> What exactly do we mean by mutation? I ask this because the variations allowed by sexual reproduction itself is typically the cause of genetic change. As current evolutionary theory stands, these small modifications from generation to generation are carried forward until something triggers a selection event, -You have quoted evolutionary theory properly, but that doesn't mean the theory is correct. Mutations can be due to cosmic rays, mistakes in translation, duplication, epigenetic factors, and 70%, at least, create bad effects or are neutral. We've been over this before. Punctuated Equilibrium, unless you are talking to Gould followers, upsets some folks, since it points to more rapid changes, not explained in the way you have.
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> Why this ties in with dogs is that this statement shows that the reason the forms of life we see are here, is because of a selection event. It explains adaptation. -There is no question that DNA changes arrange for adaptation. It is also true that humans domesticated wolves that then became dogs, with DNA 98% like wolves, and in fact dogs and wolves breed easily. I've met wolf/dog combos here in Texas and in Alaska. 
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> So do I understand that both you and David would contend that the combinations of sexual reproduction and natural selection are insufficient to describe life's diversity? 
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> If so, exhibit A: Dogs.-Dogs were developed actively by human selective breeders. As I have pointed out many times in the past natural selection and mutation are both passive. Mutation depends on chance. Natural Selection depends upon what variations are present, and what challenges nature presents. Species disappear if they cannot respond appropriately.-You state in another note that wolves have never varied like dogs. They have variation depending upon their habitat, but are still wolves. -The two issues, I interpret differently. I am Gouldian in that I'm not sure macroevolution, as you describe it ever occurs. The Cambrian Explosion is, of course, the best example. I don't think wolves and dogs are a different species. They breed easily and one came from the other. Further because of the passivity of mutation and natural selection, I think evolution works in a staccato fashion, not by slow tiny steps, because I think DNA is pre-coded to advance to different very diverse species. And finally, the fossil record may be incomplete, but it currently represents advancement by the method I have described. 
In short, I don't think your wolf approach proves anything. but the underlying article that started the discussion shows what amazing variation can be purposely developed by the intellectual activity of selective breeding. Nature, as we know it, is not very intellectual.

MATT: What exactly do we mean by mutation? I ask this because the variations allowed by sexual reproduction itself is typically the cause of genetic changes. [...] 
Do I understand that both you and David would contend that the combination of sexual reproduction and natural selection are insufficient to describe life's diversity? If so, exhibit A: Dogs.-Life's "diversity" is too vague for me. My wife tells me there are 25,000 cultivars of daffodil alone! I don't suppose there are that many types of dog, but a daff is a daff, and a dog is a dog. If we're going to talk of variations, every individual specimen is different too, whether flower, animal or human. -The problem as I see it is twofold: 1) innovation, and 2) complexity. Your dogs may be different, but they still have all the organs and basic doggy characteristics of other dogs, and your new breeds are no more and no less complex than your old ones. There is nothing new here ... merely variation. But while you're thinking of dog to dog, I'm thinking of prokaryote to eukaryote to dog, duck, elephant, grasshopper, diplodocus, dormouse, eagle, crocodile...all the way up to Matt. And while you're thinking that it's all thanks to sexual reproduction, I'm thinking prokaryote to eukaryote to sexual reproduction, the senses, the circulatory system, the digestive system, the nervous system, the brain.... -Mutation as I understand it is the production of something new. My starting point is always the primitive forms of life, and then I try to figure out how they evolved to us, the most complex that we know of. The list of necessary innovations is colossal. If you bear in mind that these systems never existed, that the original mechanisms had to figure them out from scratch ... blindly unconscious though they were, and working solely through individual organisms going from one generation to another ... the inventiveness is too immense for us even to imagine, over no matter how many millions of years. And bear in mind that those individuals had already survived and reproduced, so they didn't actually NEED to come up with anything new. I have no idea how much of this innovation is due to random mutation and how much to the influence of the environment on the genetic makeup, or the response of the genetic makeup to the environment, but as I said before, the origin of adaptability in itself is an unexplained mystery. I don't know why you say that "the reason the forms of life we see are here, is because of a selection event. It explains adaptation." I would put it the other way round: adaptation explains why we see the forms of life we see. Natural selection gives precedence to the best adapted forms.-The argument relating to innovation is the same for complexity. Why should a light-sensitive nerve become an eye? If the nerve itself conveyed an advantage, that doesn't mean it needed to improve itself. Natural selection certainly couldn't improve it. All natural selection could do is ensure that the most sensitive nerves survived and were passed on, but what was passed on would still only have been a light-sensitive nerve. And we're not even considering the complexities of how a nerve comes to be a nerve and comes to be connected to the most complex of all the innovations, namely the brain. -This is the point at which one can only speculate. We know that all the organs did come into existence. We all agree that the simple did become more complex (although many simple forms of life have survived unchanged, so change is far from inevitable). But we don't know how, and mumbling the magic formula "evolution wooj wooj natural selection" explains nothing. How the mechanisms that drive evolution have been able to invent, refine their inventions, and add more innovations to their inventions, is still beyond our comprehension. One explanation (for those of us who believe in evolution) is that they were designed and programmed, with possible interventions made by the programmer. Another is that they all came about originally by chance, with a large number of interventions again made by chance. I think both versions accept that anything useful in a particular environment is likely to survive (= natural selection). David is convinced of the first theory, George of the second, and I'm left groping in the dark.

GEORGE: dhw quotes a definition of natural selection from The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. [..] Then he deliberately misquotes it.-The original line, which I reproduced in full, was: "It is now generally accepted that natural selection, acting on MUTATIONS which are in their origin non-adaptive, is the primary cause of evolution."-In the list with which I ended my post, I expressed my disapproval of "statements like the following": "Natural selection [...] is the primary cause of evolution."-It did not seem necessary to me to reproduce the whole quote, since this is the part of the statement that I object to, as I had already explained in my post. I clearly indicated the omission, as is customary when one edits quotes. The implication of "deliberately misquotes" is that I have cheated by changing both the words and the meaning. I have not done so, and would hardly have provided the full quote if I had intended to do so.-You go on to say: "Natural selection" means nothing without something from which to select. Quite right. Why have you put this in?-You have provided us with the full title of the first edition of Darwin's book. My own is a later edition without the alternative (which is rarely used), but it doesn't make the slightest difference to the argument, because the title you've quoted still contains the claim that species originated by means of natural selection. I'm sorely tempted to think that your whole post is designed to distract attention from the main argument, not to mention the embarrassing Dawkins quotes, but no, you wouldn't stoop that low, would you, George?