>> You wrote:
>> >>If the number of active alleles of which you are aware reaches a
>> maximum of 59 in MHC, this multiplication by 59 of the chance of
>> the random occurrence of these amino acid strings (nearly said
>> nucleotide :-) ) is surely a minor, trivial and insignificant increase.<<
>>
>> You should have said nucleotides.
>
>Why? The MHC complexes are proteins.
This is incorrect. The MHC complex is a set of closely linked genes that
encode the proteins. The proteins are not considered to be the complex.
>> equivalently look at the same problem in the proteins they code for. The
>> problem is NOT the random generation of 59 different alleles. The problem is
>> how, by the random mutation of the 10 alleles after the flood, can you give
>> rise to the 59 observed alleles? This is quite a different problem than what
>> you are suggesting. I am not suggesting the discovery of one of these
>> alleles by random mutation but the generation of ALL these 59 alleles by
>> random selection by modification of the existing allels. The pathway to the
>> new allele must involve random mutation of the existing allele. The only way
>> out of this is to assume that the flood was not anthropologically universal
>> or that the flood occurred a long time ago.
An important thing not considered here is the in humans, the MHC complex
consists of 3 polymorphic genes each with its own set of alleles. The total
number of alleles, 59, is actually spread among three genes, not one, which
reduces the problem of how the polymporphism arose.
>> You are assuming that ONE and ONLY one sequence will perform a given
>> function, i.e. that you are looking for a needle in a haystack.
>
>Read above which you just tried to refute. In the case of MHC
>complexes, the number of known sequences that will perform the job is
>59, which you claimed was the maximum number of functional alleles
>known at any locus. I am talking a.a., even if there were six codons
>for each a.a., the number is still astronomical.
>
>
____________________________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D. Phone: (608) 263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: (608) 263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Ctr
University of Wisconsin "...a university is a collection of
Madison, WI 53792 disparate academic entrepreneurs
united only by a common grievance
over parking." Clark Kerr, former
Chancellor of the Univ. of California
__________________________________________________________________________