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Doug Axe explains the chances of getting a functional protein by chance

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I’ve talked about Doug Axe before when I described how to calculate the odds of getting functional proteins by chance.

Let’s calculate the odds of building a protein composed of a functional chain of 100 amino acids, by chance. (Think of a meaningful English sentence built with 100 scrabble letters, held together with glue)

Sub-problems:

  • BONDING: You need 99 peptide bonds between the 100 amino acids. The odds of getting a peptide bond is 50%. The probability of building a chain of one hundred amino acids in which all linkages involve peptide bonds is roughly (1/2)^99 or 1 chance in 10^30.
  • CHIRALITY: You need 100 left-handed amino acids. The odds of getting a left-handed amino acid is 50%. The probability of attaining at random only L–amino acids in a hypothetical peptide chain one hundred amino acids long is (1/2)^100 or again roughly 1 chance in 10^30.
  • SEQUENCE: You need to choose the correct amino acid for each of the 100 links. The odds of getting the right one are 1 in 20. Even if you allow for some variation, the odds of getting a functional sequence is (1/20)^100 or 1 in 10^65.

The final probability of getting a functional protein composed of 100 amino acids is 1 in 10^125. Even if you fill the universe with pre-biotic soup, and react amino acids at Planck time (very fast!) for 14 billion years, you are probably not going to get even 1 such protein. And you need at least 100 of them for minimal life functions, plus DNA and RNA.

Research performed by Doug Axe at Cambridge University, and published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Molecular Biology, has shown that the number of functional amino acid sequences is tiny:

Doug Axe’s research likewise studies genes that it turns out show great evidence of design. Axe studied the sensitivities of protein function to mutations. In these “mutational sensitivity” tests, Dr. Axe mutated certain amino acids in various proteins, or studied the differences between similar proteins, to see how mutations or changes affected their ability to function properly. He found that protein function was highly sensitive to mutation, and that proteins are not very tolerant to changes in their amino acid sequences. In other words, when you mutate, tweak, or change these proteins slightly, they stopped working. In one of his papers, he thus concludes that “functional folds require highly extraordinary sequences,” and that functional protein folds “may be as low as 1 in 10^77.”

The problem of forming DNA by sequencing nucleotides faces similar difficulties. And remember, mutation and selection cannot explain the origin of the first sequence, because mutation and selection require replication, which does not exist until that first living cell is already in place.

But you can’t show that to your friends, you need to send them a video. And I have a video!

A video of Doug Axe explaining the calculation

Here’s a clip from Illustra Media’s new ID DVD “Darwin’s Dilemma”, which features Doug Axe and Stephen Meyer (both with Ph.Ds from Cambridge University).

I hope you all read Brian Auten’s review of Darwin’s Dilemma! It was awesome.

Related DVDs

Illustra also made two other great DVDs on intelligent design. The first two DVDs “Unlocking the Mystery of Life” and “The Privileged Planet” are must-buys, but you can watch them on youtube if you want, for free.

Here are the 2 playlists:

I also recommend Coldwater Media’s “Icons of Evolution”. All three of these are on sale from Amazon.com.

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News

Woman who made false rape accusation gets zero jail time

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Story here in the UK Daily Mail.

Excerpt:

A woman who accused a student of rape after dragging him into a public toilet for sex was spared jail yesterday.

Bisexual Sarah-Jane Hilliard, 20, seduced Grant Bowers when the two bumped into each other during a night out clubbing.

[…]She had denied perverting the course of justice.

Mr Bowers – who says he is now afraid to speak to women – said: ‘It’s absolutely ridiculous. That’s not even a slap on the wrist. She’s been let off and I’m still having to sneak around because there are still people after me who think I did it.’

It was more than a week after his arrest that Mr Bowers discovered he was not to be charged.

But during that time Hilliard, who was in a relationship with a woman, contacted the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board in the hope of claiming up to £7,500.

Mr Bowers’s father Tony, 48, said: ‘My son was facing up to ten years in prison for rape on the strength of her lies. The least I expected was for her to have been given a prison sentence.

[…]Hilliard’s lie began to unravel when police were unable to find CCTV footage of the pair leaving the club.

A friend admitted they had been at another nightclub called Colors and detectives found CCTV evidence of Hilliard and Mr Bowers, who was 19 at the time, kissing and holding hands.

How should men feel about stories like this?

ECM had sent me this article from the ABA Journal a few days back.

Excerpt:

A judge’s race or gender makes for a dramatic difference in the outcome of cases they hear—at least for cases in which race and gender allegedly play a role in the conduct of the parties, according to two recent studies.

The results were the focus of a program about “Diversity on the Bench: Is the ‘Wise Latina’ a Myth?,” sponsored by the ABA Judicial Division at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Orlando on Saturday afternoon.

In federal racial harassment cases, one study (PDF) found that plaintiffs lost just 54 percent of the time when the judge handling the case was an African-American. Yet plaintiffs lost 81 percent of the time when the judge was Hispanic, 79 percent when the judge was white, and 67 percent of the time when the judge was Asian American.

The comprehensive study, by professors from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, examined a random assortment of 40 percent of all reported racial harassment cases from six federal circuits between 1981 and 2003.

A second study (PDF), looked at 556 federal appellate cases involving allegations of sexual harassment or sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The finding: plaintiffs were at least twice as likely to win if a female judge was on the appellate panel.

Are courts impartial?

News

Parental rights under attack in Poland and Canada

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First, Poland, from Life Site News. (H/T Neil Simpson)

Excerpt:

A controversial bill that critics say would significantly infringe on the rights of parents to bring up their children according to their values has passed first reading in the Polish parliament.

Incorporated into the bill, titled “On the Prevention of Family Violence,” which deals with a variety of issues, is a clause that says, “It is forbidden for persons holding parental power over children to implement corporal punishment, cause psychological pain or to humiliate them in any other form.”

According to the Polish Labor and Social Policy Ministry guidelines, psychological violence includes, “making the child ashamed, imposing one’s own opinions on the child, criticizing the child continually, controlling the child, restricting the child’s social contacts,” as well as “criticizing the child’s sexual behavior.”

Furthermore, the bill would give social workers authority to take children from families if someone suspects parents are in contravention of these guidelines or if it is believed there is a danger they may in the future “harm” their children this in way.

This is really bad, especially for those of us who think that respectful disagreement about controversial is an important part of learning and growing. That’s what shopping malls are for: to buy presents to make up for all the frank disagreement! But there has to be the disagreement first, otherwise how can people really be honest with one another, and change their minds?

Then Canada, also from Life Site News. (H/T Neil Simpson)

Excerpt:

Public school children in Hamilton, Ontario will not be permitted to withdraw from classes that promote homosexuality, according to the Hamilton Mountain News. At the same time, according to a leaked document obtained by a local journalist, teachers are being instructed to tell parents who object to the curriculum that “this is not about parent rights.”

At the end of January, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) hosted a professional development day dedicated to “equity” training, where they distributed a sheet to teachers with “quick responses” they can offer to parents who object to the school board’s “anti-homophobia” curriculum.

That document was obtained by journalist Mark Cripps, and posted on the website of the Hamilton Mountain News. Cripps observes that the handout “basically indicates parents have no rights when it comes to their child’s education at the HWDSB.”

In addition, Cripps reports that, “The board says no child will be excused from the class when topics of homosexuality are brought into the classroom.”

The school board is developing a new equity policy, as required of all boards under the Ontario Ministry of Education’s equity strategy, announced last year. Among other things, the Ministry is requiring all boards, Catholic and public, to develop a plan for combating “homophobia.”

The sheet given to the HWDSB teachers specifies that teachers do not “condone” the removal of children from classes that deal with homosexuality.

This is the kind of thing that terrifies even marriage-minded men like me, who have been saving and preparing for marriage our entire lives. Can you imagine what would happen if my future children said the wrong thing in public and they were seized by the government? I don’t doubt for a second that some of Obama’s nominees would see nothing wrong with seizing children from parents who don’t agree with them on moral issues. Chai Feldblum and Kevin Jennings come to mind. Even government-run public schools are quite vicious in making sure that parents are forced to pay for secular-leftists schools so that they have no money left over to choose a school more suitable to the worldview of the parents.

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