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What are alternatives to Charles Darwin evolution except creationism?

Is there any "hypothesis" except evolution and creationism or there is none?

Btw. I consider things like some proto-building blocks/cells arriving as part of some asteroids as an evolution, because it have to evolve somewhere else if not here on the planet Earth.

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What do you mean by "Charles Darwin evolution"? We certainly know much more than Darwin did in his day, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_thought – Michael Kuhn Feb 19 at 8:12
By CHDE I mean that the species "evolve/change" during the time. – Derfder Feb 19 at 8:51
So you're asking for alternatives to "species evolve/change during time"? Then they must be unchanging, created ex nihilo. – Michael Kuhn Feb 19 at 9:10
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agreed with @michaelkuhn - things could either have evolved (changed over time) or been created (not changed over time and been perfectly designed) - there is no middle ground between those two. But I think you are also asking "what are alternative theories for the origins of life?" a) Creationism b) Darwin's "warm little ponds" c) Other. I suggest reading this wikipedia page (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis) - there is also a youtube video with another theory (search "water bears came from space") – rg255 Feb 19 at 9:27
I'm voting to close. There are seeds of a good question in here, but it needs to be edited to be much more precise both in wording, and what constitutes an acceptable answer. – DVK Feb 21 at 17:07

closed as not constructive by Michael Kuhn, kmm♦, Jack Aidley, Gianpaolo R, DVK Feb 21 at 17:06

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2 Answers

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I'd agree with @Jack.

The only theories on the table are odd cases where the typical cases inheritance, variation, and selection are not exactly as Darwin described them.

In case you are interested here's a list of some:

  • Epigenetic inheritance. This is the inheritance of a trait which is manifested from the modification of the DNA (e.g. methylation of a cytosine or adenosine). It may also include some traits conveyed by the specific histone or other protein components of the mother cell. Epigenetic effects do not modify the DNA permanently and will typically be lost in a generation or so, but they are also the result of the changes from some sort of experience of the parent, transmitted to offspring. (e.g. starvation in the life of the parent causes its children to metabolize food differently). This is often thought of as a Lamarckian mechanism - not as Lamarck defined it but as re-defined by others more recently. This is a very broad set of mechanisms that include the action of prions and viruses as well.

  • Lateral gene transfer. This is cases where genes are not inherited from parents, but are acquired (or donated) by other organisms or species directly into the germline. This does not happen a lot (more often in plants than animals) but does affect animals and plants on an evolutionary timescale.

  • Bacteria go by different rules than Darwin had considered. They often need not reproduce sexually, but they may. They can acquire genetic material from dead bacteria, phage, viruses and shed them just as quickly, store traits in plasmids or phage until they need them. Its difficult to name bacterial species as such, and its not clear how many there are.

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Just a precision: I don't think bacteria "reproduce sexually": as far as I know, genetic exchanges happen between bacteria, but are independent from reproduction. – bli Feb 21 at 9:51
@bli yes you are right - F pili gene exchange is only a bacterial analog to sex and although DNA can be exchanged it does not result in whole genome recombination... its more like lateral gene transfer. It is probably one of the things that keep bacterial individuals in a species grouping though. – shigeta Feb 21 at 15:02
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Creationism is not a hypothesis, nor an alternative to Evolution. It is a religious belief with no foundation in reality or scientific thought.

There have been other hypothesises about the origin of species (e.g. Lamarckism) but there are no hypothesises currently debated by scientists as alternatives. Evolution is far too well established for that. Debate, instead, concentrates about the details of how evolution proceeds and the relative importance of different factors (e.g. genetic drift, speciation, adaptive selection, horizontal gene transfer, etc.)

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Creationism is a hypothesis and--barring the more extreme forms of created history--is testable to a large degree. (Distinguishing between an ET material intelligence and action from outside this universe would be difficult, but falsifying a singular event hypothesis is much easier.) Even a falsified hypothesis is still a hypothesis (albeit of limited utility). – Paul A. Clayton Feb 19 at 16:09
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An idea akin to Creationism could be a hypothesis but Creationism as it exists in the world today is not a hypothesis but a collection of delusional anti-reality rants without a coherent notion of what supposedly happened. – Jack Aidley Feb 19 at 16:15
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I agree with Paul Clayton, it is a hypothesis, just one that is very easy to disprove. "The earth is flat" is a hypothesis. – terdon Feb 19 at 17:11
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@terdon: anything involving God (and creationism falls into the category by definition) is not a scientific hypothesis, as the existence of God cannot not be scientifically proven. – nico Feb 19 at 18:48
@nico - the criteria is disprovability (falsifyedness), not provability. Anthro* string theory components are also unprovable, but doesn't stop them from being theories. – DVK Feb 21 at 17:05
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