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People, capable of pondering life’s great mysteries, are going to place faith into something, only difference is if they accept it as a faith or argue their fai

People, capable of pondering life’s great mysteries, are going to place faith into something, only difference is if they accept it as a faith or argue their faith into fact. I think this makes many here uncomfortable.

blindriver 3y ago
Sorry but I believe in science and evolution, not science fiction. Just making up stories that viruses can create new organs in other organisms and also some get intertwined in the reproduction so that next generations can get the same organs is creationism mythology.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  That's not what the article asserts; you're complaining about a strawman. It asserts that some virus genes made it into our genome, and that some of those were useful in the eventual evolution of the placenta. That mechanism is well documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus
  - blindriver 3y ago
    Going from infecting an organ to getting replicated via meiosis and being transmitted such that it fits neatly into our chromosomes is entirely different things and different pathways. It's impossible. Exogenous viruses affected organs is real and even intertwining in our DNA, like herpes. But the idea that it can create new organs or somehow get into our sperm and egg in order to self propagate into another organism that doesn't have those genes is ridiculous.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      Again, you're arguing against something that wasn't asserted. The article doesn't say some virus infected a human and bam, placenta, next generation. It says some viral infections gave us individual proteins that wound up handy later. > the idea that it can ... somehow get into our sperm and egg in order to self propagate into another organism... is ridiculous Again, that's precisely what endrogenous retroviruses do. From my link: "Rarely, retroviral integration may occur in a germline cell that goes on to develop into a viable organism. This organism will carry the inserted retroviral genome as an integral part of its own genome—an "endogenous" retrovirus (ERV) that may be inherited by its offspring as a novel allele. Many ERVs have persisted in the genome of their hosts for millions of years."

blindriver 3y ago

Sorry but I believe in science and evolution, not science fiction. Just making up stories that viruses can create new organs in other organisms and also some get intertwined in the reproduction so that next generations can get the same organs is creationism mythology.

ceejayoz 3y ago
That's not what the article asserts; you're complaining about a strawman. It asserts that some virus genes made it into our genome, and that some of those were useful in the eventual evolution of the placenta. That mechanism is well documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus
- blindriver 3y ago
  Going from infecting an organ to getting replicated via meiosis and being transmitted such that it fits neatly into our chromosomes is entirely different things and different pathways. It's impossible. Exogenous viruses affected organs is real and even intertwining in our DNA, like herpes. But the idea that it can create new organs or somehow get into our sperm and egg in order to self propagate into another organism that doesn't have those genes is ridiculous.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    Again, you're arguing against something that wasn't asserted. The article doesn't say some virus infected a human and bam, placenta, next generation. It says some viral infections gave us individual proteins that wound up handy later. > the idea that it can ... somehow get into our sperm and egg in order to self propagate into another organism... is ridiculous Again, that's precisely what endrogenous retroviruses do. From my link: "Rarely, retroviral integration may occur in a germline cell that goes on to develop into a viable organism. This organism will carry the inserted retroviral genome as an integral part of its own genome—an "endogenous" retrovirus (ERV) that may be inherited by its offspring as a novel allele. Many ERVs have persisted in the genome of their hosts for millions of years."