Lecture on Functional Genes and Intelligent Design

Introduction

• Discussion on the rarity of functional genes capable of building proteins.
• Reference to arranging DNA bases (A, C, G, T) and amino acids.
• Mention of Douglas Axe's 14-year research at Cambridge University.

Key Findings

Functional Sequences in Proteins

• Proteins with a modest length (150 amino acids) have an extremely low probability of functional sequences.
• Axe's research: For every functional protein structure, there are 10^74 nonfunctional combinations.
• Implication: Any mutation in functional sequences likely leads to non-functional outcomes.

Analysis of Evolutionary Mechanisms

• Critique of randomness in mutation-selection mechanism for building new proteins.
• DNA is compared to digital code (Richard Dawkins, Francis Crick, Bill Gates).
• Functional sequences in DNA are incredibly fragile and can degrade quickly with mutations.
• Analogy to computer code: Random changes lead to functional degradation before generating new functionality.
• Functional sequences are rare