Saturday, December 13, 2014

This Paper Explains How Potassium Channels Evolved

Promoting Evolution Literacy





  1. So that's 483 consecutive beneficial mutations?

  2. Yes, that's about it. There needs to be a gradual path of ever increasing fitness, all the way to the final protein.

  3. How long would it take for a lab to simulate these 483 consecutive beneficial mutations -- replay evolution, so to speak. Such an experiment would be, in my opinion, the logical next step, rather than declaring success and taking the bow. Bet bones that if they tried they wouldn't be able to get from there to here.

  4. I did a heavy skim of the paper you are talking about. 'Best I can tell he is very nearly approximating the "wiesel" algorithm -- assuming that any "correct" mutation at any point will be selected by natural selection. If the wiesel algorithm was a realistic view of how biology really works, I think I would abandon my ID leanings.

  5. "If the wiesel algorithm was a realistic view of how biology really works, I think I would abandon my ID leanings."

    Except that creating a protein, as improbable as that is, is really the easy part. Coming up with a use for the protein and the instructions to make it participate in that use, now that's another story. How does the wiesel algorithm weasel out of that one? ;-)

  6. I am an organic chemist, and I lack some insight in DNA mechanisms of mutation. But, if the argument of the article is correct, there are few mutations possible for each codon.
    For example, AAA can only generate AAG, AGA, GAA, after AGG, GAG (fun!), GGA and GGG, and four aminoacids are encoded, and GGG can take only the reverse way. Other cases should be more critical.
    This is a punch not for ID, but for the darwinism.