Er.... What's the actual question, again? Are you just looking for materials that help argue against/for the Main Hypothesis?

You wrote The general *direction* in the *evolutionary development* and right there you've made the mistake that invalidates everything that builds off of it. Evolution is an unguided, directionless process. Unless and until you can demonstrate that 'nature' somehow has desires and that one of those desires is self-cognition. At present there is no reason to think so and many reasons to reject such a premise, so you have your work cut out for you!

@(Dave B) - your statement that "Evolution is an unguided, directionless process" is nothing more but (though nowadays widely popular mainstream ) yet another unproven (don't refer me to Darwinism as the proof - because it's NOT) ASSUMPTION. I am suggesting that this trend towards self-cognition is possibly just a LAW, which governs the development of Nature.

@jimpliciter - yes you are right ... Perhaps I have to break up my current question into several ones ...

@jimpliciter - thanks for the reference ! As far as my supplementary being "ridiculoculous" or not - that is why I want to discuss it ...

@Joseph Weissman - done, thanks for the guidance ! Could you remove the "hold" ?

@Alex: If/when the question is no longer on hold I'd like to address the statement marked by (*) from the angle of what evolutionary theory actually says and why. So that I'll stay on topic as best as possible, can you please confirm whether you accept the idea of descent with modification as essentially true?

@Dave B - yes, go ahead. But please try not to be dogmatic about what is called nowadays "The Evolutionary Theory" and consider my criticism of it - that it is too narrow in scope on the conceptual level and that particularly it is not conceptually high enough to encompass or explain evolutionary processes, which are exhibited by activities of the Humankind. I hope that you will accept the point that certain human activities, such as studying the Nature and discovering the Laws, which govern it are indeed intrinsic parts of the Evolution in its modern manifestation.

@Alex: I expect that the response will be fairly long so that I can present evidence and the drawn conclusions without being too 'dogmatic'. So that I'm not reproducing an entire biology textbook I'd like to establish what common ground we might have ahead of time, that way I can skip over the parts where we already agree and build from there. :) Can you please indicate whether you accept the basic idea of descent with modification (that is, offspring differ slightly from their parent[s]) as being generally true?

@Dave B - of course I recognize the biological aspects of what is called "The Evolutional Theory" but I consider that the name of that particular theory is a misnomer and that it should actually be called something like "The Theory Of The BIOLOGICAL STAGE Of Evolution" and that in fact it is just a subset of the "Comprehensive Theory of the Evolution" (yet to be written).

@Dave B - to continue my point, expressed in the previous comment ... Perhaps you would agree with me that since the modern Humang Beings has evolved as species - the effect of the Biological Evolutionary development became minimal and could be at large neglected. Instead the evolution nowadays exhibits and manifests itself in the different forms and aspects of the Human Activities ...

@Dave B - on the second thought - let us us discuss this NOT in the framework of THIS question - let us instead open another question, dedicated to the topic relevant to the issue of "what should be the scope of "The Evolutionary Theory" " - ?

@Dave B - as the "heads up" let me "pre-warn" you that within the Q&A of that new (yet to be opened question) I will bring as the argument the analogy between the "biological stage of evolution" and the "Brownian chaotic motion of molecules" - both being on the low level unpredictable and chaotic - but yet on the higher pheminological "macro" level both could be definitively "measured" and described by the certain Laws. The only difference is that the biological evolution could not be recreated and repeated as an experiment "at will" - and that is required for establishing empirical Laws.

@Alex: Thanks for the heads-up, and thank-you for illustrating some of what you think evolutionary theory says. Your responses hint at some common misconceptions, but those may be best addressed in another question, as you say. Back to my earlier request, was that a 'Yes' to my question that you accept the basic idea of descent with modification? If so, is it correct to say that you accept there is at least one mechanism for offspring to inherit traits from their parent[s] (ie: descent) and at least one mechanism that introduces some level of variation from the same?

@Dave B - yes, of course - I accept all of that and I do understand the underlying genetical mechanisms. My point is as I have already stated that I generalize the scope of what I call "The Evolution of Nature" and that in this expanded scope, which I assign to the meaning of the term "Evolution" - the "Biological Evolution" (the one you are to talk about) is just a small subset, which had its significance in the past (before the formation of the Homo Sapiens species) but lost its significance after said event, being superseded in significance by other forms of Evolution - Human Activities ...

@Alex: Awesome. Unfortunately, the 'of course' isn't something that can be assumed - there's a LOT of misinformation about evolution out there. I'll also assume that basics like 'age of the Earth is ~4.5 bn years' and 'evolution has nothing to with abiogenesis' are points we agree on, yes? In short, my challenge will then be to use the facts of evolution to build a case that demonstrates 'regular' evolution is sufficient to explain human activities and that a 'higher' evolution is neither required nor implied. Would that be a fair assessment on my part?

@Dave B - so perhaps our differences are amount just to the fact that you are only see Evolution as a biological-genetical phenomena - while I consider this biological-genetical phenomena just as the (past) subset of what I consider to be "Comprehensive Evolution" .

@Alex: I would have to disagree somewhat with your assessment of my position, but I'll save that for the actual answer :-) Since you seem to hold that there is a higher/guiding power behind evolution, my position in this instance could maybe be summarized (crudely) as: <i>Even with the arrival of modern humans, evolution has no higher purpose and is not governed by any 'higher laws'. The modern synthesis of evolutionary theory is mostly correct and comparable in accuracy to other well-established theories (such as relativity, atomic theory, etc.)</i>

@Dave B - no, I never implied in my essay and in our discussion that there are some "Guiding powers", which direct the course of the Evolution ( a) ) - what I have said is that there exist High scope Laws of Nature, which could describe the trends in the Nature's development ( b) ) - do you see the difference between a) and b) ? The issue of discussing how the Laws of Nature got formed, as they are ... That is the topic in which (I am afraid to say) neither You nor me (nor anybody else for that matter) have enough knowledge to talk about :-)

@Alex: Perhaps I've been talking with too many people that are invested in 'Higher Powers' that I mistook your stance to be a rephrasing of the same. The difference isn't clear to me, but for now I'll ignore it as a distraction. Is it more fair to say you are positing the existence of some physical law (beyond what's included in the modern synthesis) that guides/directs evolution? (Early on, you took issue with my statement that "Evolution is an unguided, directionless process" - so you must be positing some guidance or direction, correct?)

@Dave B - in your latest comment you correctly summarized my position and answer to your question raised in the end of your comment is - Yes. I envision that effectively direction of the Evolution manifests itself in particular Human Activity - gaining knowledge of the Laws of the Nature. The product of such activity - the gained knowledge (as I conjecture ) will survive the Human Race and will be passed to whatever "next stage of the Evolution", which will come about as successor/preemptor of the Humankind in evolutionary chain (say creatures with artificial intelligence, i.e. robots, etc.).