{"id":96,"date":"2009-08-12T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/08\/one-step-at-a-time.html"},"modified":"2014-05-19T09:16:12","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T13:16:12","slug":"one-step-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/08\/one-step-at-a-time.html","title":{"rendered":"One Step at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"coagulation_cascade.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/202\/import\/coagulation_cascade.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-center\" style=\"margin: 0pt auto 20px;text-align: center\" width=\"525\" height=\"420\" \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<div>The diagram above shows the complex process of the human blood-clotting cascade, which requires the interaction of at least a dozen different proteins to properly work. The system is so complex that intelligent design proponents argue that it cannot be explained simply by natural selection (it is <i>irreducibly complex<\/i>).<\/p>\n<p>On the surface, that argument seems to offer a strong challenge to evolutionary theory. After all, if even one of the needed proteins in the cascade is missing, the whole system falls apart. How could it have evolved over time, then, if each protein is necessary for the system to work? Wouldn&#8217;t earlier versions have been useless and therefore not favored by natural selection?<\/p>\n<p>However, in the case of the human blood-clotting cascade, recent evidence has shown that the system arose gradually over time, thanks to gene duplication. As Francis Collins notes in <a href=\"http:\/\/biologos.org\/projects\/the-language-of-god-by-francis-collins\/\"><i>The Language of God<\/i><\/a>, most of the components of the clotting cascade are related to each other at the amino acid sequence level. These similarities can be shown to reflect ancient gene duplications. Such duplications would have left a functioning version of the protein to serve its original purpose while at the same time allowing a new copy to gradually evolve to perform a new function. Over time, these small steps could converge into the complex system present in the human blood-clotting cascade.<\/p>\n<p>Admittedly, we cannot precisely say the exact order of how the human blood-clotting cascade evolved. However, there is a difference between something being&nbsp;<i>unknown<\/i> and something being <i>impossible<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned to our blog and the BioLogos <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biologos.org\">Web site<\/a> in the coming weeks as we discuss in more detail the concept of irreducible complexity.<\/p>\n<p><!-- AddThis Button BEGIN -->\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=biologos\" class=\"addthis_button_compact\">Share<\/a><br \/>\n<span class=\"addthis_separator\">|<\/span><br \/>\n<a href=\"editor-content.html?cs=utf-8\" class=\"addthis_button_facebook\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"editor-content.html?cs=utf-8\" class=\"addthis_button_myspace\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"editor-content.html?cs=utf-8\" class=\"addthis_button_google\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"editor-content.html?cs=utf-8\" class=\"addthis_button_twitter\"><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- AddThis Button END --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The diagram above shows the complex process of the human blood-clotting cascade, which requires the interaction of at least a dozen different proteins to properly work. The system is so complex that intelligent design proponents argue that it cannot be explained simply by natural selection (it is irreducibly complex). On the surface, that argument seems&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-thoughts"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>One Step at a Time - Science and the Sacred<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/08\/one-step-at-a-time.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One Step at a Time - Science and the Sacred\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The diagram above shows the complex process of the human blood-clotting cascade, which requires the interaction of at least a dozen different proteins to properly work. The system is so complex that intelligent design proponents argue that it cannot be explained simply by natural selection (it is irreducibly complex). On the surface, that argument seems&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/08\/one-step-at-a-time.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Science and the Sacred\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-08-12T08:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-19T13:16:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/scienceandthesacred\/files\/import\/coagulation_cascade.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The BioLogos Foundation\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"One Step at a Time - Science and the Sacred","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/08\/one-step-at-a-time.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"One Step at a Time - Science and the Sacred","og_description":"The diagram above shows the complex process of the human blood-clotting cascade, which requires the interaction of at least a dozen different proteins to properly work. The system is so complex that intelligent design proponents argue that it cannot be explained simply by natural selection (it is irreducibly complex). On the surface, that argument seems&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/08\/one-step-at-a-time.html","og_site_name":"Science and the Sacred","article_published_time":"2009-08-12T08:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-05-19T13:16:12+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/scienceandthesacred\/files\/import\/coagulation_cascade.jpg"}],"author":"The BioLogos Foundation","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/08\/one-step-at-a-time.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/scienceandthesacred\/2009\/08\/one-step-at-a-time.html","name":"One Step at a Time - Science and the 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