"I have called this principle, by which, each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection. " -- Charles Dickens

Science Jerry Fodor offers a case against Darwin's theory of natural selection:

"In fact, an appreciable number of perfectly reasonable biologists are coming to think that the theory of natural selection can no longer be taken for granted. This is, so far, mostly straws in the wind; but it’s not out of the question that a scientific revolution – no less than a major revision of evolutionary theory – is in the offing. Unlike the story about our minds being anachronistic adaptations, this new twist doesn’t seem to have been widely noticed outside professional circles. The ironic upshot is that at a time when the theory of natural selection has become an article of pop culture, it is faced with what may be the most serious challenge it has had so far. Darwinists have been known to say that adaptationism is the best idea that anybody has ever had. It would be a good joke if the best idea that anybody has ever had turned out not to be true. A lot of the history of science consists of the world playing that sort of joke on our most cherished theories."

Which is what I like about science -- even orthodoxy can be challenged and questioned. I can't really give an answer either way, except that I don't understand why environmental circumstances and natural selection can't work together on this -- surely a survival instinct is induced if an environment becomes harsher and it's the strongest of the species which copes?