Defense of arguments: Bayesian and ERVs 2

OPEN ME: I know its garbled at the end. I have rehashed the missing portions here.

1) We have no explanation for Mercury's orbit. This does not disprove Newton's laws. Atleast we have an explanation for those ERVs that do not show nested hierarchy.

Papers which mention the problematic ERVs:

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(01)00227-5

Nalini Polavarapu et al, Identification, characterization and comparative genomics of chimpanzee endogenous retroviruses. Genome Biol. 2006; 7(6): R51.

video explaining fixation of alleles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkm50rpAx5Y&feature=channel_page

Paper which shows observation of allele in process of fixation:

Insertional polymorphisms of full-length endogenous retroviruses in humans .
Current Biology , Volume 11 , Issue 19 , Pages 1531 - 1535
G . Turner , M . Barbulescu , M . Su , M . Jensen-Seaman , K . Kidd , J . Lenz

Factors affecting fixation

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2045447

Genetic drift at expanding frontiers promotes gene segregation.
Oskar Hallatschek, Pascal Hersen, Sharad Ramanathan, and David R. Nelson


2) Function of ERVs: Because some ERVs are necessary for survivial, creationists argue that they were purposefully inserted.

Evolution also has an explanation.

The problem is explanations do not affect the validity of the theory. Only predictions do. Thus, the evolutionary explanation is more likely.

3) Do ERVs come from viruses or vice versa?

In ERVs we find certain sequences called Long Terminal Repeats. Based on the order of bases in these repeats we know that such a sequence is the result of action by reverse transcriptase.

Reverse transcriptase only acts on free floating RNA molecules.

The presence of LTRs is an indication that it was once an independent RNA molecule.

This has been confirmed in the lab which shows the how viruses form LTRs and integrate.

Furthermore, the genes gag, pol, and env (which code for reverse transcriptase and VIRAL capsids) appear on ERVs. they are the same distance from each other as modern retroviral DNA.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Evolution
• Creationism
• Intelligent design
• ERVs
• Endogenous retrovirus

[phicomingatya]

Come on, give it up. Predictions, predictions... blah blah blah. I got bored after the first 20 seconds of this video.

[truthofevolution]

well thats too bad for you then isnt it?

[zebraone100]

Newtons law for gravity IS incorrect, and the correction for it comes from Einstein's relativity. Newton believed that mass attracts mass, Einstein showed that mass bends space time.

Mercury's orbit, like any other, is elliptical, but the ellipse itself is also spinning. If you were to plot it on paper, it would make a flower pattern like a Spirograph. This is impossible to explain with mass attracting mass, but easily explained with the bent space-time of relativity.

[zebraone100]

A scientific prediction does not have to be unknown to the scientist to be valid, because it isn't the scientist that makes the prediction, it is the hypothesis that makes the prediction. To that end, creationism predicting complex life is perfectly valid.

What makes creationism invalid is that it also predicts that all forms of life will be found at all levels in the geological record. We know this isn't true and as such, creationism can't be true.

[truthofevolution]

I disagree, I think most people are reasonable. We have our own trump card: science. It may take a few hundred years, but if we keep going things will change.