I think life does change but on the basis of consciousness and not random mutations and not into new species. The key to us understanding change in the world around us the role of what is called the observer. The “observer” influences and determines the outcome of changes in events from quantum to macro social. It was Niels Bohr who championed this concept in the 1930’s when the meaning of quantum mechanics was being hotly debated by the top thinkers of that time
At the heart of quantum theory is Bohr’s concept of complementarity. This he made great pains to point out can apply to macro systems. Bohr I believe was the first to point out that Margaret Mead’s “Coming of Age in Samoa” was a case of “observer created reality”. In the case of evolution it is the slowness of the process that gives the illusion that there can be an objective observer (observers are never objective but always influence the outcome). This then leads one to self-fulfilling observations rather than any so called objective reality.
A recent book, Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics by Gino Segr (Viking, 310 pp., $25.95) review:
"But Bohr in 1932 proposed to extend the idea of complementarity to biology, suggesting that the description of a living creature as an organism and the description of it as a collection of molecules are also complementary. In this context, complementarity would mean that any attempt to observe and localize precisely every molecule in a living creature would result in the death of the organism. The holistic view of a creature as a living organism and the reductionist view of it as a collection of molecules would be both correct but mutually exclusive. .
Since then I don't think anyone has got their head around Bohr's ideas and responded in a sensible way.
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