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Thank you for your post!

All this frame-shifting and name-associating is too much for me!

Popper did not mention Darwin at all in his article. He did mention the reaction to Marx and Freud as the reason he asked whether they were "science" as alleged. He said:

I found that those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud, and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent explanatory power. These theories appear to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, open your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refuse to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still "un-analyzed" and crying aloud for treatment.

The most characteristic element in this situation seemed to me the incessant stream of confirmations, of observations which "verified" the theories in question; and this point was constantly emphasize by their adherents. A Marxist could not open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for his interpretation of history; not only in the news, but also in its presentation — which revealed the class bias of the paper — and especially of course what the paper did not say. The Freudian analysts emphasized that their theories were constantly verified by their "clinical observations." …

My point to connectthedots is that Popper's objections to Marx and Freud may be the very things that trouble many people today about Darwin. If that is so, then the seven conclusions he drew would be applicable to evolution biology as well.

Upon reflection, it occurs to me I have spoken hastily. I apologize. If the credibility of my sources is going to be questioned, it ought to be here.

The object of the essay was to look at what the mathematicians and physicists are bringing to the table with regard to evolution. Here are the sources and the areas they question, in reverse order:

Gerald Schroeder – questions the randomness pillar of biological evolution
Stephen Wolfram – questions the natural selection pillar of biological evolution
Luis Rocha – questions the syntactic autonomy that gives rise to self-organizing complexity
H.H. Pattee – questions the von Neumann challenge, what is the nature of this thing life
Hubert P Yockey – questions the rise of life from non-life
Marcel-Paul Schützenberger – questions the rise of functional complexity
Stephen Hawking – questions the beginning of time
Sir Martin Rees – questions the rise of the six numbers which allow this universe
Robert Jastrow – questions the significance of a beginning
Sir Roger Penrose – questions the bridge from quantum to classical and the physics of consciousness
Max Tegmark – questions what is all that there is
Sir Karl Popper – questions what is science
Please let me know which sources you believe are in error or whose credentials are lacking and why you believe that to be true.

Thank you!