A substantial proportion of the human genome is relic DNA from retroviruses - genetic code which became fixed in our germline DNA from infections millions of years ago. By comparing our genome with that of other species, we can see that some of these insertions are relatively recent (within the last 5 million years) and so are only found in humans. Others which occurred longer ago are found in the same place in both human and chimpanzee DNA, demonstrating that the incorporation happened in a common ancestor before the evolutionary divergence of chimps and humans. Others occurred tens of millions of years earlier still, and are present in old world monkeys and apes (including humans), but not in new world monkeys, demonstrating that the virus found its way into the genes after old and new world monkeys diverged but before apes evolved.
How do creationist folks account for this kind of evidence without conceding that all organisms including humans are related by common descent?
2007-10-20
15:34:07
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27 answers
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Anonymous
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Religion & Spirituality