[dchacke]

I'll respect your wish not to spend any more time on it, and will leave you with two closing comments:

1. Like I said, the article is aware of and addresses the tautological nature of neo-Darwinism generally.

2. The part you quoted is not useless because, if true, it refutes other (en-vogue but false) theories about "reasons for belief," such as higher/lower numeric credences, stronger neuronal connections, etc.