Questions about Evolutionism vs. Creationsim

[Alex K]

Sure, but please note that I am a physicist by training, not a geologist or a biologist.

Now, many of the viruses you know such as the common cold, carry their genome in the form of RNA molecules. They therefore can't accidentally end up in your own genes, which are given as DNA. Some RNA viruses such as the Aids virus HIV, however, possess a mechanism to translate their RNA back into the DNA format - they are therefore called retroviruses. When you get infected by one, there is a small chance that its back-converted DNA will end up in your sperm cells or egg cells and be  passed on to your children as part of their genome in every single one of their cells, including THEIR sperm cells or egg cells. Over the generations, these so-called Endogenous Retroviruses or ERVs degrade because they get cut up and mutate, but usually scientists can still recognize their DNA remains as having belonged to  a retrovirus DNA many generations ago. This apparently happened to the common ancestors of chimps and humans, because there are many fragmentary ERVs in the corresponding places  in human and chimp DNA, and this is smoking gun evidence for a common ancestor (but only one line of evidence among many), documenting infection events in those common ancestors. Chimps are your distant cousins, get over it. I bet that, like me, you have some relatives in your extended family that are way worse than being a chimp's removed cousin.

If you ask specifically about which remainders - a large part of our so-called junk DNA is chopped-up retroviruses, so, a lot of different ones.

Thanks for the reply.

That's really interesting. (I'm a film major, so I could see using this in a sci-fi film at some point... I like fiction that builds off of real life).
But back to the science. Once a gene is mutated, doesn't it lose genetic information though? If we evolved from apes through RNA viruses such as HIV, wouldn't we have, well, died? AIDS weakens your immune system rather than strengthens it or changes you into something else.

I wouldn't say it "loses genetic information" because abstract information is difficult to define properly. Some of the information about its original state is lost for sure, but if it is little enough that the remains are recognizable that's ok. Imagine a deteriorated image of the Mona Lisa, with some dirt on it - you'd still recognize it as being the Mona Lisa unless an extreme degree of deterioration has set in.

The fact that the retrovirus gets chopped up is deadly *for the virus*, i.e. it isn't functional anymore, but the standard contents of human DNA which are necessary for survival have different properties - you always get equivalent copies from both parents for instance, which is why inbreeding is dangerous because the same bit of damaged DNA might be present on both sides. And whenever there is existential damage due to mutation, usually the foetus dies by itself very early in pregnancy, thus automatically removing the damaging mutation from the gene pool. Nature performs *a lot* of abortions in case you haven't noticed, and many women who have had a few pregnancies will have had that bad experience. And those are only the ones that were intact enough to even form a working sperm kr egg. On top of that, there are DNA repair mechanisms in place in our cells which constantly fix deviations.