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"Concerning your statement that "Natural selection isn't defined by speciation" one is driven to ask just exactly what it was Darwinian evolutionists think Darwin was up to when he sought to address the issue in "The Origin of Species"?"

Speciation is ONE end product of natural selection. It is not the only one. Speciation is not required for natural selection to have occurred, or for it to be noticeable. I am sure, since you have read Darwin, you already knew this. :)

"On those long sea voyages, maybe Darwin was simply thinking of girls or something, eh?!"

He was too busy getting sea sick.

"Speciation is ONE end product of natural selection. It is not the only one. Speciation is not required for natural selection to have occurred..."

Check out the caption for the first pic in the article: "...a type of leaf beetle that is in the process of transforming into a new species." This article's Darwinist author either doesn't agree with you or he has a working crystal ball.

Who is correct? Inquiring minds want to know!

Naw, he was thinking of girls and letting his mind wander. That comes through bright and clear in some of his later works where he concludes that it's sex that makes it all happen!

Anyway, it's changes in the genome that make all the difference, and "natural selection" doesn't really explain that ~ it just describes it.

For all anyone knows the bird flu may be the prime mover for transporting genes between species, although some lotharios who post here regularly are of a different opinion (at least concerning their place in the grand scheme).

I think the Darwinian answer is, of course, that irrespective of how the genes get passed aroun, only those which benefit the species (if not the individual) give a survival advantage to the species, and that, in turn, is the element of ultimate importance.

No doubt having teeth in a world without teeth probably allows you to eat more, and presumably breed more, but that's more an "individual" survival advantage and not necessarily of great utility to your species. After all, everybody else may be getting all they really need sucking in through a reverse nephritic process managed by tiny cells in their skin.

The survival of numerous species, apparantly unchanged, for tens of millions of years, suggests that some "designs" have ultimate advantage and enable a species to beat the point spread of the probabilities surrounding natural selection, or, that they have developed an immunity to changes in the genome and are able to ward off all gene changes from whatever source.