Here is Another Retrovirus With an Important Function

Don�t Just Assume It�s Junk

The more that evolutionists claim nature is full of junk, the more that science finds uses for the junk. An intriguing example are the retroviruses which, for several years, have been found to have various functions. Yet another retrovirus function was published last fall in a study out of Canada. This retrovirus works with several proteins in human embryonic stem cells
and without it the stem cells lose their key functionalities.

Human endogenous retrovirus subfamily H (HERVH) is a class of transposable elements expressed preferentially in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). Here, we report that the long terminal repeats of HERVH function as enhancers and that HERVH is a nuclear long noncoding RNA required to maintain hESC identity. Furthermore, HERVH is associated with OCT4, coactivators and Mediator subunits. Together, these results uncover a new role of species-specific transposable elements in hESCs.

As with previous human retrovirus examples, this finding forced evolutionists to hypothesize that the retrovirus, unbelievably, played a crucial role human evolution. As one report explained:

According to the study's lead author, Xinyi Lu, a postdoctoral researcher in Ng's laboratory, the emergence of the regulatory activities executed by HERV-H could represent an important step in the evolution of our early ancestors. "HERV-H first integrated into the primate genome around 45 million years ago and is only found in the primate genome," says Lu, "and so it may contribute to some of the differences between primates and other mammals."

How curious this is. A retrovirus is supposed to have evolved, and then it just happened to play an important role in the construction of humans. This is yet another example of the incredible serendipity that evolutionists envision at work in their theory. Do they ever wonder at the likelihood of a retrovirus just luckily fitting in to the evolutionary process, and serving in an important role in the production of increasingly complex organisms?

With evolution, science becomes not a search for how nature works, or what likely occurred in the past, but rather bizarre, unlikely tales that cannot be proven wrong.

Religion drives science, and it matters.