a01011399's ERV Challenge: Do ERVs Support Evolution?

This video is a response to a challenge made by creationist a01011399. In that video, he makes six assertions that — if true — would show shared ERVs are not evidence in support of the theory of evolution. His assertions are:

1) ERVs are a part of God's "original design."
2) ERVs are not viral in origin; rather they were always present in the genome.
3) ERVs are present at the same positions in the human and chimpanzee genomes because their proteins wouldn't "function" if the genes were located elsewhere.
4) ERVs and other genes have equal potential to be harmful.
5) ERVs can't be random insertions because (according to assertion 3), they must exist at one specific location in order to "function."
6) No conceivable ERV evidence could be used to falsify the theory of evolution.

I dissect each of these assertions and show how they are fundamentally flawed (except for #4, which I do not address).

a01011399's video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuONy-rqB7A

urbanelf's video discussing Bayesian inference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMtowduvxN8

Category:

Education

Tags:

• evolution
• creation
• evolutionism
• creationism
• dna
• engogenous
• retrovirus
• erv
• ervs
• virus
• genes
• functional
• debate
• a01011399
• endogenous
• RNA
• reverse
• transcriptase
• viral
• enzymes
• nested
• hierarchy
• hemoglobin
• gene
• genetics
• intelligent
• design
• urbanelf
• bayesian
• inference
• darwinism

[KrokrX]

@kyagh - funny that mejc2 now claims to be in the top 1% when he claimed on another video(v=ypYesuV3PoI) to be 'In terms of reading comprehension or general IQ I am in the 97th Percentile'. If he's going to make stuff up at least he could try to be consistent!

[kyagh]

@mejc2 Yeah like i accept without evidence that you have multiple degrees without having a diploma... right XD

Still waiting for you to prove me wrong buddy, so far I'm disappoint.

How hard could it be for someone as smart as you to prove their expertise? I'm not asking for much, you're supposedly so incredibly smart, so why is it that you can't answer stuff a kid who just got a diploma can?

[owensphil]

In the journal Bioinformatics, Conley et. al. write:

Our analysis revealed that retroviral sequences in the human genome encode tens-of-thousands of active promoters; transcribed ERV sequences correspond to 1.16% of the human genome sequence and PET tags that capture transcripts initiated from ERVs cover 22.4% of the genome. These data suggest that ERVs may regulate human transcription on a

large scale."

[owensphil]

1) Your whole argument for ERV is based on the assumption of a common ancestor of man and chimp which you have yet to identify. I would think you would start there.

2) Please explain why the K family of ERVs (HERV-K provirus) is present in chimps and gorillas, but not in humans

3) Also, why are portions of ERVs known as CERV 2 and CERV 1 elements are present in chimpanzee, bonobo and gorilla but are absent in human

[IloveYOUviruses]

LOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLL

ERVs can have different loci because genes for hemoglobin can have different loci and since we evolved and share a common ancestor with rats, that proves we evolved

lol this circular arguments from evo heads are funnier and funnier :D

[SHIBBYiPANDA]

THANKS FOR PRODUCING THIS MAN THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED!!!!!!!

[lhvinny]

In your opinion, is it easier for the layman to understand the ERV similarity evidence for common descent, or chromosome fusion evidence for common descent?

[Houshalter]

But this is to complicated for me to research on my own and I don't have time to watch the whole video, therefore evolution is wrong.

[kyagh]

@mejc2

and you couldn't perform a google search? Are you sure you're not forgetting a minus in there? :3

[mejc2]

@ChickenHawk110

I50's

[ChickenHawk110]

@mejc2

"My IQ places me (sic) in the top 1% of humanity".

I am curious, little creobot toy, what, exactly, is your intelligence quotient score?