I've been looking at research into portions of the human genome that is made up of 'fossilised' viruses called endogenous viruses. These viruses existed a long time ago but managed to work their way into our ancestors' genes before mutating into a basically broken and non-infectious form. The recent research I was reading pertained to their actual positive actions during pregnancy, these ineffective viruses are thought to help the placenta and immune system develop.
How do young earth creationists take this information? I'm not so much disputing the fact that it could take millions of years (well over 6000) for such for such retroviruses to be taken into our genes, I'm more interested in the opinion of whether it was God's intention for us to have the remnants of old viruses in our genes.
2006-10-07 09:36:10 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
rp_joe - perhaps you missed the bit that said I'm that I'm not disputing that theory.
2006-10-07 10:28:25 · update #1
chilixa: Adam named the animals according to Genesis, viruses are not animals.
2006-10-07 11:34:18 · update #2
Also, all the animal names today are not the ones given by Adam, the original was in Hebrew if I'm correct and the Hebrew names are not the same for other languages. Anyway, edogenous and retrovirus, even virus are recent terms compared to Genesis. I'm not even sure I know why you brought that up.
2006-10-07 11:36:28 · update #3
If it is, then it is part of God's plan. However, it was up to Adam to name such things. How did he come up with the name endogenous retroviruses, and is that the original language, or a translation?
2006-10-07 11:21:11 · answer #1 · answered by chilixa 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
"it could take millions of years " or it could take only a thousand. These assumptions are based on readings of modern instruments. We don't know what virus or bacteria or other things were exactly back then. Even as short as 200 years ago instruments were crude. So we have lots of theories based on modern research not historical facts. for example we used to think that carbon 14 in the air was a constant. now after years of history with accurate instruments we know its not constant. We don't really know much about even a 1000 years ago because the accurate instruments were not available. And in some cases we are just guessing.
2006-10-07 10:22:57 · answer #2 · answered by SEOplanNOW.com 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
who cares?
2006-10-07 09:37:37 · answer #3 · answered by papaofgirlmegan 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋