Modulus,
First I am not an expert on this, but:
Endogenous retroviruses are assumed to be evidence for evolution. It is an unproven assumption that these fragments actually came from retroviruses. Evolutionists once considered them "junk" left over from our ancestors, but now scientists are finding that they have function. Some actually alert the cell and disrupt the life cycle of real retrovirus invaders. Some regulate gene expression and some function as genes.
ERVs in humans should be closely related to chimps. Here are some quotes from a research paper:
by studying the population dynamics of complete copies of primate endogenous retrovirus family K (ERV-K) in the genomes of humans, chimpanzee and rhesus monkey, a surprising pattern was observed....being published this week on PLoS ONE revealed that human ERV-K had a similar demographic signature to that of the rhesus monkey, both differing greatly from that of the chimpanzee.
Reporting on research in 2005 found another problem for ERVs:
What researchers don't understand is why the virus affected the ancestors of chimps, gorillas, and Old World monkeys, but didn't affect the ancestors of humans or of Asian apes like orangutans and gibbons.
http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlser ... 30110&ct=1
All 299 of these "insertions" look to be non-orthologous even though some are found in similar positions.
Ist - To my knowledge no one has shown that these actually came from retrovirus infections.
2nd - To even be considered evidence for evolution the ERVs must be in the same location, not similar. I would like to know how many we share with chimps that are in the same location and written the same way. Please show references or link to them.
3rd - The "dating" assumes a common source and so any differences are seen as hands on a clock. Then an unproven assumption as to a mutation rate is added in to give the time.
The fact that ERVs and other "junk" are constantly being found to have vital functions in our genome drives me away from making evolutionary leaps.