Okay . . . by extension from this last post, I must ask what you think would actually qualify as a theory of evolution on par with Einstein's general relativity. Do you think that there is a set of tractable equations that could be used to predict the composition of earth's biota years from now? No, there isn't. The growth of a simple logistic population in isolation, much less the entire planet's biological composition, can be impossible to predict ten generations in the future.
A problem here seems to be that one needs more basic biology in order to think of the ways in which natural selection is a powerful unifying concept.
To take a basic example: how would you explain the existence of vestigial structures, without invoking natural selection as a process that steers populations along the shortest possible route to an adaptive peak?
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I suppose that it does seem that various environments do impose selection pressures
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Yes, many other people suppose the same thing . . . you go on to say that you find the circularity of natural selection troubling. How do you find it troubling? How could the presence of adaptations be better explained, in your opinion?