[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>>>>> searched is minimal and within what is possible.  Really, new   
   >>>>>> antibodies that bind specific antigens would not be routinely   
   >>>>>> selected for by an immune response if the search parameters were   
   >>>>>> too distant from the existing protein sequences.  If you look up   
   >>>>>> the abzyme work where they use the adaptive immune system to   
   >>>>>> evolve new enzymatic activity you will find that they have found   
   >>>>>> that less than 10 changes in the antibody sequence can produce the   
   >>>>>> new enzymatic activity that was selected for.  It wasn't just any   
   >>>>>> enzymatic activity, but the one that they were selecting for.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> The paper that you put up trying to claim that too many new genes   
   >>>>>> needed to be produced to evolve multicellular animals should have   
   >>>>>> told you that very little protein space seems to have been needed   
   >>>>>> to be searched. Those thousands of new genes evolved after a basic   
   >>>>>> set of genes had already evolved, and they evolved over a billion   
   >>>>>> year period before the Cambrian explosion.  The initial gene set   
   >>>>>> had been evolving for over 2 billion years to produce that   
   >>>>>> Eukaryotic gene set.  It looked like nearly all the new genes that   
   >>>>>> evolved within the billion year period before the Cambrian   
   >>>>>> explosion had evolved from an existing gene.  You should have seen   
   >>>>>> that in their tables of the origins of the new genes.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> It just turns out that very little protein space has had to be   
   >>>>>> tested to get to where we are now.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>> The way to and up countless Mount Improbables need to be largely   
   >>>>>>> smooth and monotonically increasing.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> The mount improbables are only in your head.  What exists are just   
   >>>>>> additions to what had already existed.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>> I realise too that this not a settled question, and in some   
   >>>>>>> instances a random polymer can be effecively to function, e.g.   
   >>>>>>> https:// journals.plos.org/plosone/article?   
   >>>>>>> id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000096&utm_source=chatgpt.com   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> The likely reason that nearly all new genes have evolved from   
   >>>>>> existing genes is that just a random sequence of amino acids will   
   >>>>>> fold up and could have some function, but most random sequences do   
   >>>>>> not efficiently produce the same structure.  It can take time to   
   >>>>>> fold up, and the sequence might not fold up into the same   
   >>>>>> structure every time.  De novo coding sequence that produces a new   
   >>>>>> protein has to go through a selective process where the sequence   
   >>>>>> needs to further evolve so that it will efficiently fold up into   
   >>>>>> its functional structure.  Genes that have existed for billions of   
   >>>>>> years already fold up efficiently, and it turns out that just   
   >>>>>> changing the sequence a little can produce a new function, so we   
   >>>>>> end up with related gene families.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> There is even some stability issues with existing proteins, and   
   >>>>>> chaperone proteins have evolved to help them maintain the shape   
   >>>>>> they need to be in in order to function.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> It is just how life has adapted to reality.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> Ron Okimoto   
   >>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>>> ID posits a lawlike conservation of information, which I find   
   >>>>>>>>> intuitively appealing, but Dembski's efforts to formally define   
   >>>>>>>>> this have yet to land it seems.   
   >>>>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>   
   >>   
   >   
      
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