At one time, a Darwinian sneer sufficed for an argument:
In the past, the general public lacked the technical knowledge to decipher the science underlying the evidence for protein rarity, so they were powerless to see past the critics’ smoke and mirrors (see here, here, and here). Fortunately, a straightforward analysis of the research by protein expert Dan Tawfik (see here, here, and here) not only confirms and generalizes Axe’s results, but is much more accessible to the public. Tawfik’s research on β-lactamase yielded results that almost perfectly confirm Axe’s rarity estimate. In addition, the former’s research and research on the HisA enzyme demonstrate that randomly altering less than 2 percent of the enzymes’ amino acids disables them over half of the time. And, altering 10 percent will disable them nearly 100 percent of the time. In contrast, altering 2 percent of a paragraph written in English is usually barely noticeable, and altering 10 percent still leaves a paragraph largely readable. Therefore, protein sequences are often far rarer than readable English sentences, so they are even more difficult to generate by chance.
Brian Miller, “Mistakes Our Critics Make: Protein Rarity” at Evolution News and Science Today:
It’s not that the public has become smarter but the discussion has gone on for so long that Darwinians can’t get away with just sneering. And their hats don’t have many rabbits left either.