As Unlikely As an Unguided Trip to 10 Billion Planets

Modern biologists typically do a very poor job of explaining the degree of order, organization, complexity and information in living organisms, and they often act as if they were trying to conceal such realities from us.  I think this is partially because if they were to  describe such realities properly, people would be much less likely to accept the explanatory claims biologists typically make.

Let us consider protein molecules. The human genome specifies the starting structure of more than 20,000 protein molecules. Each such protein molecule has a particular function in the body, and each such protein molecule is made up of many amino acids. The median number of amino acids in a human protein molecule is about 375 amino acids. 

A very important point is that you will not get a functional protein molecule by some random combination of about 375 amino acids. To be functional, a protein molecule must have what are called folds. When the protein molecule has these folds, it can assume a three-dimensional shape that is necessary for its functionality.

For every possible protein molecule that has folding and has a useful function, there are countless trillions of quadrillions of physically possible protein molecules that do not fold and do have any useful function. Similarly, for every combination of 375 characters or letters that results in a functional computer subroutine, there are countless trillions of quadrillions of possible 375-character combinations that do not result in a functional computer subroutine. It can reasonably be estimated that for every functional protein molecule of about 300 amino acids, there are more than 10 to the two hundredth power possible combinations of 300 amino acids that would not result in a functional protein molecule.

This likelihood does not get any larger when we factor in so-called "natural selection" (a very misleading term because "selection" is a word meaning "choice," and so-called "natural selection" involves no choice). Small fractions of protein molecules are not functional, and provide no survival benefit and no “survival of the fittest” benefit. So so-called "natural selection" and survival of the fittest would never act to cause functional protein molecules to accumulate on the grounds of fractional parts being beneficial. Small fractions or halves of protein molecules are not beneficial, are not functional, and would not have the folds needed for proper function of protein molecules.

There is a way for us to visualize how unlikely it would be that a functional protein molecule would form by chance. Let us consider interstellar space. The space between stars is almost inconceivably vast. The star nearest to our sun is about 25 trillion miles away. That distance is about three billion times the diameter of the Earth.

Now, let's imagine a spaceship that was traveling around randomly, without any guidance. What is the chance that such a ship would by chance go into orbit around a planet orbiting the nearest star? Since we are dealing with three-dimensional space, the chance of such a thing would be much less than 1 in three billion.

The nearest star is about 4 light-years away, or about 25 trillion miles away. If we imagine a cubic volume of space 4 light-years in width, we have a volume of about 10⁴⁰ cubic miles. Within this volume you could fit about 10³⁶ planet Earths, a trillion trillion trillion Earths.  If we imagine a cube 4 light-years wide, each of the six faces of that cube will have a width of about 25 trillion miles, but an area (width times height) of 25 trillion miles squared, which is roughly six hundred trillion trillion miles or 10²⁶ miles. The chance of a randomly traveling spaceship coming very close to a planetary target of about 10,000 miles located anywhere near any of the six faces of such a cube is much less than 1 chance in 10²⁰. 

So, very roughly speaking, an unguided spaceship sent out in a random direction from Earth would have something like 1 chance in 10²⁰ of going into orbit around a planet revolving around the nearest star. 

Vastly underestimating the unlikelihood of a functional protein molecule forming from random amino acid combinations, we can use such a likelihood as a very rough metaphor for the chance of a random sequence of about 375 amino acids being a functional protein. It is actually vastly more unlikely that hundreds of random amino acids would be a functional protein. There are twenty types of amino acids that can be specified in any single position of DNA or in any part of the polypeptide chain that is a protein molecule before it folds.   Considering a protein of only 100 amino acids, the total number of combinations of the twenty types of amino acids (for a length of 100 amino acids) is 20 to the hundredth power, which is equal to 10 to the one-hundred and thirtieth power, exactly 1.2676506 X 10¹³⁰. Virtually none of these would correspond to functional protein molecules. 

Now, in the human genome there are more than 20,000 types of functional protein molecules. What metaphor can we use for the appearance of all of these functional protein molecules arising by chance? We can simply extend the metaphor I just used. Let us imagine an unguided spaceship without any crew and without any guidance system, randomly traveling about between the stars. Let us imagine that this unguided spaceship somehow goes into orbit around 20,000 different planets, again and again being so lucky as to reach a planet, even though no one and no system is guiding the spaceship. The chance of this happening can be very roughly calculated as being 1 in 10 multipled by itself 400,000 times, in other words, roughly 1 in  10^400,000.  You get that probability by multiplying by itself  20,000 times the previously estimated 1 chance in 10²⁰ of accidentally going into orbit around a planet when traveling about four light-years in a random direction. 

But for us to accept the orthodox story of biological origins, we must believe in something far more improbable than this. For the total number of types of functional folding protein molecules that exist in all species has been estimated to be between 10 billion and a trillion.  A paper says, "There are >1010 to 1012 different proteins in all organisms from the three domains of life (Eukarya, Bacteria, and Archaea) on Earth."  Each of these types of molecules is its own separate complex information-rich type of invention.   What would be a good metaphor for the unlikelihood of all of those types of proteins originating through unguided processes? The correct metaphor would seem to be an unguided spaceship traveling through the Milky Way galaxy, and accidentally going into orbit around 10 billion planets. The chance of this happening can be calculated as roughly 1 in 10 multiplied by itself 200,000,000,000 times, in other words, roughly 1 in 10^{200,000,000,000.} You get that probability by multiplying by itself 10 billion times the 1 chance in 10²⁰ of accidentally going into orbit around a planet when traveling in a random direction about four light-years. 

There's another analogy we can use to get a rough idea of how improbable are the series of lucky accidents imagined by Darwinian orthodoxy. We can imagine human radio astronomers getting a long intelligent-sounding radio message that was produced not by intelligent agents, but purely by chance. 

There are natural factors that result in radio waves being transmitted from far in space. Such natural factors merely produce noise. But let us imagine our astronomers getting some radio signal that was pure noise, the result of mindless natural factors, but which somehow sounded perfectly intelligent. For example, suppose the radio waves spelled out the following:

"Greetings, residents of planet Earth! We are the denizens of a beautiful life-filled planet orbiting a star twenty light-years away from your planet. We have picked up radio signals sent from your planet. We know all about your beautiful blue-green planet, the third planet in your solar system. You will be happy to learn that you are not alone in the universe. Our planet is the fifth planet in our solar system. Our planet is drier than yours, but one fifth of it is covered by water. Our gravity is lower than on your planet, and we have built towers far taller than any on your planet. Please continue listening on this radio frequency, and you will learn all about our wonderful culture, and the great progress we have made in science and technology." 

Now imagine, someone asked us to believe that this message was not actually the result of any intelligent beings, but was purely the chance product of radio signals produced by random natural processes. Imagine if someone asked you to believe that such a message was purely the accidental result of random radio blips that had against all odds closely resembled a functional message. That would be like the chance of any type of functional protein molecule arising for the first time by chance.  Since there are twenty amino acid types which can be specified in each of the vast number of  nucleotide positions of a DNA molecule,  and twenty-six characters in the English alphabet, the chance of a functional protein from a random combination of about 370 amino acids is roughly comparable to the chance of 370 random characters making a readable functional paragraph. 

Continuing the same analogy, what would be the chance of you getting the 10 billion or more types of protein molecules in the earthly biosphere, by unguided processes? It would be like the chance of a very large public library of many thousands of readable and informative books having been produced by typing monkeys rather than intelligent authors.

There is no Darwinian way out of such difficulties.  The problem is that functional protein molecules cannot arise by any "each little part adds a benefit" fashion imagined by Darwinists.  Experiments with protein molecules show that changing only a small fraction of their amino acids causes them to be non-functional. 

For example, the paper here estimates that making a random change in a single amino acid of a protein (most of which have hundreds of amino acids) will have a 34% chance of leading to a protein's "functional inactivation." Figure 1 of the paper here suggests something similar, by indicating that after about 10 random mutations (a change in only 10 of its hundreds of amino acids), the fitness of a protein molecule will drop to zero. Further evidence for such claims can be found in this paper, which discusses very many ways in which a random mutation in a gene for a protein molecule can destroy or damage the function or stability of the protein.  An "active site" of an enzyme protein is a region of the protein molecule (about 10% to 20% of the volume of the molecule) which binds and undergoes a chemical reaction with some other molecule.  The paper states, "If a mutation occurs in an active site, then it should be considered lethal since such substitution will affect critical components of the biological reaction, which, in turn, will alter the normal protein function." The paper follows that sentence with a mention of quite a few other ways in which random mutations can break protein molecules, making them nonfunctional. For example, we read that "an amino acid substitution at a critical folding position can prevent the forming of the folding nucleus, which makes the remainder of the structure rapidly condense," which is a description of how a single amino acid change (less than a 1% change in the amino acids in a protein molecule) can cause a protein molecule to no longer have the 3D shape needed for its function. As a biology textbook tells us, "Proteins are fragile, are often only on the brink of stability."

Just as planets are very rare exceptions within interstellar space (with 99.99999999999999999999999999% of such space not being planets), functional protein molecules are very rare exceptions within the total volume of amino acid combinatorial space (the "possibility space"consisting of all the possible combinations of 1000 or fewer amino acids), with 99.99999999999999999999999999% of possible amino acid combinations not resulting in functional protein molecules.  Similarly, functional very complex computer subroutines are very rare in the totality of alphabetic combinatorial space (the "possibility space" consisting of all possible combinations of 1000 or fewer characters), with 99.99999999999999999999999999% of possible character combinations not resulting in useful complex computer subroutines. 

Darwin never knew about such a difficulty, because he never knew that the basic building blocks of living things are a huge number of different types of extremely organized information-rich protein molecules, things that cannot arise though some gradual process in which each little part addition produces a benefit. Darwin knew nothing about protein molecules, and virtually nothing about the complexity of cells. 

I have not mentioned above the issue of protein complexes, the fact that a significant fraction of all protein molecules are functionally worthless by themselves, but only function properly when working as team members in protein complexes consisting of multiple types of protein molecules.  A scientific paper tells us the following:

"To become functional, proteins commonly depend on their interactions with other molecules. These molecules are known to include other proteins, which readily interact to form protein complexes. The majority of cellular processes are dependent on protein-protein interactions (PPI’s)1. An additional layer of complexity is added by the interaction of different protein complexes in so called super-complexes or metabolons."

A consideration of protein complexes and metabolons would only make the infinitesimal probabilites mentioned above many, many times more infinitesimal. 

Once biologists discovered the enormous organization and  fine-tuned functional complexity of protein molecules and cells, and the vast number of types of functional protein molecules and types of cells in the animal kingdom, each being a separate very complex information-rich invention incredibly unlikely to appear through any known natural process, such biologists should have ripped into shreds their boasts of understanding biological origins. The main reason they did not do such a thing may be  that claiming that you understand biological origins is a very addictive conceit, just like smoking opium is a very addictive pleasure. 

Postscript: The median number of amino acids in a human protein molecule is about 375.  Using ">>" to mean "much greater than," a mainstream scientific paper states this regarding a protein molecule with 300 residues (which means 300 amino acids): 

"Folding of a 300 residue sequence can be naively modeled as a random search through a space of over 10²⁸⁵ conformational states... Given this, it would take>> 10²⁰⁰ times the present age of the universe for a particular folding to occur, even assuming a sampling rate of 1 trillion conformational states per molecule per second and a volume of concentrated protein solution the size of Earth's oceans."

So as I state above, we vastly underestimate the unlikelihood  of a functional protein molecule forming from random amino acid combinations,  if we compare this unlikelihood to the chance of an unguided interstellar spaceship accidentally going into orbit around a planet in the nearest solar system.