More Evidence of Evolution - Geomyidae and Geomydoecus

Well, I'm not a credible biologist . However, I DO understand that selection must, by definition, operate at the level of the individual organism. After all, it's the organism that reproduces (or not). Evolution, on the other hand, operates at the level of a population. I would have thought that would be obvious (and no, this is REALLY not the thread to get into the pros and cons of group selection theory).

Yep. My admin alter ego is already yammering at me for posting the last bit off topic. I don't have huge amounts of time, but if you'd care to start a new topic and define the parameters of the discussion as you've framed them here, I'll be happy to join in.

This is one of Martin's pet arguments (and is one of the bases for Davison's, erm, strange views). Nomogenesis is a theory of directed evolution that was first (or most loudly) propounded by Lev Berg in the 1920's in a book of the same name. It is basically a form of biological determinism (sort of "clockwork evolution" - a very mechanistic viewpoint) derived from 19th Century views of orthogenesis - which in turn was more or less the last gasp of the midieval escala naturae. The basic idea is that nature (writ large) is driving toward a set goal or purpose, and that evolution continues toward perfection driven by a set of obscure natural "laws". I don't think Berg had any supernatural component, however.