Dear Editor,
Consider the magnificent protein molecule, the building block of
life, pointing with unwavering diligence in all its complexity to
the fact of Intelligent Design.
Dear Editor,
Consider the magnificent protein molecule, the building block of life, pointing with unwavering diligence in all its complexity to the fact of Intelligent Design. Protein molecules are made up of amino acids arranged in a specific unique sequences. Amino acids are made up of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur atoms, also arranged in a specific unique sequences.
Let’s consider the possibility that a hypothetical, simple protein, made up of only 100 amino acids might be able to form by itself. (There are no proteins so simple, but to make the math easy, let’s imagine there are.)
To form a protein molecule made up of 100 amino acids purely by chance would require the formation of as many trial protein molecules as there are ways to combine 100 different parts in a unique sequence. There are 10^158 ways to combine 100 different parts. (10^158 is written as 1 followed by 158 zeros.) That’s a large number. It is 10^78 times greater than the number of atoms in the entire universe. (There are thought to be 10^80 atoms in the universe.)
Using all the atoms in the universe there could theoretically be formed 10^78 protein molecules of 100 amino acids, if each amino acid were made of a single atom. (Amino acids are actually made up of about 20 atoms, but let’s keep it simple.) But 10^78 is not anywhere near the 10^158 molecules needed. So let’s assume all the atoms in the universe can link and unlink a billion times a second in search of the proper sequence. If the universe is 30 billion years old, that is 10^18 seconds, and if the parts can make a billion (10^9) switches in a second, that means in all the supposed history of the universe, 10^105 combinations can be created.
That means the chances of forming the protein molecule we’re looking for is one chance in 10^158 divided by 10^105. Or 1 in 100 million, billion, billion, billion, billion, billion. (1 in 10^53) Or simply put, no chance at all.
The numbers prove our simple protein could not arise by chance. But real story is worse than our simple 100 amino acid example, because according to NASA, the simplest protein molecule that could be considered alive has at least 400 linked amino acids. That real protein has even less chance of being created by accident than our hypothetical protein. That is confirmation of Intelligent Design. To overcome the odds and arrange the molecules necessary to make up the living components of our world there had to be Intelligent Design involved.
Duane Linstrom, Gilroy
