What If...?

[theStudent]

Currently, I am doing what was suggested by some on these forums.
I am researching information both for, and against evolution, and trust me - I am doing so objectively.
While I am still researching, I want to put this out, to hear the different views on it.

During my research I discovered that lately, just over the last decade or so, a lot of informations has been surfacing about fake fossils.
In fact it has now become common place for fossils sold at museums to be checked for genuineness.
I find this interesting.

Why now, is this happening?
Could it be that evidence as it always does, is now surfacing?

For example
Remember the dinosaur hoax - the one that was said to be put together using different bones?
It has recently been found out that it wasn't a hoax after all.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/02/ ... ecies.html

That is quite interesting.

The fossils aren't the only things that were/are claimed to be fake.
There are the drawings, and pictures as well.
Right now, I am going through a very long document considered a case against some of Darwins picture illustrations.
But have you ever come across this one?

Pictures from the past powerfully shape current views of the world. In books, television programs, and websites, new images appear alongside others that have survived from decades ago. Among the most famous are drawings of embryos by the Darwinist Ernst Haeckel in which humans and other vertebrates begin identical, then diverge toward their adult forms. But these icons of evolution are notorious, too: soon after their publication in 1868, a colleague alleged fraud, and Haeckels many enemies have repeated the charge ever since. His embryos nevertheless became a textbook staple until, in 1997, a biologist accused him again, and creationist advocates of intelligent design forced his figures out. How could the most controversial pictures in the history of science have become some of the most widely seen?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Haec ... eks4-6.jpg
English: The pictures illustrate Ernst Haeckel's biogenetic law. In the beginning embryos of different species look remarkable similar, later different characteristics develop. The images initiated controversies and charges of fraud.

All of this lends to a possibility.
Consdering the fact that fossils can be faked, we must accept the fact that Darwin, and other scientists could have lied.

My question here, isn't whether he did lie or not, but rather, Does this not place evolutionists in the same position as the Christians they claim are believing in fables?

Consider:
Christians accept the Bible, as the word of God.
Here are just a few facts about the Bible.
With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the best-selling book of all time.
It has estimated annual sales of 100 million copies.
It has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West where the Gutenberg Bible was the first mass-printed book.
It was the first book ever printed using movable type.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible

Archaeological findings of the Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls

The evidence is there however, that the book we hold in our hand today (the Bible), contains information written centuries ago.

Atheist call the book fables - the reason I have yet to find out.
Maybe one of the reasons is that they have not seen God, or seen him write any book - whatever.
So they claim that Christians' belief in them and what they present is blind faith, and belief in stories.

However, is this not the case with those who accept the theory of evolution, where all they have to go by, is what scientists claim to be evidence?

By the way...
No one, to this day have seen them recreate the theories.
Any data they give you on species, is usually what already existed (at least what I have come across so far).
As regards other claims, all we have are pictures, and claimed fossils, which could have been edited.

So evolutionists are really believing what men claim - without any substantial proof of their claim.
How is this different to believing a book?

And what if Darwin, and others lied?


I'm just interested in you different opinions and thoughts, on the above.
Here is a nice short video of someone's opinion. Reasonable too.

[Neatras]

Responding to Neatras

Don't let me interrupt your moment of pride.


It's that time again G.
Ah. Talk time. You'd better be on your good behavior.
What's that?
What? Good behavior? It's a long story, so you first.

I asked two questions,
Can scientists prove that ERVs came from retroviruses?
Also, can ERVs be mutations in the genes?
for which the reply was a link I posted, although I specifically quoted a sentence.
I highlighted a portion of the link that gave a probability.
There was no response to it.

What's amazing is that this is a prediction made by this video in which the "common Creationist response" is that ERV's are not derived from viral infections. We know this is wrong for 2 reasons.

1. ERV's look exactly like retroviral genomes, with some mutations.

2. We can see an ERV form after a retroviral infection in modern times.

Next.

Hmmmm.

I did get a response to this:
Why would this be the case?
To which I got some pictures, with two sentences, to which I responded with two question
Why is the viral infection started at that point, and not lower in the tree?
Is it because of the organisms that were affected?
...for which, again I got no response.

Hmmmm.

See, what makes this a useless question is the fact that you're... proposing, that something ought to happen at one time, rather than another. Isn't it already clear that retroviruses don't follow a timetable? The time when a host might have their genome spliced with an ERV can be entirely random. But once it happens, the effect is largely permanent, and will appear in all future organisms that the host is a progenitor to. I don't see how this question isn't already answered by using basic logic.

Two other questions I posted in relation to two links I posted of a recent discovery, namely
If chimps are more distant to humans than gorillas are, then, the gorilla should have the ERV. How could your point stand in this case?
...were again met with no response.

Hmmmm.
Sound like a guy that doesn't like to answer questions.

What buggers me is the fact that you need to demonstrate that the gorillas don't have the ERV. If they do, that's even more evidence in favor of the theory.

I did get an answer to another question.
It was ten lines long, with five sentences.
It was to tell me that I was using

a very limited and creationist view

Anyway, skipping the unpleasents...
Get this

It helps that we also use the facts of evolution to make judgments about how we treat germs and viruses, otherwise medical sciences would be set back hundreds of years.

Say WHAT? Facts of evolution?
I've heard of theory of evolution.

Yeah, but what he's suggesting... I suppose, is that there are certain facts that prove the theory of evolution.

What, you mean facts that the human body is a working machine, put in place long before they even knew how to spell science?
The one that they are trying so hard to mimic, in their mechanical machines
Who or what do they think is responsible for this awsome machine? Nothingness?
Perhaps that's why most of our brains are filled with nothing.
As Paul said, "...emptyheaded in their reasoning."

I have a suggestion.
Since this guy doesn't like to answer question, but just give information, which is what some people do when they feel superior.
Why not stop asking questions, and just give information?

You know... that makes sense.

Of course it makes sense.
After all, who's the brain here? LOL

Blah blah blah, argument from complexity, same thing we've seen before.

Tangential, irrelevant, and just another red herring to PULL THE ARGUMENT AWAY FROM THE DISCUSSION OF ERV'S. And that. Is. Laughable.

[theStudent]

NOTE*
I'v been accused of this:
Dishonest - Deceptive or fraudulent; disposed to cheat or defraud or deceive

Does this fit me?
Am I lying? Let's investigate.

Naturalism is "the idea or belief that nothing exists beyond the natural world". It is the belief that "the natural world is the whole of reality". The term was first used this way in English in 1750.

It is a kind of philosophy called metaphysical, because it covers everything: "nature is all there is, and all basic truths are truths of nature".

All the things and powers which are commonly called supernatural, such as God, souls or witchcraft do not exist, according to this position.

Method and science
Methodological or scientific naturalism is concerned with practical methods for acquiring knowledge.

Many scientists use the scientific method for their research. Hypotheses are be explained and tested only by reference to natural causes and events.
[NOTE* - The article said "Many scientists", not all scientists.]

Explanations for observations are only useful when they are based on hypotheses of natural causes. An explanation that relies on a natural mechanism that works according to certain rules is usable. Explanations that need miracles to work are not.

Methodological naturalism is the principle underlying all of modern science. Some philosophers extend this idea, so that it applies to all of philosophy as well. Science and philosophy, according to this view, are said to form a continuum. W.V. Quine, George Santayana, and other philosophers have advocated this view.


Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe: extraterrestrial life and life on Earth. Astrobiology addresses the question of whether life exists beyond Earth, and how humans can detect it if it does (the term exobiology is similar but more specific"it covers the search for life beyond Earth, and the effects of extraterrestrial environments on living things.

Extraterrestrial life, also called alien life (or, if it is a sentient [Endowed with feeling and unstructured consciousness] and/or relatively complex individual, an "extraterrestrial" or "alien"), is life that does not originate from Earth. These as-yet-hypothetical life forms range from simple bacteria-like organisms to beings with civilizations far more advanced than humanity. Although many scientists expect extraterrestrial life to exist, there is no unambiguous evidence for its existence so far. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as exobiology.

Since the mid-20th century, there has been an ongoing search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, from radios used to detect possible extraterrestrial signals, to telescopes used to search for potentially habitable extrasolar planets. It has also played a major role in works of science fiction.

The search continues...

Since scientists have deiscovered dark matter, I wonder if the probability of invisible extraterrestrial intelligence will ever be considered?
Of course, that would require a change in the scientific method - so no.
Anyway on the points I have made about science and faith; anti-God, anti-creation scientific religious/belief system, it is clear I am not the dishonest one.

Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, academic and social commentator. Wikipedia

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
The primary problem is not to provide the public with the knowledge of how far it is to the nearest star and what genes are made of, for that vast project is, in its entirety, hopeless. Rather, the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth.

Agenda -
Take God out of the picture from day one.
Make science the only way to truth.

Does this surprise Christians?
That would be the joke of the century.
"The one called Devil and Satan, is misleading the entire inhabited earth" - Revelation 7:9

No wonder the conspiracy theory is - they are illuminati puppets.
That theory is being tested, and the evidence is quite overwhelming.

I however, don't care much what they are called, or who they are, The apostle John's words are good enough for me.

...we originate with God, but the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.

[theStudent]

Evolution
All life on Earth shares a common ancestor known as the last universal ancestor, which lived approximately 3.5"3.8 billion years ago, although a study in 2015 found "remains of biotic life" from 4.1 billion years ago in ancient rocks in Western Australia.

Is that so?
All things are possible right?

Not according to science.
As I showed above.

Well, since Neatras suggested that we all do lab work and provide the proof, let's go to the lab, shall we.

Look at it. It's almost dead, so the root system must be compromised.


To cut a big tree down, for example, a sequoia is hard work with just an axe.
Strategy however always makes things easier - hence knowledge is vital.
What does a tree mainly depend on?
Its roots. Without roots, a tree is basically - dead.

Let's test The Roots - in the "lab"

The origin of life is a scientific problem which is not yet solved. There are plenty of ideas, but few clear facts.

It is generally agreed that all life today evolved by common descent from a single primitive lifeform. We do not know how this early form came about, but scientists think it was a natural process which took place perhaps 3,900 million years ago. This is in accord with a philosophy called naturalism: only natural causes are admitted.

We do not know whether metabolism or genetics comes earlier. The main hypothesis which supports genetics first is RNA world hypothesis, and the one which supports metabolism first is Protein world hypothesis.

Another big problem is how cells develop. All existing forms of life are built out of cells.

Evolution has not provided any evidence for the origin of life on earth.

Abiogenesis

In a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker on 1 February 1871, Darwin discussed the suggestion that the original spark of life may have begun in a "warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, &c., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes."
There is still no "standard model" of the origin of life.
Eugene Koonin said,

Despite considerable experimental and theoretical effort, no compelling scenarios currently exist for the origin of replication and translation, the key processes that together comprise the core of biological systems and the apparent pre-requisite of biological evolution. The RNA World concept might offer the best chance for the resolution of this conundrum but so far cannot adequately account for the emergence of an efficient RNA replicase or the translation system. The MWO [Ed.: "many worlds in one"] version of the cosmological model of eternal inflation could suggest a way out of this conundrum because, in an infinite multiverse with a finite number of distinct macroscopic histories (each repeated an infinite number of times), emergence of even highly complex systems by chance is not just possible but inevitable.

Big Bang (in the imaginary lab)

The big-bang model is based on two assumptions. The first is that Albert Einsteins general theory of relativity correctly describes the gravitational interaction of all matter. The second assumption, called the cosmological principle, states that an observers view of the universe depends neither on the direction in which he looks nor on his location. This principle applies only to the large-scale properties of the universe, but it does imply that the universe has no edge, so that the big-bang origin occurred not at a particular point in space but rather throughout space at the same time. These two assumptions make it possible to calculate the history of the cosmos after a certain epoch called the Planck time. Scientists have yet to determine what prevailed before Planck time.

"Lab" tests failed.


Let's test the stalk - in the lab (By the life of me, I don't know how this was shown in a lab.)
Phylogenetic tree

Charles Darwin (1859) also produced one of the first illustrations and crucially popularized the notion of an evolutionary "tree" in his seminal book The Origin of Species. Over a century later, evolutionary biologists still use tree diagrams to depict evolution because such diagrams effectively convey the concept that speciation occurs through the adaptive and semirandom splitting of lineages. Over time, species classification has become less static and more dynamic.

Although phylogenetic trees produced on the basis of sequenced genes or genomic data in different species can provide evolutionary insight, they have important limitations. Most importantly, they do not necessarily accurately represent the evolutionary history of the included taxa. In fact, they are literally scientific hypotheses, subject to falsification by further study...

Common descent (in the imaginary lab)

When biologists look at living things, they see that animals and plants belong to groups which have something in common. Charles Darwin explained that this followed naturally if "we admit the common parentage of allied forms, together with their modification through variation and natural selection".

For example, all insects are related. They share a basic body plan, whose development is controlled by master regulatory genes.

Well, Mr Darwin - Your most excellent, honorble, sir, when I look at living things, sorry. You don't get the praise. It goes to the most high living God - creator of heaven and earth - awsome of the awsomes.
What am I doing? Talking to a dead person?
I must be nuts.

Anyways - A tree with no roots or stalk is no tree. At least not living.
The branches which have been already chopped to bits are of no use anyway.


Without a common ancestor. Without a tree of life, which only exists as an imaginary tree, ERVs are not evidence of the so-called facts of evolution.
There are just another idea to support the eminent Charles Darwin - the god of religious science.
Call me dishonest. Call me whatever you like.

The evolution tree no matter how many times it pushed over, will be propped up again, and the pieces of scraps put together, to form it's branches, but a time will come when it will have no supports, and it will lie forgotten.

The creation tree is here to stay.
No matter how many chops are taken at it, the results are always the same.


So, I hope you get a clear picture Neatras.
It not a game with two courts, and it's a one-sided game.
To start a game off with a set of rules - no to "the supernatural".
And then cheat, by searching for intelligent alien lifeform in a system of unimaginable possibilities, does not result in a fair game.
If the ball is in my court, youre going to have to step into our lab, because the science lab has already closed it's doors to Divine, not even a foot can enter.

Science gave them ALL the tools they'll need, and they haven't met the challenge. It's shameful.

Scientists have done their homework, and are doing more every day. Creationists attempt to use that effort and twist it into their narrative, without putting in the same effort. And that sickens me.

And you call me dishonest?
And please don't get sick. All that sickness will eventually cause death - either by multiple strokes, or massive heart attack.
Get your immune system to work, by reminding it of these facts.

1. Christians will never - n e v e r, leave the true God, to bow to the idol gods of religious science.
   • Please take note that I am referring, not to all science, or those scientists who do not buy into the phillosophical science I mentioned above.
2. Christians already have the solid evidence, and have proven and presented it to the world, and continue to do so.
   That why you have so many creationist websites dedicated to revealing the truth about so-called evidence in favor of evolution.
   Here's one that flies in the face of the scientific theory on ERVs. Do Endogenous Retroviruses (ERVs) Support Common Ancestry?
3. Christians already know where the truth is found, so they are not stupid, that they cannot tell the difference between the truth, and lie, logical, and illogical, reaonable, and unreasonable, honesty, and hypocrisy...
   They eyes, unlike the world, are opened. They are awake!

It bothers me that theStudent can so willfully put up an attack on intellectualism and create a forced narrative where the Bible is the only source of Truth... without providing any evidence. He wants the whole world given to him on a platter, neatly dissected. And if even a scrap is missing, all of science is apparently false. I urge everyone to recognize dishonest tactics like these.

Say what you will.
Runnng talk gets you absolutely nowhere, and for sure, giving lip, doesn't cut it.


I give you an opportunity earlier, when I provided a link for you.
Now I'm going to directly challenge you.
Lets see if you are willing to back up words with something solid.

Why not enter our lab, and see all the experiments done, and the evidence produced.
Here's some evidence. Prove it wrong.
Evidence A
Evidence B

You'll need a big axe, to cut down the tree.


Or are you afraid to step into the domain, for fear of disintegration?

Even to a layman like me, the obviousness that theStudent has not adequately called ERV's into question should be frighteningly clear. He's used all sorts of tactics, but never once admitted even a possibility of the connection between ERV's and common ancestry being correct. From the outset, there's no possibility in his mind, and so he'll always get the last word in to try and "win" without actually doing anything.

More talk?


Let it be known that you left half my questions unanswered.
So when are we going to see the action?

I learned about ERV's last week. And just applying what I know about the rest of the theory of evolution, I've managed to create a foothold where I can stand my ground and debate among you. I haven't trained for years under apologist frameworks just to push an agenda.

Your words

Yeah, I'm proud of my last post, and I honestly think I've said all I can say about ERV's, aside from a couple of points.

My response

Don't let me interrupt your moment of pride.

[Neatras]

You know what, theStudent?

I ACCUSE YOU OF DISHONESTY.

Because your entire post is another red herring to pull away from the topic at hand. You DID NOT respond to my criticisms, you DID NOT answer the multiple paragraphs I posted about ERV's, while only focusing on the minor points you thought you could tear apart.

Because if you tear apart even a tiny fragment of it, in your mind, that destroys the whole thing.

But when I reinforce my argument, and do my best to bring it into a state where your objections are debunked, what do you do?

You abandon ship, jump topic to something else. You'll gladly avoid answering the strongest parts of my argument, and focus on what you perceive to be the weakest. And if that doesn't work, you fall back onto sweeping claims and generic statements that don't address the argument at all.

I'm not falling for your red herrings. I'm not falling for your inability to answer the problems with Creationism. And I'm not going to let anyone else fall for it either, because every time you fail to address the topic of ERV's from now on, in this thread, I will point it out. And you will keep running from it, and using manipulative tactics to make yourself out to be a martyr.

[theStudent]

[Replying to post 412 by rikuoamero]

The Bible is not a science book rikuoamero.
I was merely showing you, that where the Bible comments on science, it is always accurate, and ahead of scientific findings. That's all.

Since it's not a science book, id doesn't go into detail about science.

[theStudent]

[Replying to post 415 by Clownboat]

This I find to be both interesting and amusing.

You understand my words so clearly in the previous post, so that when I tell you to explain what I meant, because I believe you don't understand.
You refuse and say the words are clear for all to see what I meant.

Now you don't understand the words in the second post? LOL

Clownboat, the words in the second post are elementary, compared to the words "you so clearly understand".
So you have three choices - since you don't care to explain the first.
1. Explain what you understand by the first.
2. Understand the second in the same way you understood the first which is however you want.
3. Just forget it. Because if you are not interested in explaining the first, I'm not interested in explaining the second.

[OnceConvinced]

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[theStudent]

You know what, theStudent?

I ACCUSE YOU OF DISHONESTY.

Because your entire post is another red herring to pull away from the topic at hand. You DID NOT respond to my criticisms, you DID NOT answer the multiple paragraphs I posted about ERV's, while only focusing on the minor points you thought you could tear apart.

Because if you tear apart even a tiny fragment of it, in your mind, that destroys the whole thing.

But when I reinforce my argument, and do my best to bring it into a state where your objections are debunked, what do you do?

You abandon ship, jump topic to something else. You'll gladly avoid answering the strongest parts of my argument, and focus on what you perceive to be the weakest. And if that doesn't work, you fall back onto sweeping claims and generic statements that don't address the argument at all.

I'm not falling for your red herrings. I'm not falling for your inability to answer the problems with Creationism. And I'm not going to let anyone else fall for it either, because every time you fail to address the topic of ERV's from now on, in this thread, I will point it out. And you will keep running from it, and using manipulative tactics to make yourself out to be a martyr.

Didn't you read my last post?
I did address the topic of ERVs here:

Without a common ancestor. Without a tree of life, which only exists as an imaginary tree, ERVs are not evidence of the so-called facts of evolution.
There are just another idea to support the eminent Charles Darwin - the god of religious science.

A simple example is this:
If I have a car, and I claim that the fact that I have a car, proves that I have a driver's license, is that statement true?
No.

So scientists found ERVs, in organism, which they claim, are closely related, base on a evolutionary tree hypothesis - from a common ancestor.
Does the fact that organism carry ERVs, prove evolution from common decent?
No.

Just as I would have to provide proof that I do have a drivers license, scientists would also have to provide proof of common ancestor.

How can they do so? They have a faulty evolutionary tree hypothesis, and no clear facts of common ancestor.

...and here:
Do Endogenous Retroviruses (ERVs) Support Common Ancestry?

I'm not going to dig up anything that I already posted again.
So make sure and read the post.

I also provided the links that show that it was realized by scientists that the baboon was closer than the chimpanzee, while the link you pointed me to stated that the ERVs were found in humans and chimps.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... -1?LI=true
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0001026

[Neatras]

[Replying to post 425 by theStudent]

A simple example is this:
If I have a car, and I claim that the fact that I have a car, proves that I have a driver's license, is that statement true?
No.

That's a bad analogy. Reason being, driver's licenses aren't organic, hereditary components of car drivers, and don't get embedded into the genome due to environmental causes in an ancestor's genome. One of the biggest reasons that people use ridiculous notions such as the Watchmaker argument is that they fail to address the fact that living things behave differently than non-living things, and so fail to account for the nuances that occur due to the facts of inherited traits, something very strongly tied to ERV's.

So scientists found ERVs, in organism, which they claim, are closely related, base on a evolutionary tree hypothesis - from a common ancestor.
Does the fact that organism carry ERVs, prove evolution from common decent?
No.

Of course not, it's not as if every single facet of common descent has to be 100% "proof" of common descent. The key notion behind science is that "A scientific theory must explain the facts pertaining to that theory". Common descent explains various components of evolutionary traits we see in life, including ERV's.

If I came up with the theory of common ancestry simply because I looked at ERV's, that'd be silly. I have a whole ocean of other concepts that, when linked to ERV's, provide a strong case for common ancestry. Creationists have a bad habit of behaving in a very dismissive manner:

They'll start out believing Creationism, and claim evolution has no evidence. At which point, they'll have evidence presented, some notable scrap of evidence that, by itself, is merely suggestive of evolution, but amassed in a conglomerate web of facts, makes Creationism look positively ridiculous. But then they go about saying "this one piece of evidence is worthless, because it doesn't explain X". Now, even though the evidence pointed toward evolution, it is discounted entirely by the Creationist in his mind, and so we're back to square 1. It doesn't work that way, theStudent.

Ask any of the others on this site who understand evolution, and you'll come to realize your approach to science is abhorrent. If I were to suggest that DNA is not capable of existing because "acid is corrosive, and would dissolve our genome", would it be fair if I dismissed individual pieces of evidence that contested that claim, simply because each one by itself is not an explanation of how DNA formed? NO. Because once I've been presented with hundreds of evidence-based arguments, I can understand that acidity doesn't behave in the manner I originally assumed.

But at the same time, you've already dismissed ERV's in your mind because "it doesn't prove common descent." But the entire point of theories is to explain the facts. You don't get to just say that

Without a common ancestor. Without a tree of life, which only exists as an imaginary tree, ERVs are not evidence of the so-called facts of evolution.
There are just another idea to support the eminent Charles Darwin - the god of religious science.

because the tree of life was formulated to explain what we see in nature; and it explains this very well, with ERV's taken into the fold of the theory and explained in stark detail.

Just because you dismiss the "imaginary tree" doesn't mean you get to decide ERV's are not evidence of it. You haven't demonstrated this. You would have to actually break the link between ERV's and the tree of life by demonstrating that the theory of evolution doesn't explain ERV's. And since it does, you resort to hand-waving the entire problem away so you don't have to address it.

Onto AnswersinGenesis, which I both already pointed out is a ridiculous farce, and you brought up less than 5 pages later. Really.

Since we know the Word of God is true, we know that ERVs cannot be proof of evolution.

That was the opening line to how they would "address" the ERVs. Not exactly intellectually stimulating, they've made up their minds already.

The fact that any ERVs (which are leftover, useless pieces of DNA) exist among primates at all strongly argues against common ancestry by itself.

This is false, not all non-positive mutations or traits are objectively negative. Neutral mutations and changes to the genome happen all the time, and remain because no selective pressure is killing off people with these ERVs. Evolution is blind, it has no purpose, and therefore, it's not some magic marker to blot out every single gene in the gene pool that isn't objectively suited for survival.

Therefore, there is no way to know beyond a shadow of a doubt (as many evolutionists claim) that this somehow proves evolution.

I can see where you get this trait of unreasonable expectations. I've already addressed this in this post. It's disappointing that AiG is so incompetent.

Further, scientists are finding actual functions for a number of ERVs, which declassifies them as junk and demotes the argument that they are evolutionary proof for common ancestry to just wishful thinking.

False. We have evidence that K-class ERVs have mutated in the genome and been modified to actually have beneficial traits to us. Isn't that odd? AiG mocked evolutionary science, saying that evolution MUST go by the operating motto "use it or lose it" (which is false), and then when an example of a positive mutation stares them square in the face, they twist it to make it seem untrue.

I would really like an evolutionist to tell me why the only reason an ERV exists in the genome is to prove common ancestry.

theStudent, both AiG and you seem unable to grasp that the purpose of a theory is to explain the facts. Just because evolution does it best doesn't mean you have to throw a fit.

However, this idea is limited because it ignores the fact that ERVs could exist in similar places in different genomes with the exact same sequence in order to perform an essential function.

This is covered under my "potential means of dismissing ERVs as evidence for common descent."
1. Demonstrating a mechanism that retroviruses use to discriminate where they inject their code into the human genome. If you were to do so, this case would be blown wide open. But you haven't, and can't. We already know that retroviruses inject randomly into cells.

When sequences are identical, claiming common ancestry is a moot point because they could be part of what is considered essential for life as designed by God, and we simply dont know what they do yet.

A. Even if creationism weren't already bad science, it'd be "an alternative explanation", and doesn't mean that evolution automatically fails, because AiG doesn't actually do anything to debunk the explanatory power of the evolutionary theory regarding ERVs.

B. Once again, assuming God, therefore God. And a God of the Gaps argument to boot.

5. Evolutionists Have No Origin of Any ERVs

Oh wow. WOW. And you have the nerve to bring this up? Once again, and I'll repeat this a million times if I have to, evolution does not explain the origins of life. And trying to expect it to is dishonest. You can't keep getting away with ridiculous nonsense like this.

The entire article is riddled with bias and a poor understanding of both science and evolution. But what do you expect? It's AnswersinGenesis, after all.

And theStudent, I don't get why you harp on and on about the exact statement I made regarding humans and chimps. I made a comparison of the two because they were a convenient example. I've already pointed out that if there are "closer" relative species to humans, they'd have more similar ERV matches in their genome, which goes to the second point I made about how you could go about dismissing the evidence.
2. Demonstrate that distantly related species have ERV matches that closely related species do not share.
But you won't actually take up this challenge, and the links you provided are actually completely useless, and even argue in support of evolution.

Anything else? I already know that you're going to selectively pick out choice cuts from my post, and try to attack those points. But with each post, there are mounting challenges that are becoming increasingly obvious in how you avoid them. Why not address each and every thing I posit? Scared?

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 412 by rikuoamero]

The Bible is not a science book rikuoamero.
I was merely showing you, that where the Bible comments on science, it is always accurate, and ahead of scientific findings. That's all.

Since it's not a science book, id doesn't go into detail about science.

Of course it is not a science book! The Old Testament was oral tradition passed down by nomadic ancient ignorant man without written language long before it was ever put to pen.

Why not have the message delivered to the Chinese as to avoid many of the years of necessary oral telling? 'Telephone game' anyone?

How can it be considered anything but mythology once this is known?

No, seriously, these ancient nomadic men really had the right god and accurately told oral history for thousands of years before having it recorded.