Proof That God Created Folded Proteins

Familiar Territory

Let’s start by looking at what proteins do in a cell.  Before we go there, here are few more important facts about proteins:

• Each protein has between 50 and 800 amino acids with a rough average between 250 and 375 amino acids
• There are about 10,000 different types of proteins in a cell, 1500-2000 of which are essential to the average human cell.  That’s according to Larry Moran, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto
• Overall there are 42 million protein molecules in a simple cell according to a team of researchers led by Grant Brown, a biochemistry professor also from the University of Toronto

 

How can we possibly need 42 million proteins based on 10,000 different types in every cell?  What do all those proteins do?  Here are some of the key functions they perform:

• Proteins in micro machines enable cell replication needed for growth, cell replacement, tissue repair, and more
• Transport proteins carry substances within the cell and to/from cells through the bloodstream
• Proteins in enzymes speed up chemical reactions for key cell processes
• Some proteins provide cells and tissues with structure and rigidity
• Antibody proteins fight infections
• Proteins in hormones are chemical messengers that enable communication between cells, tissues and organs
• Some proteins regulate the balance of fluids
• Some proteins regulate acidity in blood and other fluids

 

Let’s take a closer look at a few of these functions.  The next four videos illustrate how proteins combine to perform important functions in the cell.  As you watch them, look for the proteins and watch what they do.  Specifically, watch the elaborate, finely tuned “dance” they perform to execute their functions.

The Transport Mechanism

Next, take a look at the truly amazing Kinesin – the set of proteins that transport material from one place to another within the cell on self-constructing microtubules – the same microtubules we saw in the second video of the Beginning To See The Hand Of God In The Origin Of Life article.

Watch this amazing 3 1/2 minute video of the Kinesin from Illustra Media.  Look closely at the Kinesin itself and see the several proteins that come together to produce it.  Also, marvel at the “walking” behavior.  And marvel at the microtubule that self-generates. You can see the individual proteins as the microtubule forms ahead of the Kinesin.

Focus on the fact that you’re seeing an authentic illustration of “walking” on a self generating tube – a tube that also destroys itself once it’s no longer needed.  These are just chemicals doing these things.  And they’re performing this “dance” at a microscopic level within every cell in a living organism.  How do all these chemicals know when, where, how and when to do these things?  And why would chemicals do these things?  Just amazing!

Enzymes Speed Up Chemical Reactions

Enzymes are made up of proteins and are used to make chemical reactions happen faster and produce results with higher quality.  There are more than 1300 different enzymes found in cells.  These enzymes are used to form nearly 100,000 different chemicals that help organisms sense surroundings, move, digest food and more

Seeing Is Believing

The point here is not to dazzle you with elaborate illustrations but, instead, to “show” you what some of these processes look like.  Simply describing them doesn’t do them justice.  You need to see them to believe them and see them to more fully understand the elaborate role proteins play in the finely tuned “dances” happening all the time in every cell in every living organism.

In case it’s not already obvious that God created all these micro machines, enzymes, and other cellular components made from proteins, let’s do the math and prove these protein dances were created by God.

 

The Protein Folding Problem

So far, in Proof That God Created The Protein, we have seen that only God is capable of creating the first strings of amino acids that can be used in functioning proteins.  Those first strings of amino acids required for the creation of simple proteins could not have been created any other way.

Now let’s consider the rest of the protein story and see more proof of God.

As you saw in the videos above, assuming you looked closely, all the proteins in the micro machines and enzymes had finely tuned 3 dimensional shapes allowing them to perform their functions.  Or, more specifically, designed such that they’re able to combine with other proteins to perform complex functions.

But there’s a problem.  How did a string of amino acids fold into a 3 dimensional shape and become the first protein.  Today, we have computer programs designed by intelligent scientists who, with the benefit of reverse engineering, can create proteins and use them to help produce medications.  In the early earth, during the geologically short time before we see complex life in the fossil record (as noted in Other Origin Of Life Theories Aren’t Plausible Either) there was no such intelligence.  Just lifeless chemicals.  How did those lifeless chemicals decide to fold themselves and produce the first protein which then created millions of others in every cell, in every living organism?

More Conclusions From The Video

• Scientists are close to breaking the code for how proteins folded today
• Proteins undergo a wiggly process to fold up into their final shape

The Protein Folding Problem and Levinthal’s Paradox

In 1969, Cyrus Levinthal published a landmark paper titled “How To Fold Graciously” in which he described what is now called Levinthal’s Paradox.  The paradox starts with: on the one hand, we know proteins fold into 3 dimensional shapes all the time and do so very quickly.

On the other hand, amino acids in a chain can bond with each other at two different bonding angles, commonly denoted as phi and psi, and each bond angle can have one of three stable configurations.  Based on that, Levinthal determined that for a string of 100 amino acids there could be 3¹⁹⁸ or ~10⁹⁴ possible configurations.  Extending that to a protein made from 150 amino acid results in ~10¹⁴² possible configurations.  With that many possible configurations, how do amino acid chains fold into effective proteins?

To emphasize the point, consider our small chain of 150 amino acids.  How long would it take for that chain to randomly test each conceivable option and arrive at a 3 dimensional folded configuration that can perform some function within a cell?   Let’s say the chain could fold itself 1 trillion times per second.   In this scenario, random chance, the only option available in the early earth, would only be able to test 10³⁰ configurations in the entire span of time since the Big Bang – far less time than would be needed to test even 1% of the 10¹⁴² possible configurations.  And that’s just for one protein.  Thus the paradox: how do millions of proteins in every cell in every living organism fold into useful shapes?

As mentioned in the video above, scientists appear to be getting close to describing how a protein will fold and it appears that explanation is based on the protein’s constituent amino acid components.  This makes intuitive sense.  The manufacturing process shown and described in Proof That God Created The Protein starts with DNA, creates a chain of amino acids and then, with the help of the Chaparonin micromachine, the amino acid chain seems to fold itself into a protein that performs some function in a cell.  Scientists are figuring out there’s something about each specific set of amino acids included in a chain that determines how the protein will fold.

 

How Did That Start?

For our purposes, though, a more interesting question is how did that all start?  How did the first strings of amino acids fold into a precise, finely tuned 3 dimensional shape that could perform a meaningful function in a cell?

To assess this, we must return to the numbers Stephen Meyer highlighted in Signature In The Cell; DNA And The Evidence For Intelligent Design and we presented in Proof That God Created The Protein.  There we saw:

• Douglas Axe experimentally determined the probability of creating a 150 amino acid chain, by accident, that can produce a productive protein is 1 chance in 10⁷⁷
• Stephen Meyer determined the probability of creating a protein by accident from a string of 150 amino acids joined together using only peptide bonds is one chance in 10⁴⁵
• Meyer also determined the probability of creating a protein by accident using a string of 150 left-handed amino acids is one chance in 10⁴⁵
• Combining all three of these leads to the probability of creating a viable chain of 150 amino acids by accident is one chance in 10¹⁶⁴

 

Now we can add a factor for the angle used as amino acids bind to each other along with which of the three stable configurations is used during binding.  In the early earth, the only method for determining the binding angle and stable configuration was random chance so we can use one chance in 10¹⁴² from above.

Combining 10¹⁶⁴ and 10¹⁴² yields a probability of creating the first fully functional folded protein comprised of just 150 amino acids as one chance in 10³⁰⁶.  That’s even more astronomically impossible!  God is clearly the only one who could design such a finely tuned mechanism at the microscopic level inside a cell!

But Wait, There’s More!

Recall that there are 10,000 different proteins in every cell.  That means there are 10,000 different successful folds.

Add to that the thousands of different groupings of proteins found in enzymes, micro machines and other cell components.

And add to that the multi-step “dances” or processes that those enzymes, machines and other components implement to perform their functions.

And keep in mind there was only 100-200 million years of habitable time on the earth before these processes ultimately created the first living organism.  Not billions of years as previously thought.

That’s as if you found a finely tuned 150 character sentence written on a piece of paper AND that piece of paper was folded into an finely tuned origami swan.  These are all clear signs of finely tuned design.  And it can’t be over-emphasized: this is all accomplished at the atomic and molecular level within a cell.

Wrapping it up

From Proof That God Created The Protein we already know that God created the finely tuned chain of amino acids required for the first protein. We are 100% sure of that just as we are 100% sure when we see a meaningful sentence of 150 letters and spaces, it’s a fact some intelligent person created that sentence.   Only God is capable of creating such finely tuned chains of amino acids in thousands of different configurations each used to create proteins that perform specific and important functions within a cell at a microscopic level!

Now we can extend that knowledge to the finely tuned chains of amino acids AND their equally fine tuned folded 3 dimensional shapes.

When we see a meaningful sentence of 150 letters and spaces on a piece of paper AND that piece of paper is folded into an finely tuned origami swan, we are 100% sure of the fact some intelligent person created that sentence on that folded origami swan.

Only God was capable of creating the first such beautiful, finely tuned folded “swan” at a microscopic level within a cell.  And only God could do that in 10,000 different configurations each performing a specific and important function within a cell at a microscopic level!  And only God could do that across 42 million proteins at a microscopic level within every cell in every living organism on the planet.

It’s irrefutable: God created all the proteins found in all cells in all living organisms!  It’s a fact.

 

One More Video Before We Wrap Up – As A Bonus

How Antibodies Fight Infections

In the wake of the COVID-19, SARS, MERS and other infections, it’s interesting to see how more of our finely tuned proteins, called antibodies, fight infections.  Watch the first 3 minutes of this video to get the gist of how antibodies find bad “pathogens” and start the process of fighting them.  In this case, I wouldn’t recommend watching the remainder of the video.  The content gets highly technical.