It is however a most important feature of life - which sets it apart from non-life and death that the reduction of uncertainty in the receiver or molecular machine in going from a before state to an after state (Shannon, information) dissipates energy to the local surroundings (2nd law of thermodynamics).
Thank you. As to the first. There is a website (as soon as I find it I will post it) that has a "detailed" statistical evalution assuming certain parameters as to cell structure and years available, etc. that concludes that the possibility of the number of "random" changes inoder to end with the present "man" is statisticaly too many (very low probability) for the number of years and (wave the hand) evolution is therefore impossible.