This just doesn't make any sense. Why do imperfect self-replicators violate Shannon Entropy?
Imperfect self replicators can't create meaningful code in more than one or rarely two step iterations. Sudden appearance of coordinated traits is probabilistically impossible. Think of a computer program, that's copied over and over: the program might get a typo in replication (which may kill it, or disable it, or may occasionally make a small functional change), but large coordinated sections of functional new code need to be intelligently written. Even the simplest computer viruses need to be created by pranksters, they don't originate at random by mutation of other code.
Darwin himself admitted that if it were established that some complex structure could no originate step-by-step, evolution would utterly break down. The sudden appearance of whole new orders in the fossil record (eg, the Cambrian explosion) cannot be accounted for evolutionarily.
Imperfect self replicators can't create meaningful code in more than one or rarely two step iterations. Sudden appearance of coordinated traits is probabilistically impossible. Think of a computer program, that's copied over and over: the program might get a typo in replication (which may kill it, or disable it, or may occasionally make a small functional change), but large coordinated sections of functional new code need to be intelligently written. Even the simplest computer viruses need to be created by pranksters, they don't originate at random by mutation of other code.
Darwin himself admitted that if it were established that some complex structure could no originate step-by-step, evolution would utterly break down. The sudden appearance of whole new orders in the fossil record (eg, the Cambrian explosion) cannot be accounted for evolutionarily...
...evolution as it is usually taught, most assuredly DOES deal with life origins. The first cell supposedly originated randomly, and all the new orders of life supposedly originated as a result of accumulated mutations from that. If evolutionists would confine their claims to the verifiable facts of adaptive radiation and other microevolutionary events, I wouldn't have a problem with that. But they don't.
Also... I'm a scientist (Ph.D. Chemist). And I was a convinced evolutionist for a long time. Even after I got religion, I just passed off creation as an allegory and inwardly cringed when I heard fellow Christians using Genesis to make creationist arguments.
Yet when creationists with some real scientific knowledge showed me the problems with evolution, and I really looked at it, my jaw hit the floor! How could I be so blind? How did I fail to see it? I felt VERY STUPID for having fallen for evolution, let me tell you. The fatal flaws in evolution were so blatant, I just about kicked myself for not having seen through it on my own.
It's not just at the beginning point (the first cell) that evolution fails. It fails ALL THE WAY THROUGH the development of life. Invoking a divine escape to explain the origin of the first cell does not get away from the problem of the transformations and sudden appearances of new orders at pulses all through the history of life. Even if evolutionists conceded that the first cell had to be created, they'd still be in an impossible position explaining the rest of the story.
Darwin, to be fair, made some valid observations based on adaptive radiation. But he mistakenly generalized beyond the evidence. And if evolution had no philosophical implications, his error would have been rejected by later generations of scientists.
Comment: "Your Ph.D in Chemistry does not make you an expert in matters of Biology."
Answer: Actually, Biology has been a hobby of mine all through my career, Anthropology in particular. And I do have the training to understand other people's work. But, let us stipulate for the sake of argument, that I know nothing of Biology. But I do know chemistry, which is the foundation of biology. And the chemistry of macroevolution cannot work....
There was some diversity of opinion, but in general the evolutionists believed in random origin from the start. (ALL the textbooks say that, by the way.) But, a few did believe that the first cell could have been created or seeded here and all later life evolved from that.
The essential problem with the "created first cell" idea, is that the same critiques that apply to the "random" origin of the first cell, also apply to later transformations. So if one accepts intelligent-design for the first cell, he/she has implicitly (albeit perhaps unknowingly) conceded the validity of the arguments for intelligent design all through.
A "seeded" first cell is an even tougher problem -- who planted the seed, and who created him/her/it/them? In short, the "seed" theory merely relocates the origin-of-life problem, it doesn't solve it.
Thank you. Your presence is most welcome on these threads. The courage of your candor is most evident, as is the authority with which you speak.