Again you assume thats the case. You assume the ERV shows common ancestry. You don't know it does. It just as well shows common design. And God didn't deceive anyone because he told you in his word how he did it and how long it took. You look at creation with an eye that believes in evolution rather than looking at creation from one who sees it through the lense of those who trust what God told us. You can't accuse God of deception when he told you how it was done. The fact you don't believe it is on you not God.
You interpret what you find with the eye of evolution because you believe in it rather than believe what God told you. It's a matter of interpretation and you have chosen to interpret similarities and common design as evolution.
What Utter Rubbish!
No God of any sort has said anything about ERVs, let alone yours. The Bible was written by unknown authors so If there is a God, then what you're implying is that he has planted all the evidence to look like all life evolved - why would he do that if he wants us to think we were created? I'm more than happy to note God hasn't said anything about it one way or another. We've had to find all this out ourselves, but let's follow this train of thought, shall we?
We've been able to identify ERVs in our DNA because we can observe the process by which it infects us, and every other life form on this planet. We've been able to replicate it in the Lab, and in fact, we've even been able to reconstruct many of them from the remnants left in our genomes - including Ancient ones we've been able to reconstruct using a type of DNA profile overlay from other species that also share it to augment the original viral complex into its original form, we can then introduce it to new cells and watch it reinfect them in its original guise, so we know unequivocally that it was a virus. (see:
Tracking interspecies transmission and long-term evolution of an ancient retrovirus using the genomes of modern mammals. - PubMed - NCBI) - we can then examine the genomes of all the species alive today and work out when it was active and in what state the phylogenetic tree was in when it did so (incidentally, matching exactly what we would see through genetic inheritance - see one particular example of many:
Tracking interspecies transmission and long-term evolution of an ancient retrovirus using the genomes of modern mammals of the same article where it demonstrates humans, chimps and gorillas were yet to diverge however gibbons and orangutans had already split away). Knowing what we know about ERVs, we know they fixate in a genome at the same loci by inheritance, yet when contracted in another species separately, they fixate at a completely different loci.
We can determine how long ago this virus was active in a number of different ways - one through rates of mutation, the other through fixation in genomes of species and how it correlates with the tree of life - every time we do this, they match! They always match!
So let's put aside Both our points of view for a bit, and follow the observations to their conclusion. Now, so we're clear, this is what we observe:
- ERVs are known to infect at very different loci in a genome when contracted separately, the odds of separate contractions of any given retrovirus at the exact same loci in another organism is so vanishingly small as to be ignorable. We've replicated this in the lab and in the field ad-nauseum. We repeat this exercise all the time.
- We know that ERVs are inherited in the exact same loci in offspring once fixated in a genome. This too has been observed ad-nauseum. Also, we continue to do this all the time too.
- In general, All species have hundreds of thousands of observable ERV remnants in their genomes - we have around 208,000!
- We have seen speciation events in both the lab and in the field and observe ERVs following points 1. and 2. above, a falsifiable test would be to observe either an ERV not carried over to the same loci in offspring, or we observe these Retroviruses infecting organisms at the same loci - we've never been able to falsify this point using either of these tests. Ever. Also, we've never observed another wholesale method that could
- We can reliably map ancestral relationships using these observations of ERVs (and not just DNA similarities/differences, which is another superset method of doing so) - this too has been reproduced in both the lab and the field successfully and reliably matches other unique methods to achieve ancestral relationships.
- the exact same method by which we can determine how far back any two human beings shared an ancestor using ERV inheritance, we can perform the same test on any two species of life to determine the distance to a shared ancestor, including humans and other great apes, and mammals, and animals, and vertibrates, and eukaryotes, etc.
Let's discuss these points, what problems (if any) do you see with these points and what conclusion would you come to if you have no preconceived (invested) position? Why do we reliably make these unique and very specific observations repeatedly? Also, see:
ERVs and tell me what you have a problem with on that page too, so we can get to the root of your misunderstanding here.
Now for extra credit, pretend you're a Muslim, or Jewish, or a Hindu, or Bhuddist, or even a Scientologist for that matter, what conclusion would you come to on the observations above? and Why did you answer the way you did for these other faiths?
I wait patiently for your reply.
