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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2004
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Claim CB200.5:

The metabolic pathway for AMP synthesis is too complex to have evolved. It requires several intermediate steps, and it is highly improbable that all of the steps could have evolved simultaneously.

Source:

Behe, Michael J., 1996. Darwin's Black Box, New York: The Free Press, pp. 140-160.

Response:

  1. Although AMP synthesis is done in several steps in modern life, several steps are not required. In fact, adenosine can and does form entirely outside of life, both in aqueous solution (Ferris et al. 1984) and in space (Kuzicheva and Gontareva 2002). The earliest life could have used prebiotic AMP and later have gradually developed and refined mechanisms for synthesizing AMP itself.

    Irreducible complexity itself is no obstacle to evolution.

References:

  1. Ferris, J. P., H. Yanagawa, P. A. Dudgeon, W. J. Hagan Jr., and T. E. Mallare, 1984. The investigation of the HCN derivative diiminosuccinonitrile as a prebiotic condensing agent. The formation of phosphate esters. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 15: 29-43.
  2. Kuzicheva, E. A. and N. B. Gontareva, 2002. Prebiotic synthesis of nucleotides at the Earth orbit in presence of Lunar soil. Advances in Space Research 30(6): 1525-1531.

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created 2003-8-27