Rhawn Joseph

Rhawn Joseph is an American neuropsychologist and writer known for his controversial views on the origin of life on Earth and the origin of the Universe.

Joseph is involved with the pseudojournal Journal of Cosmology and is the author of Astrobiology: The Origins of Life and the Death of Darwinism, published in 2001. In the book he writes that "Contrary to Darwinism … the evidence now clearly indicates, that the evolution of life had been genetically predetermined and precoded…" The book appears to be self-published under the deceptive "Publisher: University Pr" -- not Press, but Pr, and, oh, which university -- which does not appear to have published any other books.

On the origin of life, evolution and the Big Bang
Joseph is an advocate of directed panspermia and has developed his own hypothesis about the origins of life on Earth. He believes that life did not originate on Earth but was transplanted here by "cosmic seeds" encased in space debris 700 million years after the formation of the planet. He claims that these genetic seeds filled with DNA contained the genetic instructions for the metamorphosis of all life, including human beings. He also rejects the neo-Darwinian synthesis, instead advocating a form of non-Darwinian evolution which he describes as a "pre-determined evolutionary metamorphosis" that is pre-programmed in DNA of all terrestrial life. Joseph has published a number of fringe papers on panspermia with in the Journal of Cosmology.

Joseph argues that many of the mainstream scientific positions that he rejects, including abiogenesis and the Big Bang are actually religion masquerading as science. He argues that the Big Bang is rooted in the Genesis account of the Bible and unsupported by cosmological evidence. In his own words:

In 2014, Joseph filed a lawsuit against NASA as he claimed they failed to investigate whether a rock seen on Mars is in fact an alien lifeform.

Reception
Joseph has been criticized by the scientific community for embracing unorthodox mechanisms of evolution. In one instance, the biologist P.Z. Myers ridiculed a claim by Joseph that a rock found on Mars is a living organism similar to a type of fungus existing on Earth. He has also made controversial comments about sex, including "Biologically, females serve one purpose: to get pregnant".