They Have Separated “Real Science” and Faith, but Found No Answer to the Main Question

Recently an addition to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution received international attention. Researchers working in the United States titled their paper “On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems” (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 16 October 2023). They argue that motion, gravity, electromagnetically charged fields and the principle of interactions described by the second law of thermodynamics energise universal evolution. But why did they not begin from an autopoietic theory capable of describing complex natural and social subsystems without contradiction? Its explanatory power could bridge the gaps in Darwin’s theory more elegantly.

Darwin’s theory leaves the emergence of new capacities essential to survival to chance. These capacities prove their indispensability by being passed on by living organisms to future generations.

The new theory of origins and evolution has finally moved natural scientists studying the origin and development of life out of an intellectual paralysis that had lasted for centuries.

Yet the theory also asks for patience. It accompanies us along the path of individual development without revealing where the world visible today began. Darwin’s genius lies in describing the future image of a self-operating system despite this obstacle. The idea of how species change was complemented by the concept of adaptation, which defined the direction and mode of change simply and clearly, though not without consequences. Religion was set against scientific thought, atheism became synonymous with practical knowledge of the “real sciences”, and faith became a metaphor for ignorance.