Is there an alternative scientific hypothesis to the theory of evolution?

Many scientific alternatives to Darwinian evolution have been proposed over the years, but none have held up.





Lamarkism posited that species evolve because individuals aquire new characteristics and pass them to their offspring.





Lysenkoism advanced similar ideas in Russia because Stalin thought they were more in keeping with Communist ideology. These ideas were applied to crops, and the result was a lot of hungry people. (http://www.bookrags.com/research/lysenko…





Orthogenesis postulated some sort of intrinsic drive towards perfection, but not resulting in evolutionary common descent, since species were assumed to spontaneously generate. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogenesi… The hypothesis was abandoned as it was shown to be unsupported by the fossil record and unable to provide a mechanism to account for the process.





Saltationism: this idea was held by many geneticists in the early 1900s, who thought that species evolved because of major changes produced by mutations, rather than by an accumulation of small changes directed by natural selection. In the 1930s, scientists worked out how genetics actually affects natural selection, and the combined theory was referred to as the Evolutionary Synthesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evol…





“Punctuated equilibria” is basically Darwinism, but with more emphasis on genetic and historical restrictions on possible evolutionary pathways.





Creation Science is not scientific because it doesn’t depend on the scientific method of testing hypotheses. The underlying creationist hypothesis that reality must conform to a literal interpretation of the Bible is never empirically tested.|||Evolution itself is not scientific, it is merely a set of beliefs.





Right from the start, in the nonsensical origin or life from non-life, progressive evolution reveals itself to be unscientific.





The notion that a living cell can simply arise of its own volition by chance from a sterile mix of chemicals is even less credible than Dr Frankenstein's monster being brought to life.





The problems with this so-called abiogenesis are usually skated over in evolutionary education and textbooks.


For example it is never mentioned where the information in the first living cell is supposed to of come from?


Or how the DNA code (which carries information) invented itself?


Or where the 'life force' (which distinguishes a living cell from a dead one) came from?





These questions are never faced because they cannot be answered. Evolutionists would rather just claim the unscientific notion of abiogenesis is a fact, regardless of these intractable problems, because it is an essential tenet of their religious-like faith.





So the alternative scientifc hypothesis to the evolution story is to present the scientific evidence which clearly demonstrates that progressive evolution is not a viable scientific theory. Of course, this in itself does not prove any alternative explanation, but it does show that we must throw out Darwinian evolution as no more than a fanciful fable.|||The problem with the question, is which evolution are you talking about, the theory of evolution has evolved over time, as scientific evidence forces revisions. Revising a theory as a result of empirical evidence is generally accepted as good scientific practice.





If you define evolution as


random mutations that contribute to beneficial changes in organism. (Then scientifically an the alternative hypothesis has to be something that means the opposite of that.), which would mean


random mutations contribute to detrimental changes in an organism.





Then you would have to look at how much evidence there is for beneficial random mutations and how much evidence their is for detrimental mutations (cancer is an example of random mutations that are not beneficial, that can be caused by environmental, or hereditary/genetic factors). If you accept the logic of the above scientific method then their is overwhelming evidence that the theory of evolution is false.





If you define evolution as we started off as hairy apes and changed into hairless women (except the scalps). Then the alternative would be hairy apes did not evolve into hairless women. (This is often labelled Intelligent Design).





What you can't do scientifically is say We evolved from hairy apes into hairless women and here is the proof. You have to say





IF we evolved from hairy apes into hairless women THEN the following supporting evidence must exist, OTHERWISE we did not evolve from hairy apes into hairless women.





This is where the whole argument gets interesting since the majority of evolutionary scientists are atheists, they tend to first not complete the hypothesis statement according to the rules of science.





Somewhere else on the planet their are believers in God (God by default is more intelligent and created the world to a plan - hence Intelligence Design)





In between the two groups are scientists and/or believers in god who accept parts of the theory of evolution that is good science and furthers knowledge and understanding of the world. They also after obtaining empirical evidence make statements like the everything is so finely balanced that it suggests intelligence design.


Or probability of these things happening by chance is so close to zero, that we have to treat it as zero (physicist treat 1x10 minus 50 as zero and we are talking probabilities in the order of 1x10 minus 250 (thats like 250 zeros between the decimal point and the number 1).





Scientists and priests are both human beings, both will be economical with the truth when it suits them and they are fighting a war for our support against each other.





Piltdown Man


Over 250 scientific papers were published supporting piltdown man by the mainstream Academic/Scientific community, which suggests poor science being employed by evolutionists, many evolutionary academics are from social sciences, labelling Intelligent Design as pseud-science. Many ID scientists are micro-biolgisist and physicists, who are unaware of the idealogical war being fought.





Are you are thoroughly confused?|||At the heart of the theory of evolution there is a simple algorithm





IF there is a variation of genes within a species





IF there are selection pressures in which not all creatures survive.





IF the children of surviving parents inherit the characteristics that helped their parents survive.





THEN there must be evolution





because all you need after that is time. And there is nothing out there that has ever come close to refuting that, let alone providing an alternative. Evolution is confirmed every day, in every hospital, every paleantological dig, and in every gene analysed in the 50 million base pairs that are sequenced in labs around the world every day|||When the theory of evolution was put forward, men like Darwin hoped that the fossil records would show how simple animals evolved into more complex ones.


Thousands of tiny mutations would have been needed to change a reptile into a bird.


The fact is after a hundred and fifty years of looking, not one fossil has been found to show that this evolutionary path took place.


If you know one, tell us which museum it is held in, don't say Archaeopteryx, this had feathers and wings. I mean all the stages before that.


Also no two or three celled animals live or ever lived except for in the imagination of evolutionists.


Too many people confuse fact and theory.


It is telling why evolutionary scientist hate creationist scientists so much. Fact for fact they cannot stand against them.


What would you do with an unemployed evolutionist?


|||There is a lot of confusing terminology here about various theories. Evolution itself is a theory arrived at in the early 19th century (not by Charles Darwin, although his grandfather Erasmus was a leading figure) to explain the fossil record found in rock layers.


Since this time, no other scientific theories have been seriously considered, although various theories offered other attemptedly scientific explanations of where life came from date back to the 6th century BCE with Anaximander's theory that plants and lower animals arose from mud, and early humans grew in the mouths of fish. Empedocles of Acragas in the 5th century thought that the earth gave birth to organs which then joined themselves into animals. These and other theories attempted to explain life in a mechanistic way, but none of them gained many supporters. On top of this, there are a huge number of mythological explanations (too many to mention here - see the sources) where life is created by a god or gods out of nothing/primordial chaos/bits of other gods. None of these explanations attempt to offer any sort of scientific sense or incorporate natural phenomena, instead relying on a belief in the power of the gods.


After the theory of evolution was developed in the 19th century, various other theories were proposed to provide a mechanism for the theory of evolution. Failed theories include Lamarckism where the animals evolved according to their needs (giraffes get longer necks if their parents were always stretching their necks to reach for higher up food).


Darwin's theory was the theory of natural selection to explain why animals with traits that allow them to survive will survive and pass those traits to their children. Darwin also came up with sexual selection to explain how traits which have a negative effect on survival may survive if those traits make them more likely to breed (explaining the peacock's tail). Other mechanisms of evolution include genetic drift, and gene flow). Mutations explain where new traits come from. The theory of punctuated equilibrium is a supporting and modifying theory that attempts to explain occasional increased speeds of evolution visible in the fossil record.


Evolution takes too long to be directly observable in humans (thousands of generations), but is easily observable in species such as fruit flies, and in E. Coli a whole new gene which confers the ability to metabolise citrate (something no other E. Coli can do) has been observed to appear. The fossil record and the genetic code of species allow us to construct evolutionary trees. Particularly notable is the observation that species closely related have common errors in the genetic code that prevent a gene from working properly (see Common Design Errors in sources).


These and other observations mean that evolution is undisputed among the scientific community, and is a stronger theory than ever, although there is the religious movement of creationism (mainly in the US) that seeks to dispute evolution.|||Steven J. Gould hypothesised that due to the gaps in the fossil record, life-forms could have evolved in jumps. He came up with the idea that because animals live in packs that are frequently affected by their environment, the necessity for certain genetic frequencies at different periods in time would dictate their evolution.





When submitting these ideas in peer review, Gould's papers were received with mild acceptance from a small part of the scientific community, but was not accepted by the majority.





This was hypothesised in the 70s I believe, so the fossil record was far more incomplete than it is now.





Scientists agree in this millennium that the fossil record has enough entries to safely assume evolution is a fact and that it happened the way Darwin wrote about.





Since the discovery of DNA and the ability to sequence it too, there has been no peer reviewed paper denying evolution that has ever got passed the scrutiny of the scientific community.





Intelligent Design, which is basically religious creationism, is popular in the States, but has failed to get a paper past peer review. Creationists staunchly defend the idea that this is because the scientists are censoring the "facts", but scientists work in independent groups and are usually philanthropically funded. The claim that they, and this includes the religious evolutionary scientists, are conspiring against creation is absurd in the highest order of magnitude.





Until ID can come up with an argument that at least passes peer review, we can rest assured that evolution, in all its glory, is absolute truth. A beautiful one too.|||Rather than evolution, there's the 'Radiation Theory' That theory states that mutations occur in a totally random manner due to naturally occurring radiation levels emitted from rocks. It supports the idea that these changes haven't happened over hundreds of thousands of years, like Darwin said in 'The Origin of Species', but that the changes occur in radical spurts over one or two generations.





Examples of this would be Godzilla or..... no, sorry, I made that all up.





Additionally, to 'Emily the Scientist', Creationism isn't an alternative scientific theory, it's an insane desperate grasp for easy answers based on nothing more than ramblings in some old story book.|||Oh that's an easy question and the answer is also very easy..In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and everything contained therein.You must all remember that Evolution is 'Unsubstantiated Theory'.The reason these people ,so-called scientists,come up with these ideas is that they first obliterate any idea that an all powerful God created all things.So they have to 'dream' up some other way.Why is there NO evidence in the fossil record of species evolution?simply because it doesn't exist.Oh,well,then it must have happened BILLIONS of years ago.Christians have always held to The Bible as their ony authorative guide in this life..and the next..i am talking of Protestant Reformed Christians..not Roman Catholics who are the Blind being led by the Blind as it is with other denominations.You may be hostile to Christianity but it is the truth about all things and even though you may not believe now,all will become clear at the Judgement seat of Christ.|||The power of the spoken word. Words are what we live by. Words are a great power and a dominant leadership that captivates and embraces all human beings. Words are powerful and the tongue expresses them. You can cut down with your tongue, You can harm with your tongue, you can destroy with your tongue, you can wound with your tongue and you can heal with your tongue. Solomon said, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue" (Proverbs 18: 21)





There is a great science that has never been proved wrong. Theology, the cream of science. God spoke the world and life into being. With one thought He could wipe away all things. Now there is a science and one that blows away, 'the theory', only a theory of evolution.


|||I find it scary how some people stand as stocically by Darwin as religious people do about intellegent design.





I suspect many of the Darwinists are unaware that Darwin himself suggested evolution was only part of answer, and that other questions about life would be answered elsewhere.





I simple do not believe that my abiltity to see, hear, touch, empathise, etc is purely down to the odd gene mutation here and there, or a bit of natural selection. If we just take our organs, eg an eyeball, thing of how complex it is. Rods, Cones, it's connection to the brain.





How did the eyeball happen? Did a mutation of two blobs suddenly of millions of years turn into an eye? Or did a frog magically develop an eye? Can a darwinist explain to me how the eye developed please?





I am an atheist, but I am afraid Darwin simple does not answer answer all the questions. People who attribute 'intellegent design' theories purely to religion are wrong. I believe there is some design at foot here, but there is scope for design to be part of evolution - we just haven't discovered it yet. Surely it is rather presumptuous to assume we know everything about life?





|||When people answer this question, and suffix "the bible" as a source, they instantly discredit whatever they've written. Just because it's written down, it's not necessarily true (think Harry Potter).





And no, I don't think there is a credible alternative to the theory of descent by modification.|||Look up creation science evangelism and you will see for yourself how creation science can be proved in a scientific way i am not religious i am just keeping an open mind. I found that watching the seminars really enlightening and will make any intelligent person question what they have heard in science.|||Just because Darwinism has not been disproved does not mean that it is fact as a number of people have suggested. For centuries people believed the world was flat or that the Earth was the centre of the universe and if we applied the same rule they would be fact as no one had proved them wrong in a similar period of time. We now look back at the people of those times and this may well be the same in centuries to come but at our expense instead. Haha. I am not a particularly skilled scientist and am not presenting my own theory here but I do think that we should avoid assuming something is correct until we have 110% certainty that it is undoubtedly undisputably correct. Until then it is only a theory!!! And lets remember we are still waiting for the fabled "missing link"|||Why are we discussing a subject that only has one truthful answer. The TRUTH is that we were all created by GOD. If you argue against this TRUTH you will be arguing against the word of GOD himself, and you will have no excuse for this when you kneel before HIM on the day of judgement, because on that day you will NOT deny GOD and the glory of his creation. Be very careful of those who pronounce evolution, the truth is not in them, for they have been deceived by the father of all lies, 'the devil'. GOD will destroy you.





Psalm 5 v 6 .... "you destroy those who tell lies. "








|||No real alternatives, only variations on the theme. All most theories do is argue on the timescale needed to evolve.


The general premise behind Evolution is sound.





No Mark H you are very wrong, there is lots and lots of evidence in the fossil record of species evolution. At least do some research before you dismiss something. A belief in God does not preclude a belief in science I myself believe that a God who is able to create the universe we see around us from one moment with such precision, far surpasses a God that has to interfere at every point to keep his design on track as intelligent design would have us believe.





Also Connor C the idea that everyone believed the earth was flat is a fallacy. Please see link. "Today many scholars agree .... that the "medieval flat Earth" was an exaggeration of Medieval beliefs, which became popular in the nineteenth-century." In fact it was only a wide spread belief before 4th century BC when the ancient Greeks began to discuss the shape of the earth.


|||To put it simply, evolution is a hypnotists that’s been totally rebuked due to the advances in science. Modern Biochemistry and genetics are pointed to an ‘architect’ and ‘designer’. There is a huge movement called Intellectual Design (ID), all the renowned scientists are now subscribing to this. For move visit http://www.evolutiondeceit.com/|||I love it when the religious try to rationalise their delusion. And to top it they criticise other religions...The blind Criticising the blind for leading the blind. Evolution is so easy to conceptualise, unfortunately it is of no comfort..What we all yearn for from birth.|||No, there are no plausable sceintific theories to challenge Darwinian evolution. There are many questions as to the details and mechanisms, but the underlying premise of descent with modification is one of the best tested and successful ideas in all of science.|||No, there are no alternatives, sorry.





"Punctuated equilibrium" is a modifying theory, and not an alternative to evolution.





|||No. A quick glance at the literature will show that no papers are being published involving any other theory or mechanism.|||as the human body as evoled the brian devoled,as the body stops evoling the mind will stop yet agian |||yes, we may not have changed in appearance but we have developed immunities and now have a higher age of death.|||yes.... but darwin hadnt got a clue... his observations were innacurrate and misleading.





there is no evidence to support evolution. evolution simply means change. and we still have 2 arms, 2 legs, five fingers five toes, 2 ears and one nose... in X amny million years we havent evolved... so when is it supposed to happen?





what DOES happen is the combined DNA is mix and matched in the womb, incorporating both parents DNA... thats it... there is NO other way...





you have to remember darwin represented the scientists, who in the 1800's were at odd with the church and their immaculate conception theory...





darwin gave his speech at the royal society, it was reported in "The TImes" newspaper, and accepted as teh truth... without a shred of evidence.





within 6yrs of publication, darwin states in the preface to his rewritten autobiography that he had reason to doubt the accuracy of his theories...





and theres more, but if i tell yo now, youll think im mad... but i know, evolution doesnt happen, wont happen and cannot happen... we develop, and we adapt... which is something different...





oh, and its got bugger all to do with anyones God.|||You don't need an "alternative scientific hypothesis" to evolution. Creation is the only answer (not one of two or more).