got another?

 

[dad]

I will repeat this again. If special creation was true, then there would be multiple nested hierarchies, each one rooted in one of the specially created kinds. That's not what we find. What we find is a single nested hierarchy, uniting all species.

"In biology, the study of taxonomy is one of the most conventionally hierarchical kinds of knowledge, placing all living beings in a nested structure of divisions related to their probable evolutionary descent. .."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy
Well, I say probable starts with the creations. You can say what you want. You will have to make a clear case, however, precept upon precept, and explain how you do an end run around the creations, and end up in a pond with no creator! Based on what, is this probable stuff, is the question.
What do you claim "unites all species"!?

Your specially created kinds do not show up in the data, they appear to be no more than fantasy.

The created kinds were created with similar material, so you don't know what to look for, so go sailing right by the actual creation, repeating the phrase nested hierarchy, as if it had some meaning of import.

your explanation does not explain the single nested hierarchy as a necessary consequence. Have you got another?

The species that inherited the ERVs here got it from a common ancestor. Not a speck, but, if they were monkeys, from the monkey ancestor. If they were a cat, from the cat kind creation ancestor, etc.
This meets the evidence. Now, if you want to digress from the topic here, of ERVs, and push the monkey tree, or whatever, hey, what can I say? Maybe a thread for that would be a better idea. 'The monkey tree' or 'The evo tree'.
You are busted.

 

[mark kennedy]

If you're really interested, go through Lebedev et. al. 2000 and find them yourself. I am unconcerned as to the details of the research, only that it shows that those ERV's which are orthologous between species follow the phylogenic tree. That is all that I care about, and to know that I don't need to concern myself with specific ERV's.

So as long as they draw up a chart you don't care what they base it on. You don't care what ERVs are, how they got there or even where they are. As long as they draw you up a chart that looks like a tree that is all you need. Gottca

If I was so interested in the research to go into the nitty gritty details, I'd be working in evolutionary biology instead of cosmology.

Then why do you pretend to understand what an ERV is? I read the paper you are talking about and I have traced down at least a dozen or so of the ERVs. I know what they are and I know that they aren't any kind of an arguement someone can use to prove a common ancestor for chimpanzees and humans.

I believe you've posted two, actually. One of these did not have the ERV's existing in the same locations in the genome, and as such the ERV's in question could not have been due to common ancestry, and thus had no reason to follow the phylogenic tree.

Then tell me which ones are in the same location because I am way ahead of you on that one. You make such a big deal about ERVs and you can't name a single ERV that supports your arguements. Then you want me to disprove something that is baseless to begin with. But you have some charts that look like trees, that's all that is important. You guys just kill me!

The second existed in a part of the genome which had more than one copy before the original insertion, and some of these copies were deleted in some species but not others.

Apes had them and humans didn't. Monkeys had them and humans didn't. Look, unless you can identify these ERVs that all the evolutionists are talking about you are simply making an empty arguement. It's fun running you in circles but you are really doing it to yourself so I don't mind.

But this is all immaterial. Finding one or two exceptions that are easy to explain does not destroy the phylogenic tree. To do that, you would need to find many more "exceptions" than ERV's that actually follow the phylogenic tree, since there are many, many more ways for ERV's to not follow a phylogenic tree than there are ways for them to follow one.

Did you know the ERVs are linked to disease or that they are found in genes? You keep talking about this imaginary tree because of a picture you linked to from Talk Origins and that is your whole argument.

They are following some tree in many, many ways? What ways are you talking about because the only tree I see you argueing from is the one that Darwin drew up from his own imagination.

Darwin didn't discover the phylogenic tree. He just explained it. And we have since learned of many errors in the phylogenic trees of Drawin's era.

Darwin was the first to suggest that all ancestry went back to a single common ancestor. He based his conjecture on the blending of characteristics but that fell away the same way this silly ERV arguement will. Darwin didn't draw an actual lineage specific tree, he just drew a bunch of lines that stemmed from a common source. It would have been the primordial common ancestor of primordial bacteria and fauna. It's a myth, told by perhaps the most popular mythographer of all time.

 

[Tomk80]

"In biology, the study of taxonomy is one of the most conventionally hierarchical kinds of knowledge, placing all living beings in a nested structure of divisions related to their probable evolutionary descent. .."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy
Well, I say probable starts with the creations. You can say what you want. You will have to make a clear case, however, precept upon precept, and explain how you do an end run around the creations, and end up in a pond with no creator! Based on what, is this probable stuff, is the question.
What do you claim "unites all species"!?

The universal common ancestor we have, as shown by the twin-nested hierarchy (ie the tree of life). That is the evidence. Now, have you got any evidence to the contrary. Somewhere were the twin-nested hierarchy breaks down or some evidence that other processes like design can also produce twin-nested hierarchies?

The created kinds were created with similar material, so you don't know what to look for, so go sailing right by the actual creation, repeating the phrase nested hierarchy, as if it had some meaning of import.

It has a very specific meaning of import. Now, where does it break down?

The species that inherited the ERVs here got it from a common ancestor. Not a speck, but, if they were monkeys, from the monkey ancestor. If they were a cat, from the cat kind creation ancestor, etc.
This meets the evidence. Now, if you want to digress from the topic here, of ERVs, and push the monkey tree, or whatever, hey, what can I say? Maybe a thread for that would be a better idea. 'The monkey tree' or 'The evo tree'.
You are busted.

So since humans and chimpansees (not to mention gorillas and orangutans) have common ERV's that were inherited, they have the same common ancestor by your reasoning.

Good to see that that is settled.

 

[shernren]

I have a better idea, why don't you identify these ERVs you are making so much fuss about and really look at them. I don't really care what kind of charts they draw up, I want to compare chimpanzee ERVs to human ERVs.

"Horizontal transmissions between species have been proposed, but little evidence exists for such events in the human/great ape lineage of evolution. Based on analysis of finished BAC chimpanzee genome sequence, we characterize a retroviral element (Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus 1 [PTERV1]) that has become integrated in the germline of African great ape and Old World monkey species but is absent from humans and Asian ape genomes."

Lineage-specific expansions of retroviral insertions within the genomes of African great apes but not humans and orangutans.

​

You shouldn't link to html's stored on your local hard drive unless you expect us to hack into it. XD link's here: http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030110

Look at the qualifications they attach to their research:

Based on analysis of finished BAC chimpanzee genome sequence, we characterize a retroviral element (Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus 1 [PTERV1]) that has become integrated in the germline of African great ape and Old World monkey species but is absent from humans and Asian ape genomes. We unambiguously map 287 retroviral integration sites and determine that approximately 95.8% of the insertions occur at non-orthologous regions between closely related species. Phylogenetic analysis of the endogenous retrovirus reveals that the gorilla and chimpanzee elements share a monophyletic origin with a subset of the Old World monkey retroviral elements, but that the average sequence divergence exceeds neutral expectation for a strictly nuclear inherited DNA molecule. Within the chimpanzee, there is a significant integration bias against genes, with only 14 of these insertions mapping within intronic regions. Six out of ten of these genes, for which there are expression data, show significant differences in transcript expression between human and chimpanzee. Our data are consistent with a retroviral infection that bombarded the genomes of chimpanzees and gorillas independently and concurrently, 3–4 million years ago. We speculate on the potential impact of such recent events on the evolution of humans and great apes.

Note the three independent verifications of horizontal transfer:

1. Non-orthology of insertion locations.
2. PTERV phylogeny inconsistent with primate phylogeny.
3. Significantly higher single-nucleotide substitution rate.

Now, if we only had a phylogenetic mismatch, but orthologous insertions and normal mutation rates, I would agree that there was something fishy. As it is, we have confirmation of horizontal transfer that is completely independent of the phylogenetic relationships concerned. So this does not amount to a substantive disproof of ERV phylogeny, as far as I'm concerned it looks like you're grasping at straws since we've already dealt with PtERV in your ERV thread weeks ago.

 

[Chalnoth]

So as long as they draw up a chart you don't care what they base it on. You don't care what ERVs are, how they got there or even where they are. As long as they draw you up a chart that looks like a tree that is all you need. Gottca

I care when it comes to my own field. When it comes to other peoples' fields, I trust that there is enough controversy within the field to weed out bad or deceptive science.

Then why do you pretend to understand what an ERV is? I read the paper you are talking about and I have traced down at least a dozen or so of the ERVs. I know what they are and I know that they aren't any kind of an arguement someone can use to prove a common ancestor for chimpanzees and humans.

Why not? If you claim to know so much how the 14 ERV's found by this team aren't evidence of common ancestry, you surely can explain it to me, right? And to do that, you'll have to show:
1. That there are many other ERV's that are inconsistent with the phylogenic tree, or
2. That there is an alternative explanation for why these ERV's are consistent with the phylogenic tree.

 

[Ondoher]

"In biology, the study of taxonomy is one of the most conventionally hierarchical kinds of knowledge, placing all living beings in a nested structure of divisions related to their probable evolutionary descent. .."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy
Well, I say probable starts with the creations. You can say what you want. You will have to make a clear case, however, precept upon precept, and explain how you do an end run around the creations, and end up in a pond with no creator! Based on what, is this probable stuff, is the question.

The single nested hierarchy of species is not a debatable topic. It's been well understood since Carl Linnaeus first discovered it nearly 300 years ago. Perhaps the problem here is that you don't know what a nested hierarchy is. A nested hierarchy is an arrangement of objects (species in this case) such that you get groups(taxa) within groups. A bit like the folders on your hard drive.

Now, this nested hierarchy of species encompasses all living things. Evolution explains this nested hierarchy as being due to descent with modification. Each taxa defines a set of species that have inherited specific traits (such as a backbone, or an ERV) from an ancestor in which that trait first evolved.

If special creation were true, we'd not have a single tree, but multiple, little trees, each one rooted in one of these created kinds. If special creation were true, there is nothing that prevents a creator from making whales with gills. But that cannot be reconciled with evolution.

Modern taxonomy is done using cladistic methods, which are statistical algorithms that produce the most likely phylogenies based on a character matrix for a given set of species. The method is robust, and we find that the results of these methods produce trees that are converging on a single, true phylogeny. There is no reason to expect this to be true if special creation were true. If special creation were true, we'd have to imagine that god created these kinds such that they'd appear to be related. Sounds like a pretty tricky god to me.

Whatever the case, you have still not proposed an explanation in which a single, nested hierarchy of species is a required consequence.

What do you claim "unites all species"!?

The single nested hierarchy of species. That birds are tetrapods unites them with humans. That fungi and plants are eukayotes unites them with animals. All species are on the same tree.

The created kinds were created with similar material, so you don't know what to look for, so go sailing right by the actual creation, repeating the phrase nested hierarchy, as if it had some meaning of import.

But you see, the nested hierarchy of species DOES have real import. It exists. It is a real thing. A thing that creationists cannot explain, absent a bunch of hand waving.

The species that inherited the ERVs here got it from a common ancestor. Not a speck, but, if they were monkeys, from the monkey ancestor. If they were a cat, from the cat kind creation ancestor, etc.
This meets the evidence. Now, if you want to digress from the topic here, of ERVs, and push the monkey tree, or whatever, hey, what can I say? Maybe a thread for that would be a better idea. 'The monkey tree' or 'The evo tree'.
You are busted.

In this you are almost correct. The most parsimoneous explanation for the presence of orthologous endogenous retroviruses is inheritence. But there is no reason to go special pleading humans out of that equation. When humans and chimpanzees share such a genetic trait, then we must follow the evidence and say that they inherited this genetic feature from a common ancestor.

 

[dad]

The universal common ancestor we have, as shown by the twin-nested hierarchy (ie the tree of life).

No, you interpret the evidence that way. How do you get from fast evolution in Noah's day, to man coming from a tree shrew? Your dream tree is based on what, really? Similarities and creation building blocks detected in creatures. You may even have some real evolution from created creatures into a whole plethora or group of species from the one kind. But that does not take man up into a real tree as a little shrew!
Creation is a twin nested heirarchy when the original kinds adapt down to what we have today. Not up, as evolution teaches!

That is the evidence. Now, have you got any evidence to the contrary. Somewhere were the twin-nested hierarchy breaks down or some evidence that other processes like design can also produce twin-nested hierarchies?

Yes, all evidence we see fits the created kinds that God origianally made here. Can you show me one thing it does not fit?

It has a very specific meaning of import. Now, where does it break down?

Before we can break down an imaginary tree, we need to make it a real tree. Where does the creation tree break down??? If there was the one elephant created, and later it evolved, or adapted to the various species we have had, like mammoth, African, etc, then what evidence do you have it never started as the one kind? You can't say evolving, because we both allow that. Your breakdown comes at the points where you imagine the basic kind came from something else. That can't be supported, or I think you would do it, rather than post and post and post about how you have the evidence, just cough it up.

So since humans and chimpansees (not to mention gorillas and orangutans) have common ERV's that were inherited, they have the same common ancestor by your reasoning.

Well, in the different past we had the retrovirus ancestor able to get across kind and species barriers, apparently. So we could have ERVs in created kinds then, not passed down. After the big change came, we now have just the present way they get passed down, and inserted, etc. If all we look at is that, we would assume it was always the same, so there was a common ancestor. Since the same past is only assumed, I do not share that assumption, and see how the actual evidence fites the real creation tree, better than the imaginary evo tree.
As for things aside from ERVs, yes, science says that chimps did it with men in the past. So we could have some similarities because of that wicked encounter time. Originally, I guessed that that also might have been one of the big causes of the ERV thing, but was barraged by evidences here, that I was on the wrong track. Being one that accepts actual evidence, I dropped that as a big factor for ERVs. But, yes, it certainly can be brought into play on other fronts.

Good to see that that is settled.

Well, God created man, and whatever primate, or apes, and monkey kinds He made in the beginning. If, near the tip of the creation tree branches, that branched out by the past ability to hyper adapt, wicked man mixed some genes with chimps, or other 'monkey' that gave chimps as an offspring, that is a possibility. In that sense, if true, we would share ancestors.

That has nothing do do with ignoring creation, like the evo tree does, and claim we decended from a tree shrew!!!
Even more absurd, is what they claim came before that dream, now get this people, and feel the spirit that is behind the inspiration for the theory. (The enemy of our souls)
"This organism most likely was some kind of a worm. At some point this ancestral worm species divided into two separate worm species..."
http://tolweb.org/tree/learn/concepts/whatisphylogeny.html