ERVW mutations point of descent

I was wondering if anyone could offer an explanation for 200k ERVW mutations shared in identical loci of primates and humans. Obvious answer is a shared ancestor but what I cant understand is what happens then to the other individuals DNA competing for expression?

Are you making some sort of assumption… like that all portions of DNA are equally likely to have variations or mutations? Because I don’t think that is the case. It may be true in viruses, but even bacteria employ DNA repair mechanisms and do so selectively at times.

Are you asking the same question as the poster in this thread: How do ERVs propagate to an entire population of a species?

If so, does my response there answer your question?

Yep. Didnt see the previous post. What Im struggling to understand is how 100% expression ERV mutations if mendialian inheritance is applied. Is it possible it is not junk DNA and there is some form of advantage that led to propagation of the ERV mutations? If not, why wouldnt we see populations without the mutation since there would have been individuals lacking the mutation contributing DNA inheritance to descendants.

Very informative response. Im still stuck on mendelian inheritance
What Im struggling to understand is how 100% expression ERV mutations if mendialian inheritance is applied. Is it possible it is not junk DNA and there is some form of advantage that led to propagation of the ERV mutations? If not, why wouldnt we see populations without the mutation since there would have been individuals lacking the mutation contributing DNA inheritance to descendants.

What Im ultimately wondering is whether one of the following situations happened rather than dna drift. I have a hard time embracing dna drift because the improbability of it happening let alone happening 200k times. I recognize below ideas would be even more unlikely but wondered if any science has looked at another possible explanation

  1. ERV mutation advantage that led to propagation
  2. Not as random as believed

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