[Alamo-Girl]

But there is a common notion amongst evolution critics that living things degrade as a result of entropy, and that this is an inescapable law of nature.

The 2nd law of thermodynamics is inescapable.

Every "thing" in space/time pays that tab. Even the amoeba.

And the thermodynamic tab is paid by living organisms when communications has occurred, i.e. when the receiver [molecular machine] moves from the before state to the after state heat is dissipated into the local environment.

[js1138]

The 2nd law of thermodynamics is inescapable.

Of course. But that isn't the question. The question is whether "information," as instantiated in genomes, degrades over significant periods of time, say millions or billions of years.

I don't want to step all over the thread with unwanted side issues, but when entropy is brought into a discussion of living things, there is an implication that things die because information is lost or degraded over time.