Ann Gauger<\/a>, who earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and her Ph.D. from the Department of Zoology at the University of Washington, followed up with\u00a0 a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.\u00a0 He also mentions\u00a0Mariclair Reeves, who holds a bachelor of science degree in animal science from the University of Delaware and a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Hawaii M\u0101noa in Honolulu. After finishing her doctorate, she was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
[B]iologist Ann Gauger and I chose to work with two strikingly similar yet functionally distinct natural enzymes, which we\u2019ll call enzyme A and enzyme B.\u00a0 Our aim was to determine whether it would be possible for enzyme A to evolve the function of enzyme B within a time frame of billions of years.\u00a0 If natural selection really coaxed sponges into becoming orcas in less time, inventing many new proteins along the way, we figured it should have ample power for this small transformation.\u00a0 But after carefully testing the mutations most likely to cause this functional change, we concluded it probably isn\u2019t feasible by Darwinian evolution.\u00a0 Additional work supports this conclusion.\u00a0 Mariclair Reeves \u2014 like Ann Gauger, a biologist at Biologic Institute \u2014 painstakingly tested millions upon millions of random mutations, searching for any evolutionary possibility that we may have overlooked in our first study.\u00a0 She found none.\u00a0 (81-83)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
On pages 82-83, Dr. Axe provides illustrations of the enzymes in question.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
If natural selection really shaped life, it worked more like an artist shaping clay than erosion shaping sandstone.\u00a0 It was skillful enough to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, and wise enough to know when that work was finished.\u00a0 (85)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Axe cites a comment from Dan Tawfik of the Department of Biomolecular Sciences at Israel\u2019s Weizmann Institute of Science, an acquaintance of his from postdoctoral days in Cambridge:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEvolution has this catch-22: Nothing evolves unless it already exists.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, don\u2019t expect a working X<\/em> (you name it) to come out of the evolutionary process unless a working X<\/em> went in. .\u00a0 .\u00a0 .\u00a0 What\u2019s left of a theory of origins once it has been conceded that it doesn\u2019t explain how things originate?<\/em>\u00a0 (86, italics in the original)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Here are some further passages that I marked while reading Douglas Axe,\u00a0Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life is Designed\u00a0(New York: HarperOne, 2016). \u00a0 Douglas Axe studied engineering and molecular biology at the University of California at Berkeley and at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he earned his doctorate. \u00a0He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16616,1053,16580,1806,16571,289,16406,16568,249,4619,123,16559,16565,2941,16574,16577,9632,9635,5655,593],"class_list":["post-88193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ann-gauger","tag-biology","tag-chance","tag-darwin","tag-darwinian","tag-darwinism","tag-douglas-axe","tag-enzyme","tag-evolution","tag-id","tag-intelligent-design","tag-mariclair-reeves","tag-mutation","tag-natural-selection","tag-neo-darwinian","tag-neo-darwinism","tag-origin","tag-origins","tag-random","tag-random-chance"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>