==My main issue with the paper is that, as far as I can tell, his argument about living organisms is based on the capabilities of nonliving things.
Yes, he’s saying that the structure of life is not reducible to the laws of chemistry and physics, which is one of the reasons that he calls naturalistic evolution a Polyani impossibility.
==I think we can all agree that living things have unique capabilities, so claiming restrictions on what life can do based on what nonliving things can do strikes me as an unwarranted logical leap.
But isn’t that the whole point of neo-Darwinian evolution: namely that evolution is a product of random mutations plus natural selection? Are you positing that random mutations aren’t random, and that natural selection isn’t natural?
But isn’t that the whole point of neo-Darwinian evolution: namely that evolution is a product of random mutations plus natural selection? Are you positing that random mutations aren’t random, and that natural selection isn’t natural?
I think my answers are yes; no. But I don't get the connection between your questions and my statement.