Re:A New Physics Theory of Life (2014)
by xorxornop on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @08:19AM
(#13114339)
Yup, it all depends on which level of abstraction you choose to operate in.
I could describe throwing a ball to you into terms of how the quantum wavefunction evolves over time to produce the end state from the start state, and it would be a perfectly fine description, but for the sorts of things we do, usually a Newtonian physics level of description will do because we're generally concerned with coarse level details, not the momenta of each individual atom involved.
Evolution is not an entirely objective thing, really, it's the arbitrary theoretical line we draw around our observation of bags of random things bouncing around in a random environment. There is no 'process' per sey, other than somewhat arbitrary means we wish to use to describe it.
So the answer is: 'evolution goes back as far as you want it to' - depending on how you chose to define it :)