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“As a (serious) Evolutionist, is there a piece of evidence you’ve seen that points to inteligent design?”

The following answer to that question was made by James Elmore B.S., M.D. Medicine & Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduated 1998. If you, as me, do not fully understand his detailed answer, at least take note of his final comments!

(NOTE: (UNABLE TO POST A GENOME PICTURE HERE FROM ORIGINAL COMMENT)

This may look like gibberish at first, but trust me it’s anything but.
The top row is the partial DNA sequence of the INK4a gene that codes for an important regulatory protein. The second row is its partial amino acid sequence.

What’s amazing here though is the third row. It shows how the same exact DNA sequence used to code INK4a is also used to code the amino acid sequence of a completely unique protein (ARF) with a different regulatory function. So the ARF gene is literally a gene within a gene. Just by starting on a different nucleotide which causes a completely different reading frame.

The Regulation of INK4/ARF in Cancer and Aging

Note that these 2 proteins aren’t just different forms of the same protein—they are entirely unique. There is NO shared amino acid homology.

While no analogy is perfect here, what you are looking at would be akin to writing 2 unique sentences with entirely different meanings just by starting on a different letter!

And it’s now estimated that up to 10% of our genomes include overlapping genes. The number is growing.

“Overlapping genes have generally been thought to be relatively rare in the human genome, but the results of the present study show that they are more abundant than was previously thought. Interestingly, overlapping genes do not appear to be the result of evolutionary pressure to minimize the size of the human genome.”

Overlapping of Genes in the Human Genome

Sure, this can be and is explained away using the common descent paradigm. But it really does and should test the limits of credulity. Here’s why:

The total number of possible protein sequences is ~infinite. Even for an average protein 200 amino acids long there are more possible sequences than there are protons in the known Universe. But only a minuscule fraction are biologically useful. If you do the math it turns out you’d have to search through 10^74 chains of that length to find a single one that folds into a stable structure and performs any function.

And this particular gene has 2 of them coded by the exact same DNA!

Genomes and the Protein Universe

The Mathematics of Origin

There’s more reasons to be incredulous though. Overlapping genes make proteins with entirely different and unrelated functions. Because they are unique they may not be selected for (or against) by the same environmental pressures. So if a mutation changes one for the good it is very likely to degrade the function of the other. So either these genes are not influenced by selective pressure (but we think they should be) or must have arisen together. Meaning they must have been created simultaneously after a duplication and subsequent mutation-divergence events. But as it turns out their occurrence is often uniquely species specific and independent of phylogeny. Either way it’s hard to make sense of this from an evolutionary perspective.

Overlapping genes of Aedes aegypti: evolutionary implications from comparison with orthologs of Anopheles gambiae and other insects

Some of these important and statistcally improbable biologically useful proteins form when the DNA is read left to right AND different but useful proteins when read right to left.

It would be like buying a book which when read front to back chronicles the adventures of Harry Potter but if read back to front, tells you how to be happier, sell more, start a business, or find the man/woman of your dreams.

And many of the larger proteins with multiple domains are folded into specific configurations by other proteins called chaperone proteins.

Enzymes as chaperones and chaperones as enzymes

https://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/32

If a string of amino acid isn’t correct the chaperonin chews it up and recycles the amino acids.

So…in order to get a new protein with a new function you’d have to also have simultaneous and cooperative mutations in the gene that codes for that particular chaperone.

But proteins don’t really work like that. They aren’t sculptures that can be sculpted little by little. If mutations change the amino acid sequence too much you get sudden and drastic changes in protein configuration. In fact, a single nucleotide insertion will cause the protein to form a completely different shape and render it unable to perform its original function. At all.

Indeed, at one time it was believed that the redundancy in the genetic code was a sloppy by-product of evolution. Now, though, we realize that there are multiple codons for each amino acid specifically so that genes can be read, spliced, and translated in multiple different ways to achieve jaw-dropping regulatory networks.

These regulatory networks appear exquisitely designed. This diagram compares that of a bacteria e. coli (left) to the “call graph” of the modern Linux OS (right). Linux, of course, is one of the most popular operating systems for mobile devices, web servers, and film production. Disney uses it. And without getting into details here, the bacteria makes Linux look pretty bad.
From: Comparing genomes to computer operating systems in terms of the topology and evolution of their regulatory control networks.

Concluding comments:

‘If you believe what we are finding these days is explicable from purely natural random and selected processes you have more faith than I do. For these and many other reasons.’ “I’ve jumped ship and have come to believe this has to be Designed!”

Welcome to all those who may have begun to appreciate Romans 1:20…..

“For his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they (those who see them) are inexcusable.”

Quotation: “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an evolutionist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” (Werner Heisenberg, father of Quantum Mechanics.)

Please visit my related post;  ‘Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained’(https://new2view.ca/2021/03/23/paradise-lost-to-paradise-regained/