In an August, 2013, paper in the Journal of Chemical Physics, “Statistical Physics and Self-Replication,” Professor Jeremy England (Physics, MIT), reportedly argues that
… when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. This could mean that under certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life.
http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life/
England’s account promises to fill an explanatory gap mentioned in RSLM, page 81, concerning how life originated on Earth. Notice however that the description makes no mention of natural selection (or mutation or recombination). Assume that this is not just an omission on the reporter’s part (in fact, it isn’t), and that England’s account of the origin of life does not rely on the notion of natural selection (or mutation or recombination). Then, critics of evolutionary theory might say, if England’s account is correct then this shows that evolutionary theory fails as an explanation of life on Earth: England’s account can explain how life originated on Earth but evolutionary theory cannot.
Is this a good objection to evolutionary theory?
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