Darwin’s great idea was that the human species was naturally selected by evolution, over millions of years, rather than made by a divine being as it is today. The conditions that allow species to evolve are:
1. Generation. Species generate offspring that carry on their traits.
2. Variation. The traits of offspring vary, for example by mutation.
3. Selection. Offspring that survive are selected to continue their traits.
The result is an iterative process that explores various biological patterns to select those that survive. It contradicts the orthodox religious view that a divine creator with a preconceived plan created us.
It is now proposed that the principles of evolution can apply to any system, not just those that are alive. For example, when a photon of light finds the best path to any destination, what evolves isn’t a species but the photon, as there is:
1. Generation. The photon generates offspring by instantiation.
2. Variation. Photon instances vary in properties like location and direction.
3. Selection. A physical event selects one instance to restart the photon anew.
Thus, a cloud of photon instances that passes through both Young’s slits to hit a screen point is an evolution, as one of many instance variants triggers a restart that selects how the photon is reborn. In this quantum evolution, the outcome seems accidental, but some instance always finds the best path. Likewise in Darwinian evolution, species seem to survive by accident, but that some species will survive isn’t an accident, as life always finds a way, if there is one.
It is now proposed that behind the evolution of life lies a grander evolution of matter. By trying every option, photons combined into electrons, a new entity species that isn’t light. The electron then survived by its stability, as it is constantly bombarded by competitors for its quantum niche, just as a species faces competition in a biological niche. In the evolution of matter, physical stability replaces biological survival so just as survival drives the evolution of species, stability drives the evolution of matter. In both cases, what doesn’t last can’t affect the future.
Yet the randomness that is essential for evolution to occur is pointless in a clockwork universe because it introduces errors in the machine. What use is a clock that gives random times? Randomness is equally unhelpful in a god-designed universe, because it interferes with the divine plan. Einstein’s statement, that God does not play dice with the universe, is that a supreme power, whether divine or scientific, doesn’t need to give up control, but what if it chose to? It is not then God that plays dice with the universe but its participants, by their choices.
That matter evolved then doesn’t need to deny theology or science, as for the first, evolution is the design, and for the second, matter is an effect rather than a cause. Both views are revolutionary, but that doesn’t mean they are wrong.
In evolution, the future comes from practice not theory, based on effort not design. In biology, species blend to create results that carry on, if they survive. In physics, hydrogen and oxygen, both gases, blended to create an atom of water, which carried on by its stability. Matter is then finding what survives, just as life is. Why differentiate the evolution of matter from that of life if the same principles of generation, variation, and selection operate?
A key principle of evolution is that there are no shortcuts, as one state leads to another. Every step must be taken by effort, so stars had to die to create atoms like carbon upon which life depends. There are no sudden jumps or creations, just constant steps, each giving the next. It follows that even if life is restricted to our tiny earth, the grand evolution continues throughout the universe, as stars still evolve matter to this day, and it will continue, whether we survive or not. The foundation of life was laid long before we came along.
Was the universe then made for us, as a table is laid before a guest? Like Goldilocks, we sit before a meal just right for us but why? Crocodiles live in rivers finely-tuned for them but was that by design? To see it so is to reverse causality. Rivers existed before crocodiles, who then evolved to live as they allowed. Likewise, our universe existed before we did, and we evolved to fit it, so it wasn’t fine-tuned to us any more than crocodiles are fine-tuned to rivers. The Goldilocks effect is then like the cutlery at a table wondering why it fits the food, when it is no surprise. We forget that we are a product of a grand evolution, whether we know it or not.