The Watchmaker and the
Waiting Time
For some time, there has been (a partly new) critique of Darwin's theory of random, incremental change to, or mutation of, the genome as the mechanism leading to the origin of species.
The main criticism seems to be that not only does the fossil record not support Darwin's theory; but, more than that, the mathematics of molecular biology or micro-evolution, and of generational sequence or macro-evolution combined, do not allow the necessary changes from one species to another to take place in the time frame provided by the age of the universe; and this by many orders of magnitude. This phenomenon is called the Waiting Time Problem.
There are a lot of videos on this on YouTube, a quite concise one is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V15sjy7gtVM
Molecular biologists and mathematicians seem to say that the age the universe does not suffice, by far, for new species to evolve this way, because viable, non-lethal mutations are seldom (and probably become ever more seldom along the way to higher complexity).
Going further, evolution, once again, is one-directional: overall, it leads to ever more complex beings; i. e., information is being gathered in the genome.
However, you cannot glean any information from pure chance; in fact, that is the definition of pure chance - so, once again, something else than pure chance is generating and gathering that information.
Barring external intelligence and design, which would, according to the laws of nature (esp. the second law of thermodynamics, increase of entropy), always come with an internal loss of transfer... there is (only?) one option left: internally generated information by the unidirectional reduction of chance and entropy.
And there is only one force that could do so: Gravity
So, the evolutionists are catching on to the fact that we could not have evolved by pure chance - which fits with the idea that the whole cosmos (and we, as a tiny part of it, are simply no exception to any rule) could not have evolved by pure chance - the laws of physics forbid it. In fact, pure chance - seen as maximum entropy - ultimately leads to the destruction of any order there may have been up to that time - i. e., to decay and dissolving of information.
As any blade of grass will show, life is dependent on structure - and, in fact, so is any stellar object formed by gravity.
And as biological evolution is but a subsystem, a result of geological or cosmic evolution - the same rules apply. Especially the second law of thermodynamics.
And now these people say so too.
Cleaning up the waiting room
For example, the amount of information gained by cleaning up a room - you now know where everything is - is lower or worth less than the amount of information needed to do so.
This difference in information has to come from somewhere other than that room; and since biological evolution, as part of life itself, poses the same problem of information transfer loss, also from somewhere other than you - or any of your less complex ancestors.
This is similar to the lifting of a rock consuming more energy than its release will generate; it is called the second law of thermodynamics - see above (otherwise, the room could clean itself).
In other words, nothing would exist without the pre-fabrication of information, which leads to the watchmaker problem: A mechanical pocket watch, found in the road, forces the mind to believe in a watchmaker; it could not have emerged simply by pure chance.
But could it have developed itself?
The problem of gradual evolution by random mutations and natural selection thus can be reduced to the following:
a) The information needed to evolve a species on this earth can not be arrived at by pure chance; the time within the universe does not suffice for that to happen (if just two separate mutations are needed for a new function, the average time needed for both of these to happen simultaneously enough by pure chance is too long).
b) It is also highly questionable if any overall information at all can be achieved by pure chance (without it being destroyed right away in the next random step).
c) Barring the loss-ridden transfer of external information - i. e. the devolving from a higher complexity, i. e., gods - and ruling out pure chance, the question remains, if, and when, by what mechanism information could arise spontaneously, i. e. a watchmaker evolve from dirt.
Well.
If indeed the reduction of entropy leads to higher potential and levels of information - then an observably forced complexity, achieved by the workings of gravity over time, may be the candidate we are looking for... God or no God.
Not "intelligent design", but an order, not pre-designed, yet following simply and inevitably from the steady ongoing destruction of disorder.
If indeed the order-inducing working of gravity over time could accumulate enough information in a certain locale to create an information overflow - well, then perhaps, given enough time, a watchmaker could indeed evolve from dirt.
Just an afterthought
If, indeed, evolution is driven by random chance - why did things not happen twice? Or continuously, again and again over the millions of years since that single one?
Or did they?
We have convergent and parallel evolution, where different species develop similar traits, for instance in similar evolutionary surroundings. But do we have serial evolution?
Do we have transitional life forms right now, and which are they? If random chance delivers intelligent solutions, should we not observe johnny- come- lately "missing links" everywhere?
If birds transitioned from lizards by turning scales into feathers - why have we no half- feathered and frizzly-scaled lizards right now?
And if the conditions are just not favorable enough any more for such half-baked complex organisms to survive their more evolved cousins, in no niche whatsoever, nowhere:
Are new multicellular life forms developing from single cells right now? Or did they do it just once? Given the billions and billions of such organisms living over the millions and millions of years gone by up to today? The so- called 'living fossils' we sometimes find are just that: Survivors from the past. They are not recent.
Why did every step of evolution seem to happen just once, even though the ancestry is still around?
Why did crocodiles turn into fish just once? Would it do so again, given time and chance?
Well.
What would it take?
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