Not enough room in DNA

Oh dear. Time to remind ourselves of the probabilities of the self-assembly of a single, simple living cell:

quote:

---

Signature in the Cell- Stephen J Meyer — Excerpt:

​

"the simplest extant cell, Mycoplasma genitalium a tiny bacterium that inhabits the human urinary tract requires ‘only’ 482 proteins to perform its necessary functions (562,000 bases of DNAto assemble those proteins). ,,, amino acids have to congregate in a definite specified sequence in order to make something that works. First of all they have to form a peptide bond and this seems to only happen about half the time in experiments. Thus, the probability of building a chain of 150 amino acids containing only peptide links is about one chance in 10 to the 45th power.
In addition, another requirement for living things is that the amino acids must be the left-handed version. But in abiotic amino-acid production the right- and left-handed versions are equally created. Thus, to have only left-handed, only peptide bonds between amino acids in a chain of 150 would be about one chance in 10 to the 90th. Moreover, in order to create a functioning protein the amino acids, like letters in a meaningful sentence, must link up in functionally specified sequential arrangements. It turns out that the probability for this is about one in 10 to the 74th. Thus, the probability of one functional protein of 150 amino acids forming by random chance is (1 in) 10 to the 164th. If we assume some minimally complex cell requires 250 different proteins then the probability of this arrangement happening purely by chance is one in 10 to the 164th multiplied by itself 250 times or one in 10 to the 41,000th power.

---

And you, Coragyps, would attempt to compare this process with simple circles of gravel, or ZenMonkey's haphazard patterns in the bark of trees?None are so blind as those that will not see.

---

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy." Charles Darwin