Mike,
Good post & some very good points. Just don't see how we can say evolution is still occurring in any sense.
Yesterday I heard that by 2015 almost half of Britain will be obese. They reason: our biology is not adapting fast enough to our new diets and sedentary lifestyles. Well it would do if we didn't keep all the obese people who get diabetes & heart disease alive. They would be bred out of the population and high metabolism people would would become more prominent.
We can look at other types of evolution, say the evolution of society. Looking at the UK we are experiencing social breakdown (I could list the issues in detail with stats). If one generation can reverse social cohesion by such a degree, how can we talk about progressive social evolution? (I know you may say evolution does not imply progress, but in societal terms it can mean nothing else).
Furthering evolution by gene manipulation helps to keep the unfit alive. Real advances where we actually remodel humans will be for the rich only and most of the six billion inhabitants of the earth will scramble along as before.
Technological evolution is responsible for ruining society and feeding into the very basest aspects of our nature (resource gathering regardless of cost). Sense you won't agree but I'm happy to debate it.
Evolution stopped happening as soon as religion said 'put your neighbors needs before your own'.
