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Originally Posted by 1010011010
In any event, cells don't search sequence space by randomly dehydrating amino acids and seeing if the folded result does anything useful. Slight mutations alter the function of existing proteins, resulting in families of proteins with similar sequences (though not always similar functions). So you might say that some very specific activity is very rare... but the sequence that we find in living things is very similar to another protein with a generalized function. So we get the majority of the correct sequence through incrememental improvement in a different protein. And then the change from this final optimized sequence (for a different function) is only a small step from this other very specific function which appeared to be improbable.
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The problem with this is that at the beginnings of life, you had no cells to synthesize proteins, and no "incremental improvement". This *is* a case where you'd be randomly hydrolyzing amino acids together, in order to possibly get something which can help get ribose to kickstart a possible way to start everything off from the primordial soup.
A specific protein would be required to synthesize ribose from formaldehyde or other sources, and to make sure it is synthesized to the correct epimer in order to possibly get some kind of RNA. Then you've got odds on random RNA being formed that is capable of catalyzing its own replication. And so forth.
Futhermore, the origins of multicellular life and specialization of cells for specific purposes (food absorption, movement, etc) is one monster of a jump for life to make. Amoebas to jellyfish... I'm having trouble imagining the steps involved in that jump. A couple of amoebas stuck together wouldn't really have a natural advantage. If the genetic material between them was somehow unevenly split, and one side was consequently better at something than the other side, they still wouldn't have the same genome, and replication of the 2-celled organism would be a doozy.
If it can be shown that at some points in evolutionary theory that natural evolution is unreasonable, it therefore follows that Intelligent Design theory *is* reasonable by process of elimination.