Does evolution refute the premise of the physico-theological argument?
peace.
A difficult question occurred to me that I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of until now.
After all, the second law says that the complex does not arise from the simple by chance, and evolution actually shows that it does.
It is clear that evolution requires precise starting conditions (laws of nature and the first living chain), but once they are in place, then the behavior that leads from a simple cell to a human is completely random, meaning that mutations are completely random (not in the sense that it is truly random like in quantum mechanics, but in the sense that it does not require careful planning to determine exactly which tiger will devour which sheep for the process to succeed. If a living cell is allowed to run on 10 parallel Earths, even though each one will have a different tiger devouring a different sheep, at the micro level after billions of years we will still end up with something very complex), and in combination with the tautological law of survival of the fittest, a clear direction is created here towards complexity, without a guiding hand within the laws.
Hasn’t the assumption that simple things don’t become complex by chance been refuted here? Haven’t we found here that logic comes and directs reality?
I think this is what Gould meant, that within the laws of physics, evolution is completely random, and yet there are constraints that guarantee the final outcome. These constraints are the logical law of survival of the fittest that gives a clear direction to evolution.
Gold showed that it is not always necessary to be intelligent to reach a clear and predetermined direction.
Does the Rabbi think that God intervened even in the evolutionary process?
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I was not properly understood, due to the title I gave. I am not speaking from the perspective of the very sight of God, but from the assumption itself. God can in any case be proven outside the laws. (=We did find a particular case where the assumption does not hold, but it is still reasonable in the other cases and also in the case of the laws, because there is no evolution of laws).
The Rabbi always gives examples of how things simply do not become complex at random in examples that are *within* our world (fragments of a flowerpot do not become a flowerpot, a messy room will not become tidier by moving a random object, etc.), and here, within the laws, a reality is slapped in our face in which things simply become complex at completely random. Of course, this does not disprove God, since everything is conducted within rigid laws from which God is proven, but after they already exist, evolution plays a completely random game and yet its results are predictable in advance. This is a classic case of fragments of a flowerpot becoming a flowerpot within the framework of lower-threshold laws that only *allow* and do not rule it out (allowing a complete flowerpot [=anatomy of a living creature] to exist).
Indeed, within the rules, simple can become complex. That's what the rules do.
1) Why see the laws as the direction-givers of evolution? After all, natural selection sets the direction, the laws only allow the biological system not to fall apart?
2) After all, many systems of laws will simply become complex! Any value given to the force of gravity will cause distant masses to cluster into one block, and thus, in a completely random way, the simple became complex, creating order out of disorder. Even if the container of gas particles in the third notebook were far away in space, then gravity would cluster the gas particles together, creating a unique situation, and the premise of the argument would be refuted.
Sorry, I'm tired. These are simple things, and I've already explained them. If you want to study thermodynamics - then you have to study it in an organized way.
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