Has the Theory of Evolution ever been challenged by a non-religious...er, challenger?

Question

"memory", you didn't even address the question with your cut and paste...REPORTED!

Answer 1

Back when it was controversial, yes. A new idea like that is going to come under fire from the smartest minds in the world, with everyone hoping to disprove it.


Evolution has no non-religious challengers today because it has continued to be backed up by every new discovery we make, from every field.



Memory, you assume that the simplest self-reproducing molecule must be alive. (You also state that it would have to be DNA. You also state, curiously, that proteins cannot form in water...)

Essentially, you're using your creationist literature (c'mon, you know your post was a cut&paste) to attack a strawman. Investigation into abiogenesis is far more sophisticated than you make it sound.

Answer 2

Yes. And you should know that. "Darwinists" are masters at defining the term " evolution" broadly enough so that evidence in one situation might be counted as evidence in other.

In the light of the fossil record, molecular isolation, transitional difficulties, irreducible complexity, cyclical change, and genetic limits ( and the fact that thy can't explain the origin of the universe or of the first life ), one would think that "Darwinists " might finally admit that their theory doesn't fit the observable evidence.

Don't get me wrong. We agree that evolution is a fact, but not in the sense that "Darwinists" meant it. If you define evolution as "change", then certainly living beings have evolved. But this evolution is on the micro, not the macro level. There is not only a lack of evidence for macro evolution; there's positive evidence that it has not occurred.

Answer 3

Not sure about challenged by non-religious

The teaching of evolution has been challenged in more than 40 states since 2001.

Answer 4

Its a theory, what is there to challenge, Can you or anyone else offer any solid proof to support this theory? Not just a bit of bone, or a fossil, but a clear step by step link? I didn't think so, because it does not exist. Science gave in on this one, instead of proving it was just accepted. then people wonder why we don't buy "global warming and other theories"

Answer 5

Yes...Gould, a scientist challenged it. That's the glory of science...people are always trying to challenge theories all the time.

Answer 6

yes

"I reject evolution because I deem it obsolete; because the knowledge, hard won since 1830, of anatomy, histology, cytology, and embryology, cannot be made to accord with its basic idea. The foundationless, fantastic edifice of the evolution doctrine would long ago have met with its long- deserved fate were it not that the love of fairy tales is so deep-rooted in the hearts of man." (Dr. Albert Fleischmann, University of Erlangen)

"I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme... (Dr. Karl Popper, German-born philosopher of science, called by Nobel Prize-winner Peter Medawar, "incomparably the greatest philosopher of science who has ever lived.")


"What is so frustrating for our present purpose is that it seems almost impossible to give any numerical value to the probability of what seems a rather unlikely sequence of events... An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle... (Dr. Francis Crick, Nobel Prize-winner, codiscoverer of DNA)


"Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics, on which life depends, are in every respect DELIBERATE... It is therefore, almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect higher intelligences.. even to the limit of God." (Sir Fred Hoyle, British mathematician and astronomer, and Chandra Wickramasinghe, co-authors of "Evolution from Space," after acknowledging that they had been atheists all their lives)
"The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein... I am at a loss to understand biologists' widespread compulsion to deny what seems to me to be obvious." (Sir Fred Hoyle)

http://www.aboundingjoy.com/scientists.htm

Answer 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia


Note the title "Creationism versus Darwinism: A third alternative" by N. Chandra Wickramasinghe & Brig Klyce

Answer 8

Scientists constantly challenge it, just to make sure they have it right. Successfully challenged, however, nope.

Answer 9

Yes, that's why it's called a theory, it is our job to try to prove it, disprove it, or make it better.

Answer 10

I am an unbeliever, and non religious, and I still have doubts of evolution