The physicochemical depiction of nature “selecting”, so to say, reactions between species, e.g. as theorized by Johann Goethe (1809), see: reaction decipherment, a model cited by Charles Darwin (1859/1861) as being something verbally akin to his conception of the term “natural selection”, albeit not exactly.

“The theory of natural selection advocated by Darwin is of ancient date—as old as Lucretius—and has been maintained by Lamarck and others; but Darwin conceived that the previous schemes or theories afford no explanation of the mode in which the alleged progressive transmutation of organic bodies from the lowest to the highest grades has taken place.”

“But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far as this—we can perceive that events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of divine power, exerted in each particular case, hut by the establishment of general laws.”

— William Whewell (1833), Bridgewater Treatise

“It long remained to me an inexplicable problem how the necessary degree of modification could have been effected, and it would have thus remained forever, had I not studied domestic productions, and thus acquired a just idea of the power of selection. As soon as I had fully realized this idea, I saw, on reading Malthus On Population, that natural selection was the inevitable result of the rapid increase of all organic beings; for I was prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence by having long studied the habits of animals.”

— Charles Darwin (1868), The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (Ѻ)

“Several writers have misapprehended or objected to the term ‘natural selection’. Some have even imagined that natural selection induces variability, whereas it implies only the preservation of such variations as occur and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life. No one objects to agriculturists speaking of the potent effects of man's selection; and in this case the individual differences given by nature, which man for some object selects, must of necessity first occur. Others have objected that the term selection implies conscious choice in the animals which become modified; and it has even been urged that as plants have no volition, natural selection is not applicable to them!

In the literal sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is a misnomer; but who ever objected to chemists speaking of the elective affinities of the various elements? — and yet an acid cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it will in preference combines.

It has been said that I speak of natural selection as an active power or Deity; but who objects to an author speaking of the attraction of gravity as ruling the movements of the planets? Every one knows what is meant and is implied by such metaphorical expressions; and they are almost necessary for brevity. So again it is difficult to avoid personifying the word nature; but I mean by ‘nature’, only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us. With a little familiarity such superficial objections will be forgotten.”

A typical evolution is a hoax cartoon promoted by creationists, which highlights the salient fact that Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection falls apart, in regards to both the the origin of life question, and in regards to the paradoxical premise that that atoms and molecules struggle to survive.

“I believe that I have somewhere said (but I cannot find the passage) that the principle of continuity renders it probable that the principle of life will hereafter be shown to be part or consequence of some general law.”

“After Darwin, human morality became a scientific mystery. Natural selection could explain who intelligent, upright, linguistic, not so hairy, bipedal primates could evolve, but where did our morals come from? Darwin himself was absorbed by this question?”

— Joshua Greene (2013), Moral Tribes [2]