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Path: utzoo!watmath!dmcanzi
From: dmcanzi@watmath.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: If You've Got the Time...
Message-ID: <8433@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Jul-84 02:44:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.8433
Posted: Tue Jul 24 02:44:55 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Jul-84 04:17:57 EDT
References: <896@akgua.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 17

Let's count the unjustified implicit assumptions:
1) That new protein molecules were being generated at the rate of
   only one per second.  Given the size of the Earth's biosphere, one would 
   expect much more than this.
2) That Earth was the only place where protein molecules were forming randomly.
   ("The universe is a big place.  Perhaps the biggest." -- Simon Wagstaff)
3) That all amino acid chains of a certain length (eg. the length of
   an insulin molecule) are equally likely to form.
4) That the protein molecules found in today's life forms arose by randomly
   throwing together amino acids.  (More likely they form from the joining of,
   splitting of, and small alterations to previously existing molecules.)
5) That existing protein molecules are the only proteins capable of 
   accomplishing the purposes they serve in present-day life.  (More likely
   the proteins that do exist were the ones, among all possible "useful"
   proteins, that had the good fortune to form first.)
Maybe I could come up with more, but it's late and I want to go home
and sleep...