For the meat of your post, remember, if evolution makes no sense minus natural selection, than you cannot have one without the other. I don't necessarily view that as an equivocation, because at least at the moment, there is nothing better. There is a lot better if one follows the curent radical thinking that has appeared. "Natural selection' has always been a tautology. I keep raving about epigenetic evidence of rapid change. Here is much more:-http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/19/evolution-darwin-natural-selection-genes-wrong