I continue to amazed by the conflation, even in the NYT, between the claim of descent with modification from a one or a few simple original forms(the fact of evolution) and the theory of natural selection as the major cause of evolutonary change . The former (evolution) is clearly falsifiable in a Popperian sense--as JBS Haldane noted, a single fossil rabbit in Cambrian rocks would be sufficient because the the first fossil mammals are found in rocks some 400 million years later than the Cambrian. It should also be remembered that Darwin did not claim to account for the origin of those first living things--indeed he flirted to his own regret with Creationism: "There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and htat, while this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful an dmost wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
Evolution is almost universally accepted by biologists today. In its continuous confusion between these two claims of Darwin's theory, the American press and the American presidential candidates have disgraced themselves.
Yours, Rakesh