Monday, August 25, 2008

Fun with Creationists!

Well, some Creationist (not IDiot, the regular idiot), posted a little snippet as a comment over on ERV. It's down at comment #6, but for easy of reading, I'll copy the entire thing here...

We fully expect you to NOT post this, but we'll give it a whirl anyway.

Please refer to:
http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/endogenous_retroviruses.html

Do they expect it not to be posted because it is complete nonsense? I certainly think that's why it wouldn't be posted...

More below the fold...



Scroll to:
"How is it that ERVS are Considered Copies of Disease Producing Exogenous Retroviruses but None Have Been Proven to Directly Cause Disease?"
Ok, it's complete fiction; in the event you are unfamiliar with multiple sclerosis, I suggest reading up on it. Also, we would expect HERVs to lose functionality if those humans are to survive, if they are completely functional and cause disease, person dies, ERV goes away.

"By Chance, What Made ERVS Evolve into "The Cure," Instead of Remaining Disease Related Viruses?"
As stated previously, ERVs with (notice the last "s" is in lower case?) beneficial effects are kept, those with extremely deleterious or no effects undergo much more mutation.

"By Chance, What Made ERV Elements Change From Viral Activities to Cellular Activities and Create New Essential Genes?"
In the event you still don't get the effect selection plays on the survival of genes, perhaps you should take a few remedial courses in biology; ERVs seem to be far out of your league...

"ERVS Created the Specie-Specific Regulatory Network that Controls the Expression of Cells in a Collective Manner. What Came First � the Host or the Regulatory Network?"
This is a false dichotomy; neither came first, retrovirus invades germ cell-->germ cell produces gamete-->infected gamete forms zygote which grows up to be adult (if virus doesn't kill it)-->virus loses some functionality due to mutations-->genome adapts to include ERV as functional element or ERV slowly disappears... I know, that's really simplified, but I figured I wouldn't make your brain explode just yet...

"By Chance, What Made ERV LTRS Immediately Turn into Essential Gene Regulators Upon Insertion?"
In the event you don't know what an LTR is, it is a "Long terminal repeat" which is used for insertion into the host DNA; now, what happens is after dsDNA is formed, LTR-specific integrases put the DNA into the genome. Now, they are presenting evidence that the TF binding site was present in the consensus sequence of the original retrovirus, it didn't "turn into" anything, it just happened to contain the consensus sequence for the TF in the original consensus sequence of the retroviral integrase because it is present in many related species... no magic...

"By Chance, What Made LTRS Gain Transciptional Abilities for Essential Genes?"
As the lovely lady over at ERV already said, "Its possible that a retrovirus plops down next to a gene, and the genes like 'Whoa! Ur a better promoter! I keepsies you!!'" Neat, huh?

"Misc. Examples of biased and inaccurate research and publications:"

I could explain each and every one of these papers, but then how would you learn?

Please note that there are about 50 + research articles referenced so we look forward to your rebuttal.

(If you can restrain yourself, it would serve all of us well if you would debate without insults and foul language.)

Posted by: who is your creator | August 25, 2008 4:52 PM

Look, I went the whole time without using any words you may consider "foul."

3 comments:

Unknown said...

/facepalm

ERV said...

You have more patience than I.

Chick was checking back at that thread every hour or so via her sitecounter account, ie, she was flaming for site hits. Ugh.

BUT! You did a great job with those answers! Just to add to #1, there are lots and lots and lots of examples of retroviruses that are both exogenous and endogenous-- MMTV is my fave, and I just wrote about ALV. Both of these viruses cause cancer, but their endogenous versions 'usually' dont.

Jared said...

Why thank you Ms ERV lady!
Yea, I figured that would go over her head, I liked your post on ALV.

 

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