https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/commenting-on-john-heintz-commenting-on.html
Proof of common ancestry.
There are bits of viral DNA in our own DNA, in the DNA of every nuclear cell of our bodies ('nuclear cell' meaning every cell with a nucleus, which is most of them). We have inherited them from our ancestors, and we will pass them down to our own offspring.
The viral DNA got into our ancestor's DNA as a result of the action of sneaky little beasties known as 'retroviruses'. They invade a cell, sidle up to its DNA and insert (integrate in the jargon) a DNA copy of its genome into the cell's own DNA. This makes the cell's DNA processing machinery dumbly read the vial DNA, resulting in the production of new viruses.
This viral DNA proves that different 'kinds' of animals, such as humans and chimpanzees, must have had common ancestors. To know more, visit my FAQ, linked to at the top of all my pages.
One Steve Price has contacted me via Facebook messaging regarding a couple of posts questioning the science that a certain John Heintz had put up on a supposedly public group, "Creationism", which, mysteriously, I cannot access from my Facebook account. So I am responding to them here so Steve can link to it or c'n'p from it to the group.
Steve, I would be grateful if you could contact the admins and mods in the group to see if they have any information as to why I cannot even access their main page.
I have interacted with John in other creation v science groups numerous times before. I have never seen him provide evidence or arguments that challenge this proof of common ancestry between certain "kinds" of species. If you want to come back to me on this, John, contact me via one of the groups we share, or comment on this blog entry directly.
Here is the group URL that I cannot access. https://www.facebook.com/groups/31425129128/
The text of John's comments are in black. I respond in red.
First evidence against. Could a degraded transposon be mistaken for an ancient ERV? Absolutely it can.
Against what?
1. Similar sequence - ERVS and transposons share similar sequences. This makes it difficult to distinguish between the two ESPECIALLY if they are DEGRADED.
[Re. 1.] All ERVs are degraded. If we had a replication-competent retrovirus in one of our gametes, it could never produce a viable progeny. Without degradation, we would be extinct. Distinguishing between ERVs and transposons is irrelevant to their evidence of common ancestry. I will go into that in my following replies.
2. Degradation- transposons get quickly degraded by mutation, deletion and insertion. This causes loss of function and make them more ERV-like sequences.
[Re. 2.] I confess that I haven't studied transposons in any depth, but I read that researchers think they may derive from retroviruses. Anyway, if they use integrase to - er - integrate, the question is, do they integrate in significant numbers at precisely corresponding DNA loci in different species? If they do, that is yet more evidence that the different species have common ancestors. Integrase cannot target specific loci, so common inheritance is the only explanation for common loci. See https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/relationship-between-integration-sites.html
3. ERV-like sequences. Some transposons have ERV like sequences. LINES for example use reverse transcriptase leading to misidentification.
[Re. 3.]See above.
4. Limited sequence- If only a small part of the sequence is available it is difficult to identify if it's a transposon or ERV.
[Re. 4.]Doesn't matter.
5. Annotation errors - errors in genome annotation or data entry can lead to misidentification of ERVs.
[Re. 1=5.]See [4]
To date I have never met anyone who can explain how so many ERVS were inserted in the genome and fixed in the population over and over again. They can explain the process for one being inserted and that it passes to the offspring. However, never explain how so many survived one lineage to affect all of the humans and all of the chimpanzees.
Well, they are there, whether you are satisfied by any explanation, or not.
Retoviruses operate on a massive scale and integrate at an enormous rate. We can see this happening right now with KoRV, the koala retrovirus. https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/the-koalas-tale.html.
The numbers are huge. Also consider that, especially when there have been population bottlenecks, which there have been, the fixation of any genetic feature/motif becomes much more likely. Consider "Mitochondrial Eve's" mitochondria, and Y-chromosome "Adam's" Y chromosome, fixed in the entire population of the world. We are all related. https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/mt-eve-y-adam.html. Fixation in a species is a well researched topic, but it is rather mathematical. Statistical. Often counter intuitive, which is often the case in science, but nevertheless true. John, why don't you "do your own 'research'? Start here, @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixation_(population_genetics)
Transposons are regulated to insert in safe zones in the genome. No. Regulation is by methylation. This is so they don't do severe damage or kill the organism. Those who were damaged didn't pass on their genes. This is basic stuff! I assert that the ERVS are also in preferred locations and safe zones. Why wouldn't they be? That it's possible that the ERVS we may share are there by coincidence only. Desperation creeping in here. Hitchen's Razor comes to mind.
Why is it impossible for humans to share hundreds to thousands of ERVs with chimpanzees? I'm going to tell you.
To be in the same location they must be passed from parent to offspring. So the ERVS would have all had to have been in the entire population of common ancestor. The common ancestral population would have been thousands to millions of animals. One of these animals would have got the first ERV. If 100 got it at the same time they wouldn't insert in the same location.That's exactly the point! Now this animals' descendants have to out compete all the others. None of the others can diverge before this fixes. Why? If they do, no interbreeding and the ERV won't be in that new population. They can't move away geographically or they will never breed with the descendants. This betrays a deep inadequacy in John's conception of how biology works.
https://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/people/plewis/courses/phylogenetics/lectures/2022/coalescent1.pdf
This must now happen hundreds to thousands of times. This is completely impossible. They need to reconsider why these match up.
And yet, they are there. (Nod to Galileo - "And yet, it [the Earth] moves").
When you see integrations in precisely corresponding DNA loci in different species, you know that the integrations have been inherited from integrations in common ancestors.
The only escape creationists think they have from this is to say that this common genetic material has been designed by some unnatural unidentifiable magic flying intelligent designer, using his Ju-ju, for common purposes.
1. This ignores all the evidence that they are of retroviral origin. See https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/why-do-virologists-and-geneticists.html
2. It is an error in saying that genetic motifs/genes have to be in the same loci to do the same job. See https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/arent-same-genes-in-same-places.html
3. The idea cannot answer the questions that the hypothesis raises. IOW, it doesn't make sense. https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/in-science-we-apply-principle-of.html
One last desperate creationist wheeze is to say that ERVs were designed to create retroviruses to re-integrate to add 'genetic variation". More incoherent nonsense. https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/could-you-have-this-backwards.html
Don't worry folks. Accepting evolution doesn't mean you have to give up your belief in God, Just one infantile literalist interpretation of scripture.
See also, https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/incredulous.html
This page: https://barryhisblog.blogspot.com/p/commenting-on-john-heintz-commenting-on.html
Excellent! Thank you!
ReplyDelete