David Bailey
Member
Yes, I chose a small one. I'm not sure what you mean by intermediate proteins. I calculated the time required to try all 30-residue peptides, assuming 99% of the combinations are lethal.
Yes you did choose a small length - you could have chosen 4 - and I guess you chose the value to fit your argument!
I meant that half formed proteins could well have an undesirable catalytic effect!
It's not obvious that linking will work, but it's not obvious that it won't. My point is simply that an exhaustive search may not be necessary, which completely changes the math. The ID argument is "oh my gosh, look at those big numbers!" I don't think I would draw any conclusions from such an argument.
http://www.genomebiology.com/2010/11/7/126
~~Paul
The thing is, if two domains remain intact when fused, there doesn't seem to be much chance that new functionality will result. To me one of the big problems is that for most proteins to be beneficial, there has to be a control structure in place - otherwise NS would strongly select against the new protein!
In a sense, all this is trying to patch up a broken theory. If genes had been rather as Darwin expected - relatively simple objects, his theory would have made sense - but they weren't, and logically his theory should have been dropped.
David