First...I just want to clarify that I am a student at a Christian University that whole-heartedly believes in evolution...but I found your challenge interesting. I dont have a way to dis-prove evolution...or I would be famous enough for you to have already heard of me since you are interested in the topic to beigin with, however, I believe I have an interesting scenario in which it does truly apply. For example, one of the features of evolution is that populations evolve as the individuals in that population are selected for or against by natural selection based on each individuals fitness...this is agreed upon by most. If you go deeper than that, say a look into the aspects of kin selection and social behavior, you will find that the general consensus of scientists feel that there are 4 types of social interactions, cooperative (actor benefits/redipient benefits), selfish (actor benefits/recipient is harmed), spiteful (both actor and recipient harmed), and Altruistic (actor harmed at the benefit of the recipient). Spite obviously has not evolved since an allele that lowers the fitness of an individual would quickly be selected against and evolve out of a population, but altruism, explaine in part by kin selection seems to be pretty abundant in nature...including human nature. Which brings me to my point to challenge your question. My point is that I feel that altruism does not actually exist at all. If you look at humans, you may give an example of a parent pushing their child out of the way of a moving car as altruism...the parent dies or is harmed and the child lives...altruism. Or is it? Since the main purpose of all living organisms, including humans is to survive and reproduce can be viewed as increasing ones fitness in order to pass their genetic lineage on to future generations. So in the case of the parent and the car...it isnt altruistic...the parents main purpose of passing on their genetic lineage (fitness) is improved by ensuring the harm is on themselves rather than their offspring, since it better ensures their offsprings ability to pass on the genetic lineage. So what about non-relatives? Take the example of a small town, there is a man with a flat on the side of the road, and someone stops to help, thus expending energy to aid and benefit a non-relative, this expendature of energy is a decrease in fitness at the benefit of another...altruism. Or is it? You might look at it this way, in a small town, if you stop to help out a stranger and it benefits them at a cost to yourself, you may be stopping in hopes that you will be helped when you get a flat, or you may want the people in the small town to see what a good person you are, increasing your appeal to possible mates, which will increase your fitness and chance to reproduce to pass on your genetic lineage. This is possibly why you wouldnt be surprised to see strangers helping each other out in small towns...but youo rarely see this happen in large towns...becasue in a large town the odds you will later benefit by recieveing help in return for your "altruisitic" act of kindness decrease as the population in wuestion increase. So, my point is after all of this explanaintion is that I feel there is no such thing as "altruism", I have pondered this many times and come to the same conclusion...in no circumstances, from the most miniscule and simple to the largest and most complex organisms, is there one example in which one organism performs an action in which some way a benefit, even if not immedeatly obvious, is not gained. Though this does not disprove evolution and render myself deserving of the fifty dollars, I think that it does offer a different perspective to view a facet of evolution that is taught in graduate level textbooks...that may in fact...be wrong. I am not challenging whether or not evolution exists, I am just trying to see things from all angles. But if you really want to disprove evolution...it would be simple to do so. All you need to do is discover an organism that performs an action that is harmful, and in no way whatsoever beneficial to that individulas fitness while benefiting another, you essentially prove that there is an organism that defies the laws of evolution. Anybody know of one?
Good question, made me think! Feel free to reply with any thoughts.
~peace~love~equality~