Bible Allows TE, Science Doesn't (split from Full Spectrum Sticky)

[shernren]

Rule #1. Anything a bigname YEC says on any subject is either trivial to confirm from non-YEC sources or is fraud. Can you find anyone who will confirm their assertion that mixed proteins will fall apart? All proteins fall apart, unless they fold properly and the sulpher bonds line up perfectly at appropriate intervals to lock the structure together.

I have no sites. All evolutionists appear to think the same way as the YECs on this issue. I've talked to several biochemists of different persuasions. They all seem to think in the L- only and D- only paradigm. But when questioned, so far none can see any problem with mixed proteins.

So far, it's the musings of a man who can't find anyone who will confirm the YECs' statement, but the experts have apparently not considered the alternative.

Will Jonathan Safarti do? From http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i3/chirality.asp:

Nearly all biological polymers must be homochiral (all its component monomers having the same handedness. Another term used is optically pure or 100 % optically active) to function. All amino acids in proteins are ‘left-handed’, while all sugars in DNA and RNA, and in the metabolic pathways, are ‘right-handed’.

A 50/50 mixture of left- and right-handed forms is called a racemate or racemic mixture. Racemic polypeptides could not form the specific shapes required for enzymes, because they would have the side chains sticking out randomly. Also, a wrong-handed amino acid disrupts the stabilizing α-helix in proteins. DNA could not be stabilised in a helix if even a single wrong-handed monomer were present, so it could not form long chains. This means it could not store much information, so it could not support life.

(bolds in original; underlines added)

Has there actually been research done on this? I don't know; it seems to me that protein-folding is already so terribly complicated for proteins we do know, that all the research computer-time goes there instead of wasting time on mixed proteins (since we know they don't exist in nature, anyways).

Then I guess I better look into this a little more carefully.

You should! My own primitive attempt at this was to quantify the amount of information in a protein / a gene as its raw length. Since evolution can increase a protein / gene's length, clearly that definition of information poses no problem for evolution. But I will admit that it is a very, very crude measure of information and therefore not very suitable. I just haven't found a more suitable definition I can understand. XD

 

[Mathematician]

Will Jonathan Safarti do? From http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i3/chirality.asp:

Has there actually been research done on this? I don't know; it seems to me that protein-folding is already so terribly complicated for proteins we do know, that all the research computer-time goes there instead of wasting time on mixed proteins (since we know they don't exist in nature, anyways).

If you take a specific biological sequence and replace some of the amino acids with D-type, then what he says is true. I'm talking about a situation that Safarti has not addressed.

Today, right now, people with CAD progams are designing new L-only and D-only proteins from scratch to do various things. There is no known inherent reason why that can't be done with mixed proteins.

You should! My own primitive attempt at this was to quantify the amount of information in a protein / a gene as its raw length. Since evolution can increase a protein / gene's length, clearly that definition of information poses no problem for evolution. But I will admit that it is a very, very crude measure of information and therefore not very suitable. I just haven't found a more suitable definition I can understand. XD

There are more sophisticated measures used for written text, for sound, for modulated radio waves, etc. All of these are subject to the information entropy theorem or Shannon coding theorem. The measure for written text is applicable to DNA. However, each protein can be thought of as a word with several hundred letters and two or three dozen allowed alternate spellings. This means the theory applied to written text is not quite right. My text books on the subject are at work and the office is closed for the week. It's been a few years since I last went over the theory.

And yes it is very complicated. http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/info-theory/course.html

 

[artybloke]

If abiogenesis can't happen, then the initial life form was created.

Why would abiogenesis happening mean that the initial life form was not created? Why can't God have created through abiogenesis?

 

[shernren]

I'd hate to put words into his mouth but he probably took for granted to mean "supernaturally created" instead of "created".

But it's a good pointed. Something naturally created is still created.

 

[artybloke]

I've never really understood the need for a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am supernatural miracle every time there's something you can't understand, personally. I have a hard time with miracles anyway, not whether they're possible or not, but because they make God look more like Marvo the magician... but that's a personal thing. I've never liked magicians.

 

[Mathematician]

Artybloke,

Why would abiogenesis happening mean that the initial life form was not created? Why can't God have created through abiogenesis?

Shemren has put reasonable words into my mouth.

Sorry

 

[shernren]

But artybloke, wouldn't something you cannot understand naturalistically at the moment ... be a miracle *by definition*?

 

[gluadys]

But artybloke, wouldn't something you cannot understand naturalistically at the moment ... be a miracle *by definition*?

No, there is another alternative.

"We don't know".