In real life, natural selection weeds out anything an iota to the left or right of the norm for a species; it is the cause of the stasis which we observe in the fossil record. It PREVENTS change rather than causing it.
How could anything be stupider than a theory claiming that natural selection creates new kinds of animals? That's basically like claiming to be in the business of constructing new buildings with a wrecking ball.
I think it's a little more complex than that -- e.g., the tendency to produce a litter of 4 puny pups is not necessarily an improvement in evolutionary terms over the tendency to produce a litter of 2 normal-sized ones -- but I think we agree in essence here.
The human eye, or any eye for that matter, caused considerable consternation for Darwin himself as it certainly would not be a positive mutation unless fully functioning. Therefore, it is inconceivable that "natural selection" would have continued to select for each infintesimal improvement that would eventually lead to a usable eye.
Not really. Darwin didn't have a particular problem with eye evolution, and modern thinkers have elaborated on and confirmed his basic ideas -- Richard Dawkins, for example, has a fascinating chapter on eye evolution in Climbing Mt. Improbable (among other things, he uses optical calculations to show how gradual modifications of the shape of the eye/proto-eye/whatever gradually increase its efficiency). The mistaken premise here is that an eye isn't "usable" until it's as efficient (or nearly as efficient) as our own. Even the tiny benefit in avoiding predators or finding mates provided by a dim, shadowy view of the world will be selected for.
The term "guided natural selection" is a contradiction. Guided would imply an intelligence such as in human-engineered selective breeding.
Not necessarily; if I trip at the top of the stairs, gravity will guide my subsequent rapid descent. No intelligence required. :-) Anyway, I didn't refer to "guided natural selection"; I said natural selection "guides" the underlying chance so it's not "blind". I trust the distinction is obvious?
But, after intelligently directed selective breeding for hundreds of years, thousands in the case of goldfish, no new species has been created.
I don't know squat about goldfish, so I have no clue whether new goldfish species have been created. But I do have one question for you: What is a species, anyway? If we can agree on a definition, I suspect we could locate a new one of recent vintage either intelligently selected for or not. Not sure what this would prove, but still. . .
If there is a guidance mechanism in natural selection, it would seem a powerful argument for intelligent design, which is what the debate is all about.
No more so than, say, the guidance "mechanism" inherent in organic molecules that restricts the ways they can combine with other molecules. Both could result from an exquisitely skillful Creator, or that could just be the way things are.
Anyway, I'd like to reiterate one thing: Although I'm no expert on evolutionary theory, I posted because I keep seeing people misunderstand or misrepresent what evolutionary theory claims to be. I'm all for challenging evolutionary theory; the possibility will always exist that there's a better (or at least more complete) answer than what we currently think is going on. But attacking claims that evolutionary theory doesn't make won't help us find that better answer.