Refuting "Refuting the Endogenous Retrovirus Claim of Evolutionists"

Refuting “Refuting the Endogenous Retrovirus Claim of Evolutionists”


This is a partial transcript of a video from one NephilimFree (henceforth referred to as “NF”,  Refuting the Endogenous Retrovirus Claim of Evolutionists

A rationalWiki entry on NF is located @ NephilimFree and makes interesting reading.

The transcript is in black and my comments are in red. Apologies that the transcript is not perfect. It was machine-generated. I have tried to correct it, but life is too short to do a perfect job of it. I hope it will suffice. So, on to what NF has to say.

Folks this video is a response to a comment left on my video “Richard Sternberg Endogenous retroviruses Debunk”.

This is the video he refers to. He has removed my comment. I wonder why? Richard Sternberg - Endogenous Retroviruses Debunk

Now after providing the information in the video itself it refutes the claim of endogenous retroviruses being evidence of evolution of mankind in man having a common ancestor with an ape-like creature and a relationship therefore to chimpanzees, this fellow here (yours truly) leaves this comment where he makes a number of points all pretty much regurgitating the same thing, claiming still claiming that ERVs are evidence of common ancestry even though the video that he's commenting on refutes the idea.

Hmmm.

My comment, which NF appears to have deleted, consisted of my summary of the case for common descent from my FAQ on ERVs. It also linked to the top page of the FAQ, which, as we shall see, NF failed to look at. The summary is at this link, ERV FAQ: What is the "case for common descent" from ERVs? , and the top page is @ Endogenous Retroviruses - Frequently Asked Questions

It's just like it's as though this information in this video just went in one ear and out the other but I'm going to debunk what you say Barry. I'm going to refute your argument.

Here for you in this video, because you seem so dead certain that even though the information provided in this video refutes your idea of endogenous retroviruses, you went ahead and posted this long post on my video here.

Still claiming that ERVs are evidence of common ancestry. First a little bit about your ERV so that people who don't know what the subject is about will understand.

An ERV is called an endogenous retrovirus. That's what it's called. The name is a misnomer. There are no such thing as retroviruses.

I think he meant to say that there is no such thing as endogenous retroviruses. He talks about retroviruses later on, revealing that he does know that retroviruses exist. That endogenous retroviruses also exist is clear from the evidence, evidence that he totally ignores! See ERV FAQ: Why do virologists and geneticists think that ERVs come from retroviruses? Isn't that just supposition on their part?

What is believed to be an endogenous retrovirus is supposedly, is the DNA of a virus that gets inserted into the DNA of our common ancestor of man with chimpanzees in the past. Before human beings and chimpanzees evolved from their common ancestor. So the animal which was the common ancestor between human beings and chimpanzees gets a virus its DNA gets inserted into its DNA then

because human beings and chimpanzees both evolved from that common ancestor

We both carry this viral DNA in our genome.

That's the claim

I'll restate it. Maybe I didn't state it clearly enough.

Quite.

Let's imagine, in the imagination of the evolutionist, man has a common ancestor with the chimpanzee when we go far enough back in time.

There's a creature from which the evolutionists believe (conclude) both Humans and Chimpanzees came over time. This creature diverges new types of creatures arise from this common ancestor and over time you get chimpanzees and human beings both evolved from this organism that was once a common ancestor of both human beings and chimpanzees.

Now in the DNA of that organism from which humans and chimpanzees arose supposedly, there is a virus. The organism gets an infection from a virus

The virus's DNA gets inserted into the DNA of that organism then because human beings and chimpanzees evolved from that common ancestor

We both carry the same sequence of viral DNA in our genomes.

And this is supposedly evidence that were related to chimpanzees by a common ancestor you see because we both carry the same viral DNA

that was inserted into the dNA of the animal from which both came.

Understand the problem is says this claim is largely based on the old idea of junk DNA which is now thoroughly dismissed.

Firstly, the “junk DNA” issue is irrelevant to ERVs. They are clearly of retroviral origin, damaged, usually, but not meaningless noise.
Secondly, there wasn’t a retrovirus. There were many thousands, inherited, not only by humans and chimpanzees alone, but by all primates. Other species have been shown to have commonly inherited ERVs too.
Thirdly, although it is irrelevant here, the existence of junk DNA has not been dismissed. See The Case for Junk DNA

NF, despite having looked at answer#1 of my FAQ, has not understood it. The fact that different species share viral structures in their genomes in identically corresponding locations shows that they are inherited from viral integrations in ancestral germ-line DNA. NF has also failed to explore the rest of the FAQ which shows why ERVs must derive from retroviruses, and deals extensively with functions that some components of some ERVs have for their hosts. I find it highly ironic that he charges me with not looking at the “other side” when his presuppositions disable him from understanding the text he is criticising, and prevent him from looking more deeply into the subject. Here, by the way, is proof that I have studied the “other side” unlike him. ERV FAQ: Hasn't the evolutionist's story about ERVs been debunked by "scientists" such as Dr. Yingguang Liu and Dr. Georgia Purdom?

To be continued.