[Nebullis]

This has all been modeled before. Here is an example using GAs. In vitro models of actual molecules has been done with RNA (structure is simpler than proteins), and in vivo with the examples I mentioned above.

[Nebullis]

It turns out that the article I linked is a simulation, not a GA. There are examples of GA's which exhibit the behavior of neutral drift followed by functional change, followed by neutral drift, etc.

[maro]

"This result indicates that changing significantly a protein structure through a biologically acceptable chain of point mutations is a rare, although possible, event." I would be interested in how rare an event it is. But this is definitely the way to prove or disprove the evolutionary hypothesis. As our understanding improves, we will have better models.