There are two principle narrative in evolutionay biology, each unable to account the actual data we see. The first, that of Darwin, is that random change (mutation) couple with random benefit (natural selection) has over vast expanses of time worked to counter the natural entropy of our universe.
The problem with this account is that it makes predictions that have been disproven. Specifically, it predicts that all species at all times are in the process of modification. All mutations which are not harmful will be retained, and selection between divergent groups will only happen gradually, again over vast expanses of time. Thus we should not have to look for “missing links”. They should everywhere. Every species we look at anywhere should show patterns of change over time. They don’t. What we see is the sudden appearance of a species, and then NO alteration for vast periods of time, then it disappears again.
Clearly, species evolve over time. One can track changes in moths and insects. One can trace genetic progressions in humans. Yet, we always find the species when we first see it already morphologically evolved. This is absolutely contrary to his thesis. To be clear, we have fossil fields where we can look at vast expanses of time, and have fossils from each era. They stay the same, with only minor alterations.
To solve this manifest problem, evolutionary biologists, rather than considering the (for them) horrible notion of incorporating field theories back into biology, chose to look at the actual record, and work backwards. Their only justification for this were the foundational ideas that biological systems are best understood as self organizing machines, that of course there is no God, and that the record did not support Darwin.
Thus you get Punctuated Equilibrium, in which huge evolutionary changes happen, relatively speaking, quickly. But the entire contribution of Darwin, which made his ideas plausible, was the combination of chance, natural selection, and huge amounts of time. With Gould, the time disappears. Some catastrophe happens, the animals are placed in a do or die situation, and the ones that survive evolve rapidly.
Yet, this posits precisely an interaction between the biological system and the environment. It presumes, in effect, that DNA rolls of the dice can be skewed in favor of survival, that the slot machine can be fixed. Yet, there is no provision anywhere in any theories for this.
We see this notion of ecological niches, in which animals coexist until they can’t any longer, then the species which has best adapted to the situation survives, and everything else disappears. Yet, what this would lead us to expect would be a continuity of fossils for long periods, then the disappearance of many, with the winners continuing. And this still doesn’t explain how rapid, beneficial mutation can appear simply because it is needed.
I firmly believe that if we can learn the political lessons in front of us, that the Left (and possibly some secretive very rich people for whom some have been fronting) has been lying to us for well over half a century, and if we can grasp the meaning of the corruption of climate science for the Global Warming scam, then at some point it will become possible to question the materialistic narratives of the emergence of life from within the scientific establishment. You have to have this idea that “everything you ‘know’ could be wrong”. Most people who earn Ph.D’s assume that whatever the truth is, it’s in their labs, and not elsewhere.
I further believe that a time will come when we wonder how it was possible for us to be so stupid for so long.