“Experiments confirm that the Evolution of a Protein is scientifically unlikely”
Protein Evolution: A Problem That Defies Description
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is scientifically unlikely. The idea that all of biology just happened to arise spontaneously over long time periods (yes, that is what the theory of evolution says) is not motivated by the scientific evidence. This can be seen at all levels of biology including, more prominently in recent years, at the molecular level. A good example of this is the scientific evidence on proteins, and what it says about evolution.
It is not that the scientific evidence reveals proteins to be particularly unlikely on evolution. Proteins are not known to be any less likely to have evolved than, say, DNA repair mechanisms, cellular signal transduction, the electron transport chain, neurons, cardiovascular systems, mice or blue whales. But proteins are a bit more amenable to analysis. As mysterious and difficult as proteins are, molecular biology can at least provide some data on their supposed evolution. In the digital molecular world experiments can show how profoundly evolutionary expectations have failed, and how much more faith required to continue with the theory.
One way to understand how unlikely is protein evolution is in their sensitivity to change. Proteins generally do not tolerate much change to their design. Their designs can vary, but not much. In the vast universe of all possible protein designs, they are not vast oceans but more like the tiny holes in a golf course. This evidence indicates the evolutionary process is unlikely to find them.
Another way to understand protein evolution is to start at the beginning rather than the end. That is, rather than analyzing nature’s proteins, one can start with a non functional, random chain of amino acids to see how easily it can migrate toward functional proteins via evolution’s processes of natural selection or drift. These experiments confirm that the evolution of a protein is scientifically unlikely.
Such experiments reveal what seemed rather obvious from biochemistry: evolutionary schemes are not likely to find the highly complex protein designs we find in nature. The results of such experiments fall short of anything close to the real thing. The resulting sequences of amino acids look nothing like what we find in nature, and the resulting functions are orders of magnitude short of what real proteins do.
In fact, such experiments typically need all kind of advantages to show much progress. For instance, some experiments only attempt to evolve a part of a protein, while the rest of the protein is already at nature’s design at the beginning of the experiment. And some experiments apply artificial selection on low levels of trivial functions which otherwise would not improve fitness at the organismal level.
But even with these advantages the results demonstrate the failure of evolutionary expectations. Unfortunately, evolutionists are less than forthright in their representation of what science is telling us. For example, here is how one journal paper reported its results:
By extrapolation, we estimated that adaptive walking requires a library size of 10^70 [a one followed by 70 zeros] with 35 substitutions to reach comparable fitness. Such a huge search is impractical and implies that evolution of the wild-type phage must have involved not only random substitutions but also other mechanisms, such as homologous recombination.
Here the evolutionists must admit the obvious, that the envisioned protein evolution via gradual changes and natural selection does not work. In fact it is ridiculously unrealistic. But they then deny the gravity of the problem. With nothing but speculation they resolve their astronomical long shot with “other mechanisms” such as homologous recombination.
It is one of the great tragedies of our time that most people lack the scientific training to appreciate the incredible absurdity of evolutionary thought. The suggestion that homologous recombination could resolve this astronomical long shot is the height of absurdity. This is not hyperbole.
What cannot be solved with a library size of 10^70 is not magically going to be resolved with homologous recombination. And this is not to mention that homologous recombination would not have even existed when proteins first evolved. Indeed, an army of specialized proteins is required before homologous recombination is even possible. If homologous recombination was the key to evolving proteins, then aircraft carriers were the key to winning the battle of Trafalgar.
Indeed, it is a difficult task to describe the immense magnitude of this evolutionary folly. Here’s my attempt: It would be like throwing a paper airplane from the top of a skyscraper and explaining that it will make a hole-in-one at a golf course on the other side of town. On second thought, that still does not do the job—the evolutionary folly is far greater than this.
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is scientifically unlikely. The idea that all of biology just happened to arise spontaneously over long time periods (yes, that is what the theory of evolution says) is not motivated by the scientific evidence. This can be seen at all levels of biology including, more prominently in recent years, at the molecular level. A good example of this is the scientific evidence on proteins, and what it says about evolution.
It is not that the scientific evidence reveals proteins to be particularly unlikely on evolution. Proteins are not known to be any less likely to have evolved than, say, DNA repair mechanisms, cellular signal transduction, the electron transport chain, neurons, cardiovascular systems, mice or blue whales. But proteins are a bit more amenable to analysis. As mysterious and difficult as proteins are, molecular biology can at least provide some data on their supposed evolution. In the digital molecular world experiments can show how profoundly evolutionary expectations have failed, and how much more faith required to continue with the theory.
One way to understand how unlikely is protein evolution is in their sensitivity to change. Proteins generally do not tolerate much change to their design. Their designs can vary, but not much. In the vast universe of all possible protein designs, they are not vast oceans but more like the tiny holes in a golf course. This evidence indicates the evolutionary process is unlikely to find them.
Another way to understand protein evolution is to start at the beginning rather than the end. That is, rather than analyzing nature’s proteins, one can start with a non functional, random chain of amino acids to see how easily it can migrate toward functional proteins via evolution’s processes of natural selection or drift. These experiments confirm that the evolution of a protein is scientifically unlikely.
Such experiments reveal what seemed rather obvious from biochemistry: evolutionary schemes are not likely to find the highly complex protein designs we find in nature. The results of such experiments fall short of anything close to the real thing. The resulting sequences of amino acids look nothing like what we find in nature, and the resulting functions are orders of magnitude short of what real proteins do.
In fact, such experiments typically need all kind of advantages to show much progress. For instance, some experiments only attempt to evolve a part of a protein, while the rest of the protein is already at nature’s design at the beginning of the experiment. And some experiments apply artificial selection on low levels of trivial functions which otherwise would not improve fitness at the organismal level.
But even with these advantages the results demonstrate the failure of evolutionary expectations. Unfortunately, evolutionists are less than forthright in their representation of what science is telling us. For example, here is how one journal paper reported its results:
By extrapolation, we estimated that adaptive walking requires a library size of 10^70 [a one followed by 70 zeros] with 35 substitutions to reach comparable fitness. Such a huge search is impractical and implies that evolution of the wild-type phage must have involved not only random substitutions but also other mechanisms, such as homologous recombination.
Here the evolutionists must admit the obvious, that the envisioned protein evolution via gradual changes and natural selection does not work. In fact it is ridiculously unrealistic. But they then deny the gravity of the problem. With nothing but speculation they resolve their astronomical long shot with “other mechanisms” such as homologous recombination.
It is one of the great tragedies of our time that most people lack the scientific training to appreciate the incredible absurdity of evolutionary thought. The suggestion that homologous recombination could resolve this astronomical long shot is the height of absurdity. This is not hyperbole.
What cannot be solved with a library size of 10^70 is not magically going to be resolved with homologous recombination. And this is not to mention that homologous recombination would not have even existed when proteins first evolved. Indeed, an army of specialized proteins is required before homologous recombination is even possible. If homologous recombination was the key to evolving proteins, then aircraft carriers were the key to winning the battle of Trafalgar.
Indeed, it is a difficult task to describe the immense magnitude of this evolutionary folly. Here’s my attempt: It would be like throwing a paper airplane from the top of a skyscraper and explaining that it will make a hole-in-one at a golf course on the other side of town. On second thought, that still does not do the job—the evolutionary folly is far greater than this.
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