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tanarillProteins have history. This is a fact. A protein does not spring out of the ether fully formed; it evolves. We have hemoglobin to carry oxygen and myoglobin to store it, and somewhere way, way back in the history of life there was an ancestral globin from which both of these evolved.
Rubisco evolved early. Rubisco is just about the shittiest enzyme on the planet. In comparison to other enzymes, which do their reaction five million times a second, rubisco does it . . . three times. Any oxygen at all, anywhere near the rubisco, poisons it so it will not work; and this is in an oxygen atmosphere. Rubisco is also the most abundant protein on the planet, because any given plant is one-third rubisco, by mass. Rubisco, you see, is that one protein that "cracks" six carbon dioxide molecules to make one sugar ring and three oxygen molecules.
An intelligent designer would make a protein that didn't take two seconds to make a sugar ring. If it were designing for an oxygen atmosphere, it would not make a protein which forces all the cells that use it to have little oxygen-free zones in the middle of an oxygen-breathing cell. If it were really smart, it would design life that doesn't make its very structure out of those sugars it spends two second each making.
But evolution isn't smart. When rubisco evolved, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. The oxygen happened as a result of rubisco, in fact. The primitive bacteria had twenty million years of peace, while the planet rusted. And then suddenly there was oxygen dissolved in the water, impossible to get rid of since using oxygen to breathe had not been invented yet. So instead, and until the oxygen-breathing evolved, cells adapted to pump all that poison out. None of it makes any sense if the system were designed right from the beginning, and perfect sense if life is just making it up as it goes along.
Or (say it with me now) Another Argument Against Intelligent Design.
Rubisco evolved early. Rubisco is just about the shittiest enzyme on the planet. In comparison to other enzymes, which do their reaction five million times a second, rubisco does it . . . three times. Any oxygen at all, anywhere near the rubisco, poisons it so it will not work; and this is in an oxygen atmosphere. Rubisco is also the most abundant protein on the planet, because any given plant is one-third rubisco, by mass. Rubisco, you see, is that one protein that "cracks" six carbon dioxide molecules to make one sugar ring and three oxygen molecules.
An intelligent designer would make a protein that didn't take two seconds to make a sugar ring. If it were designing for an oxygen atmosphere, it would not make a protein which forces all the cells that use it to have little oxygen-free zones in the middle of an oxygen-breathing cell. If it were really smart, it would design life that doesn't make its very structure out of those sugars it spends two second each making.
But evolution isn't smart. When rubisco evolved, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. The oxygen happened as a result of rubisco, in fact. The primitive bacteria had twenty million years of peace, while the planet rusted. And then suddenly there was oxygen dissolved in the water, impossible to get rid of since using oxygen to breathe had not been invented yet. So instead, and until the oxygen-breathing evolved, cells adapted to pump all that poison out. None of it makes any sense if the system were designed right from the beginning, and perfect sense if life is just making it up as it goes along.
Or (say it with me now) Another Argument Against Intelligent Design.
