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From: "Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue" <reynella_RemoveIns...@werple.mira.net.au>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Shakespeare and the Chicken Egg
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 22:00:27 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: Brave Ulysses, Muffin McGee and the misfits of Reynella
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G'Day All
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert

On Sun, 7 Dec 2003 18:11:52 +0000 (UTC),
seanpitnos...@naturalselection.0catch.com (Sean Pitman) wrote:

>This is a repaste of a reply to very similar sweetnes comments (linked
>below):
>
>sweetnes_n_li...@yahoo.com wrote in message news:<4d71d185.0312060052.2b96f666@posting.google.com>...
>> I have presented you with proof (laboratory proof, in many instances)
>> that your statements are incorrect.
>
>You have shown that short amino acid sequences can come together to
>form a new unified function that is indeed unique and of greater
>complexity.  The only problem you have here is that the minimum amino
>acid number required for your most complex example is only 3 or 4
>hundred amino acids.  

Coincidentally the median protein size is around 200-250 aa's, so the
amjority of proteins are covered in those kinds of experiments.

>My argument is that evolution becomes more and
>more difficult the greater the minimum amino acid requirement until it
>becomes impossible this side of zillions of years when the minimum
>requirement reaches a few thousand amino acids in fairly specified
>order.  

Your argument is wrong, and your "minimum requirment" is irrelevant to
evolutinary biology.

>Where are your examples of evolution requiring such a level of
>minimum amino acid specificity?  

Evolution doesn't "require" any such thing. Most protein function
revolves around between 6-12 amino acids, the rest of the protein is
just origami to get those amino acids close to each other. An example
is the serine proteases, where you can use almost any sort of scaffold
to get ser, his and agr close to enough each other for function.

[snip]
>Ok - take, for example, a particular function that requires, at
>minimum 5,000aa at minimum to be realized.  

Name one (aside from collagen that is <evil grin>)

[snip]
Cheers! Ian
=====================================================
Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis,Michael James and Andrew Thomas Musgrave
reynella@RemoveInsret_werple.mira.net.au http://home.mira.net/~reynella/
Southern Sky Watch http://www.abc.net.au/science/space/default.htm