Natural Selection is an Oxymoron

I want to extend my sincere appreciation to Sagey for agreeing to participate in this debate. Here's an observation: Some organisms reproduce. Some don't. I have just succinctly described that which we call Natural Selection. This is a completely passive process. There is nothing active about it. It simply happens. There is no "selection" taking place. There is only the natural course of the life and death of organisms. In "The Origin of Species," Darwin asks: "Can the principles of selection, which we have seen is so potent in the hands of man, apply in nature?...we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural Selection"[1]. What are these "principles of selection" to which Darwin refers? Darwin studied selective breeding. Selective breeding, otherwise referred to as artificial breeding, is the practice of deliberately ensuring that certain traits of plants or animals survive from one generation to the next. It is a process exercised by professionals. It is active. It is purposeful. The very word selection refers to an active, purposeful process; a process invariably associated with the intentional states of agents. Does the inanimate environment actively participate in a purposeful "selection" process?. Does the environment so much as care whether any organism survives or not? Does the environment, as Darwin suggested, "rigidly destroy" injurious variations? Of course not! Does the environment, as Darwin suggested, "preserve" some organisms while "rejecting" others? No! Some organisms reproduce and others do not. Darwin enlists several teleological terms in order to describe this purely passive process. Does it happen that some organisms reproduce while others do not? Of course. But my point here is that there is no active "selection" going on here. Darwin has simply helped himself to yet another teleological term in describing this purely passive process. Please understand that this is not a debate about the scope or power of what we call Natural Selection (although that is a debate I would be very happy to have). At issue here is nothing more than an examination of the term we use to describe a certain reality. A review of how mainstream biology textbooks define Darwinian evolution reveals the common use of the following words and phrases: "blind," "undirected," "purposeless," "without a plan," "without goals"[2]. A process cannot simultaneously be undirected and purposeful. To say that it can is the very essence of the word "oxymoron." If we are to communicate clearly, it is essential that we define the words we use precisely. When we use the word "selection," we always refer to an active, purposeful, goal-oriented process. It would be far more honest and accurate of us to refer to "Natural Selection," as "differential reproduction and survival," because that is what it is. It is nothing more. Selection is an active process. Unless you believe that the environment makes intentional decisions, you must agree that the term, "Natural Selection" is an oxymoron. I now turn the debate over to my opponent.... [1] "On the Origin of Species," Darwin [2] "God and Evolution," Richards