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Whether or not this is the case
does not matter. In our article we
were even more generous than Mr.
Mi ller. We gave each star in the
universe 1O "earths" and each
"earth" an ocean of "primeva!
soup" mixed to the evolutionists'
recipe. Never theless, it did not
make the evolut ion of even one
"simple" protein probable.
The fundamental building mole–
cules are not protei ns but DNA.
The attempt to use DNA in the
cussed natural selection in sorne
detai l and even gave an example of
how it works! We emphasized then
and now emphasize again that nat–
uraJ selection can only explain the
survival
of the fittest. l t does not
explain the
arrival
of the fittest.
Natural sel ection is adequate to
explain the variety of living things
we see today.
Even evolut ionists do not make
this claim. They require sponta–
neous generation and mutations (at
many further games (dropping out
only if they lose al/ games from the
previou s s tarting position, t he
chance ofa random change continu–
ing). Then m ight it not be reasoned
that af ter much time, the starting
positions in use might improve?
The analogy regarding starting
positions in a chess game is inter–
esting. The reasoning applied, how–
ever, is fa l lacious on several
grounds.
Even if the starting posit ions are
being changed slightly,
but randomly, there is no
synthesis of proteins only
makes the situation worse
for evolution. DNA is
even more un li kely to
come into existence by
chance than protein is. 1t
would be like someone
claiming that a table of
logarithms carne into ex–
istence by being gener–
ated by a computer that,
in turn, carne into exis–
tence by chance.
O>uld a Simple Protein
Form
by
Chance?
guarantee t hat an im–
proved starting position
that results in a winner one
time wi ll r esu lt in an
improved starti ng posit ion
the next game. Quite the
contrary, a small modifica–
t ion of an excellent start–
ing position could conceiv–
ably be a disastrous star t–
ing position.
Smaller self-replicat–
ing chains could form
and progress in small
steps to produce longer
and longer chains.
There are a number of
difficulties with such a
model. First of all , scien–
tists have not found any
evidence of such occurring
in nature. Second, even if
it could occur, the proba–
bilities of ending up with
the right sequence, after
all the small steps, would
s t il l be immeasurabl y
small by essentially the
same reasoning given in
the article. Thi rd, what
would be the role or pur–
pose of such intermediate
chains? Why a nd how
Proleins are essenlial
molecules for lhe
exislence of physicallife.
Prolein molecules consisl
of chains of chemical
compounds called amino
acids. A relalively simple
prolein would consisl of a
chain of aboul 100 amino
acids.
Suppose we have a
"soup" full of amino acids.
We want these acids to
link up at random lo form
a prolein consisting of 100
amino acids. How many
differenl combinalions are
there?
There are on earlh 20
differenl lypes of amino
acids available lo form
proleins. lf we wanled a
chain of two such acids,
there would be 20
possibililies for lhe fírst
acid and 20 for the
second-or 20 x 20
=
400 possibililies. lf we
wanled a chain of three
such acids, lhere would be
20
X
20
X
20
=
8 ,000
possibililies.
For a prolein consisling
of a chain of 100 acids,
lherefore , we have
(0
X
20
~""*ti
X
29
=
20
100
100
times
possibililies. Bul 20
100
is
approximalely equal to
1O
130
,
thal is, 1 followed by
130 zeros. So we have
1
o
130
possibililies. but only
one combinalion is the
righl one for a given
protein.
ls it reasonable to
believe lhal such a protein
could have formed by
chance during the hislory
of the universe? The odds
against such an event are
beyond aslronomical.
Moreover, the chess
players are presumably
in tell igent beings. T hey
perform at varying skill
levels. So it makes no sense
to attribute thei r charac–
teristics to that of a blind
chance mechanism of mu–
tations and natural selec–
tion.
The theory of probabil–
ity appl ies only to chance
phenomena a nd not to
deterministic phenomena.
For example, it would be
nonsense to ask the ques–
tion: "What is the proba–
bility 1 will paint my
house green?" There is
no answer.
If
1 want to
paint it green, 1 will. l f 1
don't, 1 won't. Similarly,
would they survive to produce more
complicated chains? Certainly, there
is no evidence of the existence of
intermediate chains being somehow
related to intermediate species.
the very least) in addit ion to natu–
raJ selection.
the theory of probabil ity cannot be
applied to deterministic games such
as chess or checkers.
N atural selection is an estab–
lished theory. The hypothesis of
Darwin has been confirmed by
experimental work.
We do not necessarily disagree
with this- up to a point. In the
ar ticle we did not dispute the exis–
tence of cases in which natural
selection has occur red. We dis-
February 1983
But this does not rul e out muta–
tion as a mechanism for improve–
ment when combined with natural
sel ect ion. For example, a chess
player might be competing against
many opponents whose start ing
position is on occasion changed–
slightly, randomly. Then it might be
supposed that those opponents with
the better starti ng positions are
more likely to win. S uppose the los–
ers drop out and the winners play
On the other hand, the theory of
evolution is based on the assump–
t ion that living forms carne into
existence from nonliving matter by
chance. In our previous article we
showed how improbable even the
simplest const ituents of living
things coming into existence by
chance would be. T his is a val id
appl ication of probability.
Mutations are like errors i n the
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