Exploring the protein universe: a response to Doug Axe
One of the goals of the intelligent design (ID) movement is to show that evolution cannot be random and/or unguided, and one way to demonstrate this is to show that an evolutionary transition is impossibly unlikely without guidance or intervention. Michael Behe has attempted to do this, [without success](http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-im-not-behe-fan-conclusion-and.html). And Doug Axe, the director of Biologic Institute, is working on a similar problem. Axe's work (most recently with a colleague, Ann Gauger) aims (in part, at least) to show that evolutionary transitions at the level of protein structure and function are so fantastically improbable that they could not have occurred "randomly."
Recently, Axe has been writing on this issue. First, he and Gauger just published some [experimental results](http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2011.1) in the ID journal _BIO-Complexity_. Second, Axe wrote a [blog post](http://biologicinstitute.org/2011/05/04/correcting-four-misconceptions-about-my-2004-article-in-jmb/) at the Biologic site in which he defends his approach against [critics like Art Hunt and me](http://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2010/05/bread-and-circus-signature-in-cell-at_28.html). Here are some comments on both.