Just plain stupid

I am a fan of scientific discovery and experimentation. Having said that, I must add that I am not a fan of stupidity. In science, stupidity tends to appear filed under "unbridled hubris". A recent study done by some genetic researchers falls squarely into that category. These researchers decided to recreate a human endogenous retrovirus. That's not what I find stupid.

Nor do I find their use of level 3 Biosafety instead of "Hot Zone"-style Level 4 biohazard equipment all that surprising:

Others worry that the study sets a dangerous precedent. Although it was approved by the French research ministry's Genetic Engineering Committee, Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, says any study that creates new viruses or activates old ones should be subject to a special review at the national or international level. What's more, he says, because the researchers couldn't be absolutely sure about Phoenix's infectivity, the study should have been carried out under Biosafety level 4 conditions--the best-protected labs available--instead of the level 3 conditions utilized.

Nope. What freaks me out is the way that these scientists "reconstructed" the genome for this virus. Unable to find a complete sequence, they designed an retrovirus by committee:

To "correct" for mutations, the researchers took dozens of known HERV-K(HML2) sequences and aligned them to create a so-called "consensus" sequence.

This smacks of just plain stupidity to me. These types of retroviruses actually have the ability to alter human gene sequences. Forever.

Retroviruses have the ability to make DNA copies of their RNA genomes and incorporate these into the host's genome. If this happens in a germ cell, the copy can be passed on to future generations.

So, knowing all this, the idea that they would aggregate variations of these gene sequences to come up with their "best guess" consensus design sounds like crazy talk. I just don't get it.