Re: [asa] Amazing Proteins

Hi Iain,

"I am still confused as to the direction you are trying to take this.
All that you write about the amazing nature of proteins is very
interesting in itself, but where is it taking us, bearing in mind that
this group is for discussion of where Faith and Science intersect, or
at any rate, interface."

I'm not sure, Iain. Front-loading? Fine-tuning? Design? A fully-gifted
universe? Who knows? I'm simply focused on the points I laid on the table
after it occurred to me we have been taking proteins for granted. So I
would go back to the final two paragraphs of my original essay, as that is
as far as I am right now.

Thus far, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that the blind watchmaker
can do all that much without the help of proteins. So I'm not sure why
anyone would want to wave them away and return to business as usual.

As for your points about the alphabet, I did not address them because a) I
thought I made it clear this is not simply about subunits and variation and
b) it would get me off the topic of proteins and their relationship to
evolution. But if you really want me to address that angle, I can try.

-Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: "Iain Strachan" <igd.strachan@gmail.com>
To: "Nucacids" <nucacids@wowway.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 6:34 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] Amazing Proteins

> Hi, Mike,
>
> Reading through this conversation, I'm trying to get to the bottom of
> what you are saying. I guess the following paragraph gets to the
> heart of it; you write
>
>> For example, without proteins, and their manufacturing process, what
>> becomes of the blind watchmaker? Without proteins, and the latent
>> functions
>> contained within, might not the blind watchmaker exist as the impotent,
>> crippled, blind watchmaker with no one to notice its existence? If so,
>> how
>> much credit does the blind watchmaker really deserve?
>>
>>
>
> In other words the watchmaker wouldn't have the basic materials to
> make the watch, and by implication your amazement that such materials
> exist? One might infer that there is a "fine-tuning" argument to be
> made here - how amazing that the laws of the universe allow such
> things as possibilities. However, you don't appear to make that
> point.
>
> But when you make the statement "how much credit does the blind
> watchmaker really deserve?", it has set me thinking. Surely the
> reason for the amazing variety of proteins is due to the fact that
> they are long chains of around 20 different building blocks (I see
> this as a kind of molecular alphabet), so the possibilities for
> variety are astronomically large. One might say that only a tiny
> fraction of such sequences are going to be useful, and fold over in
> the right way, but this still leaves an immense number of
> possibilities for evolution to discover.
>
> I wonder if a similar analogy can be made by considering the 26
> letters in the English alphabet. A random arbitrary sequence of the
> symbols is likely to be meaningless, but consider the immense variety
> of different forms of textual communication; the Shakespeare sonnet,
> the bawdy limerick, the lyrics of a pop song, the news items you read
> in the newspaper, the endearments lovers whisper to each other, and
> the staccato utterances of text messages (sorry txt msgs).
>
> Now, when you say "how much credit does the blind watchmaker really
> deserve", is this not equivalent to saying "how much credit does
> Shakespeare deserve for 'shall I compare thee to a Summer's day"
> because if you take away the letters of the alphabet, he would be a
> nobody without the means to create his literature". Similarly perhaps
> Mozart doesn't deserve credit for the complexities of the last
> movement of the Jupiter Symphony, because if the notes of the musical
> scale (and all the latent functions and harmonies within them) didn't
> exist he wouldn't have the means to compose melody.
>
> In summary, if even intelligent designers, such as Shakespeare and
> Mozart are utterly dependent on a small finite set of elemental
> building blocks that they can string together, then shouldn't one also
> give the Blind Watchmaker some credit for being able to construct
> living organisms from a similar set of molecules?
>
> What I am wondering is how my two examples differ from yours?
>
> Regards,
> Iain
>
>
>
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>

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Received on Tue May 6 19:16:53 2008