The results arrived at here are very
important. Because G3PD is a medium sized ancient enzyme, there is good reason to believe
that the average knowledge per bit calculated for it, can be applied to other enzymes.
That is if one wants to calculate the molecular knowledge of a
particular enzyme evolving in the primordial soup the calculation is now trivial. If the
enzyme in question contains 1,000 amino acids, simply multiple 1,000 x 3.16 bits per amino
acid = 3,160 bits. The odds of the protein evolving in the soup are 1 in 2 3160
or 1 in 1.8 x 10951.
The accuracy of the number so calculated will be very good for enzymes
that show about the same level of conservation as G3PD, but it might be very poor for
enzymes that are more strongly conserved. Likewise, with the genetic code, the knowledge
in a 1,000 amino acid enzyme is predicted to be 1,000 amino acids x 0.57 bits per amino
acid = 570 bits.
To test this method, the molecular knowledge of the first enzyme in
adenine synthesis should contain 290 bits of knowledge with the genetic code (510 amino
acids x 0.57 bits per amino acid = 290). A direct calculation of knowledge using the same
techniques that were applied to G3PD results in 303 bits. This is only a 4% error. So at
least in this case, the procedure does seem to work quite well.
Perhaps an even better approach is to scale results of the above
calculation by the number of columns that contain knowledge. This technique may prove
useful when more resolution is required. For the purpose of this book, the number of amino
acids multiplied by either 0.57 or 3.16 will be adequate.
next: Odds of ATP
Synthesis Evolving
home: Intelligent Design and the origin of life
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