[js1138]

Not only does natural selection fail to provide a predictable path for future speciation, but it also allows ample opportunity for ad hoc application.

You can't predict the weather more than a couple days in advance, nor the stock market. Same with any complex system.

You can't predict the long term behavior of any complex, creative phenomenon.

But you are correct that there are plenty of Monday morning quarterbacks. What evolution describes is not the future, but the process.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Strange how the weather man and the stock market do not attempt to use judges to enforce their lack of predictability. These, too, will explain history via ad hoc applications. The weatherman throws up his hands, but still does his best and is still learning. The stock market is subject to abuses prior to the day's transactions, and, when one tries to interpret a trend one does so with hardly enough knowledge in mind to determine the cause and effect with much detail.

But again, the principles behind weather forecasting and economics are not what Darwinian ideologues are running away from.

[Fester Chugabrew]

What evolution describes is not the future, but the process.

As far as explanatory value is concerned, which label is more appropriate, "natural selection," or "God did it?" I reckon one may salve his intellect by asserting "natural selection" as more explanatory, but when it is applied post facto and does make predictions I hardly think it has much value from the standpoint of emprical science. One can use any number of labels to describe the process. The issue here is what is or is not behind the process, and thus resides outside the grasp of empiricism. It requires a set of shaping principles to be applied either inductively or deductively, which set of principles may or may not be in accord with objective reality.