I have never found evolution to be controversial. It's a theory which, like all scientific theories, gets reworked as new discoveries are made and new techniques are developed.
There is no theory which is set in stone. There are some which are well established and well documented. And even those will change or at least be tweaked with time. And some are just confirmed more and more over time. (like Einstein's theories)
Quote:
An evolution revolution has begun after scientists extracted genetic information from a 1.77 million-year-old rhino tooth -- the largest genetic data set this old to ever be confidently recorded.
Researchers identified an almost complete set of proteins, a proteome, in the dental enamel of the now-extinct rhino and the resulting genetic information is one million years older than the oldest DNA sequenced from a 700,000-year-old horse.
Quote:
'For 20 years ancient DNA has been used to resolve questions about the evolution of extinct species, adaptation and human migration but it has limitations. For the first time we have retrieved ancient genetic information which allows us to reconstruct evolution way beyond the usual time limit of DNA preservation', Professor Enrico Cappellini, Associate Professor in Palaeoproteomics at the Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, and first author on the paper, says.
SourceQuote:
'This new analysis of ancient proteins from dental enamel will start an exciting new chapter in the study of molecular evolution.'
For example, the reliance on DNA analysis allowed to genetically track the processes of evolution behind the origins of our species that occurred approximately in the last 400,000 years. However, considering the lineages leading to our species and to the chimp (the living species closest to us) branched apart approximately six to seven million years ago, it means that we currently have no genetic information from more than 90% of the path of evolution that led to us.
