“Natural selection is a machine that makes almost impossible things. Consider a typical protein such as whale myoglobin. That molecule is but one of a hundred thousand or so proteins in the animal’s body and contains a hundred and fifty-three units called amino acids. These come in about twenty forms. The number of possible combinations of amino acids in a structure the size of myoglobin is hence twenty raised to the power of a hundred and fifty three. The figure, ten with about two hundred zeros after it, is beyond imagination and is far more than all the proteins in all the whales, all the animals and all the plants that have ever lived. Such a molecule could never arise by accident. Instead, a rather ordinary device, natural selection, has carved out not just myoglobin but millions of other proteins and the organisms they build.”
I was reminded, in reading your post,
“... a machine that makes almost impossible things ...”
... of a book I read in 1987. “Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology” by K. Eric Drexler.
At that time, Drexler made the point that nanotechnology only borrowed a principle of miniature assemblers from the already existing biological assembly devices called living cells.
Somehow an acorn has within itself the miraculous ability to seek out the materials it needs to assemble a living oak tree. Not only the instructional guidelines, but the proper miniature tools as well.
Having such a tough act to follow, I adhere to Joyce Kilmer’s advise and stick to poetry.