One of the most difficult problems facing those who accept the naturalistic origin of life is that the odds are against the chance formation of even the most simple organic molecules. The hormone, vasopressin, is a simple protein-simple as far as proteins are concerned. Vasopressin, produced in the pituitary gland, prevents the loss of too much water in the body by regulating the action of the kidneys. Further, it increases a person's blood pressure.

Chemically, vasopressin is made up of eight amino acids. These are, in order along the molecule glycinamide, arginine, proline, cystine, asparagine, glutamine, phenylalanine, and tyrosine. The order in which these amino acids occur is extremely critical to the proper functioning of the hormone. Even a switch in position between two amino acids along the molecule will destroy the correct function.

If we were to place just these eight amino acids in a hat and draw them all out one by one, we could expect to get them in the same order as they are in vasopressin only 1 out of every 40,320 attempts. The reason is simple. When you draw out the first amino acid, there are eight possibilities. For the second choice, there are seven amino acids in the hat so there are only seven possibilities, etc. Thus, the number of possibilities for the "vasopressin-type" of hormone is 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1. This equals 40,320.

The number of possibilities increases dramatically as the protein molecule gets larger. Isaac Asimov¹' estimates that the 30-aminoacid-protein, insulin, has 8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (eight octillion) different arrangements. He further estimates that the number of possible combinations for a 140 amino acid protein like hemoglobin is 135 followed by 165 zeroes. This is a larger number than all the atoms estimated in the universe.
Out of all these possibilities, the body can use only one arrangement.

Asimov states,

"Out of 40,320 possible vasopressin combinations, the body chooses just one out of eight octillion possible combinations; for one of the insulin polypepticles, the body chooses just one. "The question is no longer where the body finds the variety it needs, but how it controls the possible variety and keeps it within bounds."²

NOTES

1. Isaac Asimov, "Thc Genetic Code", (New York: The New American Library, 1962), p. 92.
2. Ibid., p. 93.