[Ignatz]

The problem with this is, one *wouldn't* have to assemble 2,000 different functioning enzymes ALL AT ONCE. Start with a group of, say ten. Enough for replication. If another is added and that helps, great. You've grown by one. If one is added and it hurts, that organism dies. Which is no loss since there are innumerable copies of it already in the primordial ocean, since it's capable of replication and all.

Through this simple approach, attaining 2,000 different functioning enzymes is a matter of time, not a matter of cosmic unlikelihood.

The author asserts:
"If every elementary particle in the observed universe (about 10⁸⁰) were cranking out mutation events at the cosmic speed limit (about 1045 times per second) for a billion times the estimated age of the universe, they still could not produce the genes for a working flagellum."

[Ignatz]

"about 1045 times per second" should be "about 10⁴⁵ times per second"

[orionblamblam]

> The author asserts...

Incorrectly.

Here's a simple thought experiemnt, one I've used before. Take a standard deck of 52 cards. Shuffle, and lay them out randomly. The likelihood of any particular hand of 52 is 8.06581752 × 10^67. This is a number far beyond human comprehension...for all intents and purposes, it is impossible. And yet... nothing stops you from laying out those random cards. You could do this impossible thing twenty times an hour, every day of the week. Even though the chances of *that* hand are nil, the chances of *some* hand are effectively unity.

So the next time someone tells you that it's statistically impossible for some biological structure to evolve... keep in mind that it's also virtually impossible to get a particular order of cards. But *something* is clearly virtually inevitable.