What they may not realize is that I sometimes find myself chuckling over their superstitious and quite ridiculous suppositions and myths.
And I agree that the disciplines of mathematics - particularly information theory and geometry - combined with physics, cosmology and molecular biology - will eventually reformulate evolution theory.
IMHO, the first pillar - random mutations - is already in jeopardy because the lack of mutability in regulatory control genes points to autonomous biological self-organizing complexity as a better explanation, i.e. evolution is not a directionless walk.
The second pillar - natural selection - has been placed in doubt (Wolfram) in that natural selection more often works against such a mechanism than for it.
And that is without even looking at the syntactic autonomy required for abiogenesis (Rocha) or the underlying physics of life v non-life (Pattee) or the information content necessary to sustain biological life (Yockey).
Finally, all of these efforts are set in the context of our understanding of the universe or multi-verse (Tegmark, Penrose, Ovrut) - which has a beginning - and the astonishingly improbable physical laws of this universe (Rees) - and moreover, the geometry or dimensionality of all that there is (Vafa).
This is a very exciting time to be a spectator, both of science and of spirit!
Indeed, A-G, we do live in most exciting times!
I've just finished reading a wonderful book, by Dean L. Overman, A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997). I enjoyed it so much, and I'd bet you'd like it, too. He quotes extensively from Yockey and Penrose, Hawking, many others. He points out that "order" and "complexity" are not synonyms, and elucidates the critical difference between them. By complexity, he means information content -- the minimum number of instructions necessary to specify and maintain a structure. So you can see information theory is very out front in Overman's analysis.
He writes, "Highly complex structures require many instructions. A structure may be highly ordered, such as a crystal, but contain very few instructions." Order displays pattern, sequence. Indeed, very simple instruction sets (and even chaos) have been observed to produce regular patterns. But highly complex structures -- such as DNA -- are nonperiodic, seemingly random sequences. DNA is "complex" in the way a crystal is not: Its complexity means it can encode an astronomically vast number of instructions/information content to specify its structure and realize its function.
Overman is also very keyed into issues in particle astrophysics. He wrote:
"Because the formation of life requires the formation of a universe compossible with life, the case against accident as an explanation for life is satisfied completely by an examination of the probabilities involved in the fine tuning of particle astrophysics without regard to issues raised by molecular biology. When one couples the probabilities in physics against an accidental universe compossible with life with the molecular biological and pre-biological possibilities against the formation of the first form of life from inert matter, the compounded calculation wipes the idea of accident entirely out of court."
The statement comes in the book's conclusion. It seems to have been thoroughly well argued and documented throughout.
Of course, there are things that cannot be known for a certainty. Most cases, we have to be satisfied with the standard, "beyond a reasonable doubt." I think Overman makes an persuasive case against life arising by accident; but I'll be checking his thesis against future developments, new evidence, new discoveries....
Just "thinking out loud" through some of Overman's ideas here, A-G. Thanks for letting me rant! You've got to read this book!