Darwinian evolution states only that genetics change randomly and that those changes are filtered by natural selection. Darwinian evolution does not say what the mechanism is for those changes, only that they are random, as far as we can tell, that is, not teleological. Evolution does not have to explain how life got started. It doesn’t have to talk about cosmic rays, or chemical effects. It only states what it states. You cannot criticize a theory for what it fails to explain.
Where evolutionary theories are part of the natural sciences, they demonstrate at least an attempt to explain the genetics in physical terms. As you are aware, explanations are centred around DNA, and the genetics and cellular processes that accompany replication and reproduction. These areas have been well studied and continue to offer new insights into how life works.
Saying the “genetics change” is different than saying “the genetics are changed” or that “we observe changes in the genetics”. This has to do with causality and the structure that underlies aopearance.
The third statement is one of fact. Actually what we observe are “differences” in the genetic structure of organisms temporally and geographically. “Changes” implies a continuity between parents and offspring based on an extremely small amount of matter that acted as information guiding the growth and development of the ancestor and is now informing that of a generation that follows.
Considering genetics to be a purely a molecular phenomenon, we understand the first statement above as meaning that the forces that define molecular interactions are sufficient in themselves to explain the differences we observe. While matter is clearly required, as are bricks and mortar for a home, the claim that what is chaos and results in decomposition acting of its own accord, can come together to form an organism, is acceptable only to believers and those who have accepted it on authority.
To take the view that the “genetics are changed” implies the existence of influences outside those intrinsic to atoms proper (mass, charge, velocity). If we shift the paradigm we use for the concept of matter, from stuff to information, it is clear that life forms contain an exponentially larger amount of information as we progress along the supposed “tree of life”. That information demonstrates an organization far beyond that possible by happenstance; the reality of what monkeys actually do with a typewriter rather than what we may imagine in ivory-towered musings. There is clearly the hand of some influence other than that of the four basic interactions of matter.
The question then for those who take an evolutionary position on how the diversity of living organisms has come to be, is whether this is some natural evolutionary force or principle, a supreme identity inventing and/or discovering itself, a deistic entity or God.
It would seem of highest importance to follow not merely what makes most sense to us, dependent as it is on so many unacknowledged assumptions and beliefs, but what leads us to the truth to be found in God Himself.
