25 ms·
I remember reading someone doing the math on these and finding that statistics-wise, it was essentially impossible for these metabolic pathways to have evolved
by marstall 5y ago
I remember reading someone doing the math on these and finding that statistics-wise, it was essentially impossible for these metabolic pathways to have evolved through randomness given the age of our planet.
- gus_massa 5y agoAll the calculations that I've seen with similar claims are very wrong. Do you have a link so I can take a look? Just an important detail. It's not just randomness. It's randomness + natural selection.
- marstall 5y agoIt was part of the book, Arrival of the Fittest. The author somehow quantified the scale of the space of all possible chemical reactions and it was just so huge that the chance of the citric acid cycle emerging was just infinitesimal, like 1 in 10^100 or something. Like winning the lottery 10 times in a row type of thing. Found it an intriguing idea. Would be curious to see the counter argument, though it's likely to be beyond me mathematically.
- dav 5y agoWould be great to have a citation on this
- FredPret 5y agoThis chart is exactly the hacked-together kluge I expect of a randomly evolved solution. Keep in mind that as soon as an element is added to the system - and it works - that element becomes sticky. Rinse and repeat, and you get more and more complex systems over time.