Because, on a large scale our universe is “perfectly predictable”:
If Newton’s view was to remain perfectly true, the evolution of humans was inevitable. However, this comforting predictability was shattered by the discovery of the contradictory but fantastical world of quantum mechanics in the 20th century. At the smallest scales of atoms and particles, true randomness is at play – meaning our world is unpredictable at the most fundamental level.
This means that the broad “rules” for evolution would remain the same no matter how many times we replayed the tape. There would always be an evolutionary advantage for organisms that harvest solar power. There would always be opportunity for those that make use of the abundant gases in the atmosphere. And from these adaptations, we may predictably see the emergence of familiar ecosystems. But ultimately, randomness, which is built into many evolutionary processes, will remove our ability to “see into the future” with complete certainty.
James S. Horton and Tiffany Taylor, “Why humans (or something very similar) may have been destined to walk the Earth” at The Conversation
The authors would seem to be Darwinians because they believe that claim that ““natural selection”” would select more or less what actually happened, leaving out the question of how vast quantities of complex information could possibly arise via random mutations in inadequate numbers of trials and amounts of time. Which is the main question.
Follow UD News at Twitter!
See also: Evolution appears to converge on goals—but in Darwinian terms, is that possible?