You faith in "natural selection" as hard, empirical science exceeds my own faith that where there is organized matter performing specific functions, there is evidence of intelligent design. You may confess your faith as loudly and doggedly as you please, yet it is plain that "natural selection" carries no more weight scientifically than Kipling's "Just So Stories."
Jeeze -- where to start?
We have Fact A, and Fact X. We can certainly conjecture Fact A leading to Fact X. We hold an object at waist high (Fact A). We turn our back while holding it. We drop it. We turn back and see it is on the ground. What are we to suppose?
1. Creationism: God took the object and placed it on the ground.
2. Science: Some measurable and observable force affected the object which resulted in it being on the ground.
1 is Faith. 2 is Science. Your assertion is so silly you might as well posit that physics is a result of Shakespear's Much Ado About Nothing.
[natural selection as a man-made construct]
Darwin was quite familiar with the results of selective breeding of pigeons, dogs, cattle, race horses, and other domestic animals.
In the Galapagos he saw what were obviously finches that were somewhat specialized with respect to food, and that they had somewhat different beaks, seemingly designed for the foods they ate.
(One of) his "AHA" moments was when he realized what was going on: if a dog breeder only lets the smallest dogs reproduce, he eventually winds up with terriers and chihuahuas. If the most abundant food is nuts, we eventually wind up with finches with parrot-like beaks.
IN one case the bigger dogs aren't allowed to breed; in the other case, the finches with the duck-like beaks starve
What exactly is wrong with this?