>- Responding to a post by Mark Nigro to the discussion group, Creation science https://www.facebook.com/groups/199046413446658/posts/37580953214829175
>- As Facebook is abysmal in its formatting and presentation facilities, If you are reading this on Facebook, I recommend that you go to my blog entry at https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/2026/07/responding-to-mark-nigro-part-1.html where I indent Marks words and show mine in red, preceded with ">-". It's much easier to follow.
>- As Mark's post has much that is not pertinent to the case for common ancestry between different kinds from endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), the subject here, I shall omit it for the sake of sparing unnecessary keystrokes and electrons.
>- I present the case and overrule the usual objections here, https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/2025/01/ERV-FAQ.html. This link appears at the top of all my blog posts.
Barry, you have several logical mistakes in this matter. One is that you argue that there should not be this level of similarity of these between the genomes of chimps and people.
>- No, Mark. That is not the point at all. I don't argue this. I show that there are specific markers in the genomes of Homo and Pan whose only reasonable explanation is that they entered the genomes of both species before our speciation from common ancestors occurred. The degree of similarity or difference in the rest of our genomes is irrelevant.
But you assume that God did not create these in their genomes.
>- We _conclude_ that they were created by endogenisation, the process by which retroviruses integrate a DNA copy of their genomes with the nuclear DNA of host species.
>- This explains why the worlds geneticists and virologists make this conclusion. https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/why-do-virologists-and-geneticists.html. Briefly,
>- The contents of ERVs are oriented to the retroviral replication cycle.
>- ERVs exhibit a viral codon bias.
>- Fully function exogenous have been resurrected by correcting mutations to ERV genetics.
>- A retrovirus KoRV, is in the process of endogenising in koalas.
>- ERVs exhibit a telltale target site duplications due to the action of retroviral integrase. These are exactly the same as in somatic cells directly infected by exogenous retroviruses.
Many evolutionists have claimed that the similarities in endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) between certain species prove common descent.
>- "Evolutionists" is a strange and rather quaint term. It sounds the same as using "gavitationalists", "atomicists", and germists", to denote regular folk who accept the findings of science.
>- Anyhow, many ERVs are identical in certain species, and where they are not, minor mutations account for the differences. But it is not merely the correspondence of the contents of ERVs that put common descent between species beyond any reasonable person's doubt. I go into the reasons @ https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/what-is-case-for-common-descent-from.html. Briefly, common endogenous retroviruses exist in every nuclear cell of the body, in precisely corresponding DNA loci. Direct integration by exogenous retroviruses would only affect a subset of cells, and the integration site would differ, going from one affected cell to another.
A. The failed prediction of junk DNA by evolutionary theory was not only illogical, irrational, unscientific and hence deceptive but has been refuted a number of times by introns, ERVs, LINEs, SINEs, TADs, etc. And the creation model has been vindicated each time.
>- This is a lie put out in desperation by creationists when confronted with the facts. As we have seen, it is overwhelmingly apparent to any objective person that ERVs derive from retroviruses. It is real scientists doing real science that have discovered that a subset of ERV components, components mind, have been scavenged by evolution and benefit their hosts. A complete, undamaged endogenous provirus would be fatal.
>- "Cdesign proponentsists often claim that the proof* of common descent from ERVs is falsified by the fact that elements of ERVs have been found to perform functions - sometimes vital functions, in the organisms in which they are found! It is true that they do, but this is a mere fig leaf to defend their antiscience creationism. It's all they have to try to cover up their nakedness when presented with the evidence from ERVs."
>- https://ncse.ngo/cdesign-proponentsists
>- "The fact that some elements of ERVs perform functions does not come as a surprise to virologists and geneticists. It is they, and not the creationist/ID "scientists", unlike creationists who go by such names as The "Institute for Creation Research" and "the Discovery Institute" that never actually do any research, who found this out and published their findings in the first place (incidentally giving the lie to the theory that scientists are engaged in a multinational, multi-generational conspiracy to fool us about evolution)."
- https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/the-not-junk-efence.html
“ERVs are an essential component of the development of the placenta, not only for humans but a vast array of animals.”
https://www.news-medical.net/.../Researchers-review-the...
>- Syncytium formation in placentae is performed by a number of different syncytin genes in different ERVs in different chromosomes in different lineages, but interestingly, in the same relative position within the ERV, where you would expect to find a retroviral envelope gene. "Same design, same designer" breaks down here. Syncytium formation is a function of exogenous retroviruses for their own benefit. See https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nfltQc8kSg38bCZvxX_8HgV7jYPHKVcUgT5ojEU7J6Y/edit?usp=sharing
“In a recent review published in Cell, researchers explored the role of endogenous retrovirus (ERV) reactivation in the aging process.”
>-And?
B. The false claim by evolutionists
Some evolutionists claim that chimpanzees and mankind have many of the same ERVs at the same locations and that this can only be explained by common descent of the 2 species from their supposed last common ancestor (LCA) due to the extreme odds against such happening by chance occurrences after their supposed split.
However, this has a major falsehood in it and uses illogical thinking. First, they are not the same ERVs but different ERVs at identical locations.
>- I think you are making this up. Do you have any evidence for this?
Obviously, that which is different is not identical, nor the same. If they were identical at the DNA code level, then that would prove that common descent, and evolution and billions of years are false as DNA mutation ERRORS should have caused the DNA codes to have diverged since the supposed 7 million years since their supposed LCA. So, the first part of the original claim should be:
Chimpanzees and mankind do not have any of the same ERVs at the same locations. In fact, all of them, about 203,000 of them, are all different.
The illogical thinking, which is itself a deception, is that the only alternative given, happening by chance, is a straw man argument since the real alternative is creation by God. Of course, God created these ERVs and put them in the same locations is the only possible alternative. This will be shown using the differences in these ERVs and the fact that chimpanzees and people have a combined several hundred ERVs which they do not share.
This type of false overstatement and illogical thinking is expressed by some evolutionists in this discussion.
>- This is hopelessly muddled. Identical ERVs disprove common descent and differences in ERVs disprove common descent?
>- We study what are called "LTR discontinuities". LTR is short for "Long Terminal Repeats" that are observed to form during retroviral integration. They are always identical upon formation. The discontinuities are differences in LTRs in a given ERV or are explicable by mutation. The degree of difference corresponds very neatly with estimates of speciation based on independent lines of evidence.
https://discourse.biologos.org/.../why-arent-the.../38700/7
“And it’s not just in identical locations, it’s identical viruses with the same base pairs in those locations.”
“A designer could decide to you use completely different ERVs for chimps and humans. There is no reason we should see this pattern and only this pattern in the case of Design.”
C. A detailed analysis of the actual data about ERVs in chimpanzees and mankind refute all aspects of common descent, evolution and billions of years, and prove God created all things recently.
The following 2 sites give estimates of the number of lineage specific ERVs there are.
https://discourse.biologos.org/.../why-arent-the.../38700/11
“There is a total of 82 lineage specific human ERVs and 279 lineage specific chimp ERVs. This means that out of all 203,000 human ERVs only 82 are not found in the chimp genome. This would mean that chimps also have about 203,000 ERVs shared with humans as well as 279 ERV insertions specific to their lineage”
https://richarddawkins.net/.../knockdown-argument-for.../
“the results were that less than ~100 ERVs are human-specific and less than ~300 ERVs are chimpanzee-specific”
Now this data can be used as a “clock” to determine how long it took for 82 (or about 100) ERVs to have accumulated in the line leading to mankind since their LCA and for 279 (or about 300) ERVs to have accumulated in the line leading to chimpanzees since their LCA, and then project how long it took for about 203,000 ERVs to have accumulated in the line leading to the LCA. The supposed time since their LCA is about 7 million years.
If 82 ERVs accumulated in 7 million years, then to accumulate 203,000 ERVs would take 17.3 billion years.
If 100 ERVs accumulated in 7 million years, then to accumulate 203,000 ERVs would take 14.2 billion years.
If 279 ERVs accumulated in 7 million years, then to accumulate 203,000 ERVs would take 5.1 billion years.
If 300 ERVs accumulated in 7 million years, then to accumulate 203,000 ERVs would take 4.7 billion years.
Now those ages refute the supposed phylogenic common descent tree of evolution due to how large all 4 of these ages are. All 4 ages are longer than the supposed age of the earth, the supposed age of life on earth, the supposed age at when eukaryotes appeared, and the supposed age at when vertebrates appeared, supposedly 600 million years ago. Prokaryotes and invertebrates do not have ERVs. Furthermore, the intergenerational time of the line supposedly leading to primates is too short for the time leading up to 200 million years ago. So, none of the present about 203,000 ERVs in chimps and people could have survived recognizable from that time or before. Yet the calculated ages to accumulate these ERVs are about 24-87x longer than that maximum age. This refutes the notion that ERV similarity is explained by common descent of chimps and mankind.
>- Refreshing as it is to see a creationist arguing for a far greater age than "evolutionists" [snigger] conclude, there is an unjustified assumption in these calculations, namely that Homo and Pan are typical representatives of all the ancestral species which would have acquired the ERVs that they have in common. Many factors govern the rates of acquisition of ERVs and their rates of fixation or extinction. These include population size, intergenerational time (a shorter one will increase the fixation rate) and reproductive behaviour. Indeed, Homo and pan are more likely to be unrepresentative of all their ancestral species.
Also note that chimpanzees have accumulated about 3-3.4x more ERVs than mankind since their LCA. Correcting for body mass, the ERV accumulation rate of the line leading to mankind would be reduced by a maximum of less than 25% as shown below. So, these ratios would be reduced to 2.25-2.55x or 225-255%. That difference is significant and evidence against ERV similarity is explained by common descent of chimps and mankind.
https://retrovirology.biomedcentral.com/.../s12977-015...
“even if the body mass at the origin of the great apes was only one-fifth of this (less than the smallest fossil estimate we can find [28]), the increase in body mass would lead to reduction in ERV number of less than 25%.”
D. An analysis of the divergence times for supposed similar ERVs in chimpanzees and mankind refute all aspects of common descent, evolution and billions of years, and prove God created all things recently.
Estimating the supposed time since the supposed LCA of chimps and people requires determining the DNA mutation error rates for both chimps and people. One method is to determine rates today and assume a constant mutation rate. The other is to compare the genomes of chimps and people to find the percent difference and find the rate from the assumed time since their last LCA. Further, mutation rates may be different for different parts of the genome, particularly ERVs. The following article and its excerpts below show this type of calculation. I added the underlining for emphasis.
https://retrovirology.biomedcentral.com/.../s12977-015...
In the following research, the rates for mutations in the ERVs was measured. However, the time since the last LCA was based on assumed times “We used the previously reported times to Most Recent Common Ancestor (tMRCA) of the other catarrhines to human to calibrate the molecular clock”
“Rather than use published estimates of background rate we estimated the substitution rate within the ERVs to be 1.0x10−9 per site per year directly using orthologous loci (see below). We then used this rate to convert the nucleotide divergence between the paired LTRs of each locus into a date of integration, correcting for multiple hits using the Jukes-Cantor model.”
While this directly measures the amount of ERV mutations, the times are scaled using the assumed time since the LCAs. Thus, the absolute time since the LCA for chimps and people is just an estimate.
So, the supposed age of the common ERVs is based on an assumed number and may not match the actual time since their common LCA. Note that the mean age of all approximate 203,000 common ERVs should match the time since their LCA since they would all start diverging at the time of the split off. If the difference is significant, then it refutes common ancestry as the cause of the similarity.
Here is a calculation for the time since their LCA
2.5x10^(-8) bases per generation (from Wikipedia) x 6x10^(9) bases = 150 bases per generation = 75 base pairs per generation
7 million years / 14 years average per generation over the supposed 7 million years = 500,000 generations
500,000 generations x 75 base pairs per generation x 2 (add divergence of chimps/people) = 75 million base pair mutations
75 million base pair mutations -> 2.5% difference
But reported as 1.2% different so only 3.5 million years since their LCA
However, if the DNA mutation rate is higher or higher in non-coding regions like ERVs, then the time since their LCA is actually less. Both of these are true. For example, DNA mutation error rates may be an order of magnitude higher when all mutations are counted. Then the max time since their LCA is only about 350,000 years. Thus, the difference is significant and common descent cannot be the explanation for similar ERVs in chimps and people.
>- Again, what is missing in all this is that Humans and Chimps, and the period since their LCA are not likely to be representative of all ancestral species and their histories. The period of divergence is marked by the invasion in the Chimp line, of PtERV (Pan troglodytes endogenous retrovirus). PtERV1 alone accounts for 200 of the chimpanzee-specific ERV copies. New periods of endogenisation come in relatively short bursts of intensive retrotransposition such as is documented as occurring at the moment with the endogenisation of KoRV among koalas. Thus, episodes like these cannot be considered to be indicative of the long term overall conditions.
>- There follows a section on general DNA similarity/difference which does not concern the issue of ERVs. Suffice it to say (pantomime-style expressions of shock) that creationist have been misrepresenting the results of certain types of comparison results that show a relatively high degree of difference between the genomes of Homo and Pan. Such comparison methods yield nearly similar rates of difference in the genomes of two individuals of the same species.
E. Implications from the fact that ERVs have functionality
That ERVs have functionality has been established by science. The question becomes how could species, such as chimps and people, have survived without the ERVs? This argues that indeed the ERVs must have always been there, and this also refutes common descent and evolution and billions of years. It also proves that God created everything recently. For example, ERVs are essential for the development of the placenta in a vast array of animals. So, no ERVs, no placenta, no vast array of animals.
>- We have covered this already in https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nfltQc8kSg38bCZvxX_8HgV7jYPHKVcUgT5ojEU7J6Y/edit?usp=sharing
>- Elephants
>- Hyraxes
>- Manatees
>- Armadillos
>- Sloths
>- Aardvarks
>- But how could the ancestors of those that do use syncytins have ever reproduced before acquiring them? This is an example of the fallacious reasoning behind “irreducible complexity”, the distorted rip-off of the concept of interlocking complexity described by the Nobel prizewinning evolutionary scientist H. L. Muller early in the 20th century. Elements may arise and subsequently become indispensable. They need not be essential to begin with, but they provide an advantage. They eventually allow the older functions to become derelict or disappear without affecting reproductive capability."
While evolutionists have argued against the straw man argument that the only alternative explanation of these common ERVs is insertion by random occurrences, the only real and possible explanation is that God created them.
>- This argument is that ERVs were designed for their purposes. Instead of adding yet more material here, at this link you will find a list of specific questions about ERVs that a design hypothesis naturally raises. Nobody has been able to provide a satisfactory set of answers to these questions. http://barryhisblog.blogspot.fr/p/in-science-we-apply-principle-of.html
Furthermore, the actual data of differences in ERVs in different species further refutes common ancestry.
https://reasons.org/.../a-common-design-view-of-ervs...
“Despite persuasive arguments for the heritability of ERVs, the absence of specific shared ERV sequences in some NHP genomes challenges the common descent paradigm. Some elements are found in chimps, bonobos, and gorillas, but are absent in humans.1 Others are present in chimps and great apes but not in humans and orangutans.2 These findings are surprising, countering expectations from within a common descent model. Their absence undermines the notion that ancient infections of an ancestral primate lineage occurred prior to divergence of the great apes. According to phylogenetic analyses of species, great apes (including humans) share a common ancestor with Old World monkeys; therefore, shared ERVs should parallel this same phylogenetic relationship.3 Additionally, divergence of long terminal repeat sequences (components of ERVs) sometimes varies significantly from one species to another at shared sites, even when normalized for mutation rates.”
>- To which, I say,
>- https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/on-common-design-view-of-ervs.html
>- http://barryhisblog.blogspot.fr/p/what-if-we-find-erv-in-common-location.html
One last point about ERVs. Viruses prove that evolution and billions of years are false, and God created all things. The reasons are simple. Viruses cannot replicate on their own.
>- Um - we know. But where viruses come from is irrelevant to the case for common descent from ERVs. Wherever they came from, they exist, and they endogenise in genomes producing results that can only be explained by common ancestry.
>- The remainder of the OP says nothing of any relevance to this.
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