That's equally (almost vacuously) true of origami, but the inherent topology of the building blocks still has a huge effect on what those degrees of freedom act

That's equally (almost vacuously) true of origami, but the inherent topology of the building blocks still has a huge effect on what those degrees of freedom actually are. Do you think they're similar between a peptide chain and a sheet of paper? If no, then what are you actually arguing?