Question of the Endogenous Retro-Viral sequences in Human and Chimpanzee genomes

Article 1: whether all ERV classed sequences are derived from retrovirus?

It would seem ERV:s are virus derived:*

1) since they look exactly like genomes of retrovirus.*

2) since we can see ERV:s form after retroviral infection.*

3) since saying virus are ERV derived rather than ERV:s virus derived is like saying ships are wreck derived rather than wrecks ship derived.*

4) since ERV:s cannot make virus, due to mutations and deletions in the sequence.*

5) since it is non-functional DNA.*

Sed contra est: Et fecit Deus bestias terrae juxta species suas, et jumenta, et omne reptile terrae in genere suo. Et vidit Deus quod esset bonum ...**

I answer that it must be said that ERV:s (or so-called such) were created with purposes*** and that - perhaps - helping in transcribing the genome*** is part of it. Of other parts we may be ignorant. I could also guess, they help to define the right place for more actively useful parts of the genome.

Originally these places did exist in the genome of man and chimp - 16 common places for the genomes referring to what are called K class ERV:s.*

Usually they are not able to reproduce on their own as virus. They do keep if not all at least most of their original purpose.

When an accident after the Fall of Man makes such a so called ERV sequence able to reproduce on its own, a retrovirus is created. It was not a part of original creation, unless perhaps God wanted harmless virus, producing no sicknesses, to help transfer useful genome sequences.

Between RNA and DNA there are two transscriptions, both occurring outside the ocntext of virus: the so called transscription, by which DNA is copied as RNA, and the so called reverse transscription by which RNA is copied as a sequence of DNA. Both are involved in the ordinary reproduction of manycelled eucaryotic species.

Deriving virus from ERV sequences would require transscription. Deriving ERV sequences from virus requires reverse transscription.*

To the answering of objections:

1) If retrovirus are derived from the so called ERV sequences, it means same kind of likeness as if ERV sequences are derived from virus, supposing both transitions between them to be possible.

2) The ERV:s forming after retroviral infection are different from the K class ERV:s, since otherwise herpes, HIV and the 16 K class would all have same sequence and all cause at once AIDS and herpes and also be harmless. Which is obviously impossible. Hence there is no sufficiently prove likeness to support identity of process.

3) If from the viral point of view a virus is like a ship and an ERV like a shipwreck, from a human point of view it is rather an ERV which is part of a ship and a virus that is a shipwreck.

4) If the 16 K class ERV:s cannot make virus, we cannot claim an identity with any virus, and this is a clear difference from the ERV:s that form in some individual genomes of some individual cells after virus infections - since those ERV:s threaten to perpetuate or repeat the virus infection, as is seen from AIDS and herpes.

5) Answered in my over all explanation, in what St Thomas would have called the corpus of the article.

Article 2: whether ERV placings are consistent with independent ancestry or not.

It would seem that ERV:s cannot have been put into genomes in exactly the same places in different species:*

1) since by mimicking evolution it would make the creator a liar.*

2) since the ERV:s being virus derived (remember!) they cannot have been there since before the fall, when there were no virus.*

But against this is that God is truth. And that some love darkness more than truth.°

I answer that it has already been answered that the 16 K class ERV loci in man and chimp are not derived from virus.

Neither do they absolutely seem as if so derived, but only to those who wish to distort the evidence that way or perhaps also to people easily perplexed.

God is no liar, but this does not mean he only does things which everyone will understand correctly. There are misunderstandings, deliberate or clumsy, which God knows and only tolerates, but does not remove by creating otherwise, but rather lets more honest and clever (at least on this matter) men answer, so that the misunderstanding ceases to be fully excusable.

From which also the solutions to both objections are seen.

Article 3: whether ERV:s prove evolution or not?

It would seem that ERV:s prove evolution:*

1 and only) since ERV:s, neither being original parts of genomes, nor the source of virus, but virus derived, either must be due to very many different virus infections contaminating human and chimp genomes in same places by an incredibly small, virtually impossible, chance, or be derived from virus infections of common ancestors. Which means there are such.*

But against this is that errors are not proof as if they were factually correct, only proof about our possibility of erring.

I answer that the one and only argument (to which other arguments were only support), has insufficient support, since alternative explanations are possible.

A theist will agree and an evolutionist have to admit the possibility that for the theist it is so, that the alternative explanations are more likely to be correct and that the virus explanation of 16 K class ERV:s is an error. Hence it is no proof for evolution.

And objection 1 and only has been answered.

One would add that if the 16 K class ERV:s were really heritage of one common ancestor before the split between man and chimp, and that one inheriting 16 retroviral infections, as evolutionists claim, then some of those would also in some probability have been there before that common ancestor's own ancestors split off from those of gorilla, and some of them before apes split off from other closest related monkeys. Neither video has dealt with this. Even if there were demonstrably such a distribution of K class ERV:s, it could also square with common creator theory, since these could equally have non-viral origin and be part of original hierarchic plan of close and far similarities between creatures. St Thomas might well have made this a fourth article. But scholasticism is not in its essence his disposal of the Summa Articles.

*See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUxLR9hdorI

**Genesis 1:25

***See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsCj__ucBSo

°See Prologue of St John.