How is it possible for detailed specifications encoded in complex molecules to survive across generations despite constant thermal buffetting and developmental disruption?

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• How can molecular gene structures preserve detailed specifications across generations despite thermal noise and copying errors?question0.854
  Core biological question motivating Schrödinger's entire theoretical effort; answered via quantum mechanics.
• The number of atoms involved in the responsible gene structure is likely to be very small, yet it displays a most regular and lawful activity with a durability that borders upon the miraculous, remaining unperturbed by the disordering tendency of heat motion for centuries.claim0.791
  Schrödinger's statement of the puzzle that quantum mechanics resolves.
• If the gene is a large molecule with discrete quantum states and high energy barriers between isomeric configurations, then it will exhibit long-term stability and rare spontaneous mutations.hypothesis0.783
  The core predictive hypothesis derived from Delbrück's model.
• How can increasing complexity and variety evolve over time given the second law of thermodynamics and statistical nature of quantum mechanics?question0.779
• Quantum mechanics is essential for explaining long-term stability of genetic structures against thermal perturbation.claim0.770
  Central claim: without quantum-mechanical energy thresholds and discrete states, hereditary information could not survive across generations.
• How then — realistically — in the modern world can we get the subtle fine detail of adaptation, variation, and harmony which makes every component slightly different, and yet do it at the break-neck speed of modern giant projects and in the colossal quantities required for the largest projects?question0.770
  The central practical question the chapter sets out to answer.
• If the evolution of the natural world follows a step-by-step process in which each step is structure-preserving, then the fifteen properties will appear more and more often, and the degree of life in the wholeness will increase steadily.hypothesis0.769
  Conditional statement linking smooth unfolding to the progressive emergence of the fifteen properties and increased life.
• How can we, from the point of view of statistical physics, reconcile the facts that the gene structure seems to involve only a comparatively small number of atoms and nevertheless displays a most regular and lawful activity with a durability that borders upon the miraculous?question0.766
  The specific puzzle about the stability of the genetic material.