From Jason Palmer at BBC News (19 May 2011), we learn, “Protein flaws responsible for complex life, study says.” This time mistakes produce more functional proteins:
Tiny structural errors in proteins may have been responsible for changes that sparked complex life, researchers say.A comparison of proteins across 36 modern species suggests that protein flaws called “dehydrons” may have made proteins less stable in water.
This would have made them more adhesive and more likely to end up working together, building up complex function.
Remarkably, we read,
Natural selection is a theory with no equal in terms of its power to explain how organisms and populations survive through the ages; random mutations that are helpful to an organism are maintained while harmful ones are bred out.But the study provides evidence that the “adaptive” nature of the changes it wreaks may not be the only way that complexity grew.
Natural selection is a theory with no equal – in terms of much belief and little evidence. But it can be supplemented by tiny structural errors that somehow produce co-operation.
The authors suggest then that other adaptations occur that “undo” the deleterious effects of the sticky proteins.
Convenient, that.
Fred Hoyle, wherever you are, check your mail: Your Boeing 747 is ready.
Isn’t this the sort of mess that Steve Fuller says “floored astrology”?