What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

[Schneibster]

It's w00t.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Did anyone else laugh when this page was linked to by somebody as an aid to understanding the meaning of 'stochastic' w.r.t evolution?

How many people on the planet do you think have the required background knowledge to understand such a description? My bet would be <1%. I guess the other 99%+ will have to settle for the "misleading" descriptions provided by Dawkins et al.

 

[mijopaalmc]

To add to what Walter has just said, articulett seems to just deny and misrepresent rather that clarify and explain.

So here are some questions for you, articulett:

Where have I made a reference to natural selection as "diminishing probabilties"? Please provide a specific quote where I either use that exact phrase or some form of the word "diminish" or a synonym.

How do I misunderstand natural selection? Please provide specific quotation from what I have and explain why they are misunderstandings.

How do the citations that I have provided not support my assertion that evolution by natural selection is not a stochastic process based in probabilities of survival and reproduction? Please provide specific quotation from what I have written and the articles I have provided that show that I misconstrue what the articles say.

I would like to mention that there is a review of the past 85 years of research on the stochastic modeling of evolution by natural selection, Stochastic Models of Evolution in Genetics, Ecology and Linguistics, that describes in stochastic nature of models of evolution by natural selection, including the stochastic nature of natural selection itself.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Did anyone else laugh when this page was linked to by somebody as an aid to understanding the meaning of 'stochastic' w.r.t evolution?

How many people on the planet do you think have the required background knowledge to understand such a description? My bet would be <1%. I guess the other 99%+ will have to settle for the "misleading" descriptions provided by Dawkins et al.

I didn't necessarily link to that page to aid people's understanding but to demonstrate that a "stochastic process" is firmly rooted in probability theory. I admit that a full explanation of the definition in relatively intelligible terms (i.e., terms that would be understood by someone who has had some college calculus, as I assume anyone who is certified to teach any science has) is far beyond my capabilities at the moment, but I think that, by at least spending some time exploring the linked articles, one can come to the understanding that "random" in that case of the "random variables" that are part of a stochastic process is used in completely different way that the layman's use of "random". Thus, while it is unnecessarily confusing to use "random" to describe evolution by natural selection, the relation of evolution by natural selection to probability theory cannot be ignored and must be incorporated into its pedagogy by someone with more experience in math and science pedagogy that I.

 

[articulett]

Articulett, few times on this page you have advocated death for people who have an ideology different than yours (you think, with or without evidence). Your profile says that you live in Las Vegas, but, can I ask, is that by way of Salem?

Are you slow? I didn't advocate the death of anyone. Jerry Falwell is dead. I said, "one down...". Like with Galileo, the old guys with a vested interest keep people from learning the facts--but they die off, and young people assimilate the information. The same is true with evolution. As Ivor notes. In fact, anyone teaching the subject will tell you that kids pick it up pretty easily, but old creationists can't no matter how much explaining you do.

And if you are talking about my seatbelt example, I was merely using the word random in the way mijo does. You know, like this:

For instance, the macroscopic properties of gas (e.g., temperature and pressure) are described by the microscopic properties of the particles in the gas (e.g., their kinetic energy and the number of impacts against the container, respectively), which in turn determined by non-uniform probability distributions. Similarly, the evolution of the a population is described by the action of mutation and natural selection on individuals, which are themselves determined by the non-uniform probabilities of mutation and survival. These are the reasons that I think evolution is "random", not because I think that its being "random" makes it impossible.

That is mijo's quote...but just plug in "death" where it says evolution and "seat belt use" where it says mutation. It's all crystal clear now isn't it? Certainly as clear as mijo's stellar explanation of evolution.

That's the problem with you creationists. You all have your little bugaboos, but you just aren't on the same page, so it's incoherence from multiple angles.

Everyone else can answer the question at the top of the thread or at least explain why it's a bad question or why it's misleading to define evolution as a random or stochastic process.

Everyone else seems to find this meaningful in regards to natural selection and not conveyed at all in the creationist explanation: all life forms alive today are the result of an unbroken line of millions of years of successful reproduction and mutations--From the one in 200 million sperm that fertilized the ova, all the way back in time, all life forms are the product of the very few potential life forms that were able to copy themselves. And the further back in time you go, the fewer times the turning events had to occur...just like the furthest tip of a tree, has it's origin in the seed that begat it.

Evolution evolves very much the way technology does and scientific knowledge--what "works" stays and grows and is honed and evolves--what is obsolete, dies out and we can never know all the genius ideas that never were or never took off. But building technology is not a random process even though it's filled and molded by all sorts of random things, chance encounters, serendipity, etc.

I can't imagine why someone who actually understands evolution and isn't an "intelligent design" proponent would go out of their way to sound as unclear as one.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>
Evolution evolves very much the way technology does and scientific knowledge--what "works" stays and grows and is honed and evolves--what is obsolete, dies out and we can never know all the genius ideas that never were or never took off. But building technology is not a random process even though it's filled and molded by all sorts of random things, chance encounters, serendipity, etc.

And that's the crux of it for me: there are random components in every system. Progress comes when we can model the underlying processes.

 

[articulett]

I didn't necessarily link to that page to aid people's understanding but to demonstrate that a "stochastic process" is firmly rooted in probability theory. I admit that a full explanation of the definition in relatively intelligible terms (i.e., terms that would be understood by someone who has had some college calculus, as I assume anyone who is certified to teach any science has) is far beyond my capabilities at the moment, but I think that, by at least spending some time exploring the linked articles, one can come to the understanding that "random" in that case of the "random variables" that are part of a stochastic process is used in completely different way that the layman's use of "random". Thus, while it is unnecessarily confusing to use "random" to describe evolution by natural selection, the relation of evolution by natural selection to probability theory cannot be ignored and must be incorporated into its pedagogy by someone with more experience in math and science pedagogy that I.

What this shows is that a young guy like Ivor can understand evolution just fine without all the obfuscating pedantry. And I shan't answer your questions any more or go on a wild goose chase for the evidences you ask for, because we have this thread and your former ones to see how that turns out. If you are not an "intelligent design proponent" you must applaud yourself for giving a stellar performance as one. It is well known it biology circles that talking to creationists is like talking to a wall. You use every trick in the book--the same loaded questions, the same lack of curiosity in the answers, the same dismissal of all answers, the same talk that says nothing, the same uninspiring way of conveying the facts, the same critique of those who actually go out their way to answer the question, the same blindness to how you aren't really saying anything, the same insistence of arriving at the conclusion you started with (but pretended you didn't), the same starting a thread with a supposed question you had no interest in answering, the same crying about people not reading your links or understanding you without reading anyone else's links or conveying understanding of their points...unless you can twist it to support your preformed conclusion.

I know you don't read links or absorb anything except that which supports your viewpoint, but I highly recommend you read Behe from the Dover trial transcript.

And remember, at least I hung in there and tried to answer your question and help you "get it", even while knowing all along you were a creationist who could not get it... You can't answer your own question despite valiant attempts at many to do so. And Behe couldn't understand how things could not be irreducibly complex. And Kleinman can't understand how a gene could evolve ""de novo" (or some such semantic silliness). The real tip off of a creationist is how low their standard is for what they want to believe, e.g. "evolution is random" and how huge it is for the opposing viewpoint. They'll take some old text as a message from the divine--(or Deepak's words of wisdom) while being unable to comprehend even the tiniest fact that most kids in high school can grasp.

I must say, I've enjoyed the display immeasurably. It's so...predictable.

And as for you Walter Wayne, I don't speak gleebork or whatever you are saying. If I inadvertently confused you for a creationist it's because to me, you sound as incomprehensible and arrogant as one. I can never tell the point of what you are saying. And that's the whole thing with creationists on this forum...they never seem to absorb that no one is "getting them"--not even the other creationists. Nobody can sum up their intent or understanding or words. It sounds like it should mean something or that some people should be on the same side, but there just isn't ever any dialogue. They just always boil down all conversations to their single "evolutionary gap" that they nurse to keep their "intelligent designer" alive. Mijo, lots of people on this forum have responded to you...often very intelligently and warmly--you have not shown an iota of gratitude or ability to engage in actual dialogue with any of them. You cannot sum up anyone else's position, and they cannot sum up yours. That doesn't bode well for your academic aspirations.

If Dawkins and all the other summations of evolution by natural selection do not make sense to you...and if you can't understand how or why natural selection can be described as the "opposite of random", then you've got the makings of working at the Discovery Institute.

By the way...your cite was referring to the allele frequency (mutation) as a stochastic process...not natural selection. Are you even able to understand the stuff you quote from.? It's akin to the phrase that "mutations are random" (more or less). In fact in goes out of it's way to say that it is not describing natural selection (page 3...I can't cut and paste from a pdf.) which it concedes is an important part of morphological changes!

 

[articulett]

And that's the crux of it for me: there are random components in every system. Progress comes when we can model the underlying processes.

Thanks Ivor (and I'm sorry I referred to you as Igor in the above post.)

That's what I want to say to Walter too. The random is the easy part. You don't even really have to explain that much...and you don't need to say that mutations aren't truly random in the truest sense of the word. But to get someone to actually understand the simplistic beauty of evolution, they must understand the selective process. And that is something creationists just cannot or will not grasp no matter how many ways it is presented to them.

Random events do not a random process make. If that were the case, then all processes could be described as random, couldn't they? And how useful is that for describing or understanding anything about evolution?

 

[mijopaalmc]

Everyone else can answer the question at the top of the thread or at least explain why it's a bad question or why it's misleading to define evolution as a random or stochastic process.

And that is the problem: it is not misleading to describe evolution as a stochastic process. There is 85 years of research by some of the greatest luminaries in population genetics and evolutionary biology that say that evolution by natural selection can be modeled as a stochastic process where birth, reproduction, and death are probabilistic events. In fact, with some adjustment, the very equations that can be used to describe he macroscopic properties of gases and liquids as emergent properties of their microscopic components can be used to describe individual-level events can give rise to population-level events.

 

[articulett]

And that is the problem: it is not misleading to describe evolution as a stochastic process. There is 85 years of research by some of the greatest luminaries in population genetics and evolutionary biology that say that evolution by natural selection can be modeled as a stochastic process where birth, reproduction, and death are probabilistic events. In fact, with some adjustment, the very equations that can be used to describe he macroscopic properties of gases and liquids as emergent properties of their microscopic components can be used to describe individual-level events can give rise to population-level events.

Incorrect. The "85 years of research" you cited is only about stochastic processes in regards to mutation, allele sorting, and recombination. None of it is in reference to natural selection. No one in the biological sciences and nobody in any scientific paper refers to natural selection or evolution itself as a random process or a stochastic process. This is why we say "random mutation coupled with natural selection" when describing evolution. In this context, selection is the elimination round in the contenders amongst the random mutations. Life does not evolve any more "randomly" than technology does.

So simple. Unless you are a creationist.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Articulett, few times on this page you have advocated death for people who have an ideology different than yours (you think, with or without evidence). Your profile says that you live in Las Vegas, but, can I ask, is that by way of Salem?

Say what? Would you like to justify this statement or retract it?

~~ Paul

 

[Walter Wayne]

It's w00t.

I stand corrected.

 

[articulett]

Say what? Would you like to justify this statement or retract it?

~~ Paul

Don't worry Paul. You know how unclear the word "random" could be. I was merely pointing out that since some people who wear seat belts die in accidents and some people who don't wear them survive--the wearing of seat belts is a non-deterministic process and therefore there is no need for creationists to wear seat belts--since by their own definition, it's "random" whether seat belt usage saves lives or not. That is, there is not a uniform probability and it's stochastic and all that... Whitey must have thought I was thinking of some other kind of random, but I was very very careful to use the the words and articles cited by mijo in my definition of random.

So clearly, since evolution is a random process, seat belt usage in regards to who lives to pass on genes is also a random process. I wasn't trying to, like, imply, the Darwin Award usage of the word or anything...I was just going with mijo's version of "random" which can be applied to any and all processes in which randomness is involved.

Damn that "bugaboo" word random--it can cause such confusion! I'm sure now that I've used it very clearly the way mijo has, you can see it was just a little misunderstanding. It would help so much if at least the creationists were on the same page as each other when it comes to the word random and stochastic and "process". But alas...

 

[mijopaalmc]

articulet-

I think you need to stop misrepresenting what I say. I have never said that evolution's being "random" (or any of the other words I use to describe it) makes it impossible. Therefore, my description of it as "random" is not the "bugaboo" you so want it to be; it does not prevent me from understanding how evolution works, but rather clarifies its underlying processes.

 

[articulett]

articulet-

I think you need to stop misrepresenting what I say. I have never said that evolution's being "random" (or any of the other words I use to describe it) makes it impossible. Therefore, my description of it as "random" is not the "bugaboo" you so want it to be; it does not prevent me from understanding how evolution works, but rather clarifies its underlying processes.

I'm not misrepresenting you. I quoted you exactly multiple times...remember:

For instance, the macroscopic properties of gas (e.g., temperature and pressure) are described by the microscopic properties of the particles in the gas (e.g., their kinetic energy and the number of impacts against the container, respectively), which in turn determined by non-uniform probability distributions. Similarly, the evolution of the a population is described by the action of mutation and natural selection on individuals, which are themselves determined by the non-uniform probabilities of mutation and survival. These are the reasons that I think evolution is "random", not because I think that its being "random" makes it impossible.

I read your cites which were most definitely about the first aspect of evolution (mutation) and not about the second part--natural selection, and went out of the way to say so. I think the word random is fine in regards to mutation or if you want to use it to suggest the lay man terminology of "purposeless", though, I prefer the term "purposeless" myself for clarity's sake.

And I have no doubts that you think you know how evolution works--by "stochastic processes" (a term you do not even seem to understand the definition of). Who else in the world would define evolution as a stochastic process? Allele sorting--yes. Sexual recombinants--yes. Selection--no.

To me, the way you describe the "natural selection" part of evolution is the same way that creationists do--they don't seem to "get" how selection is THE De-randomizer...the mechanism for deciding which mutations, alleles, recombinants etc. get to play the game of life. If you throw random things into a sieve you don't call the sieve random just because it sorts random things. But that is what your statement boils down to. It is no more clear in describing evolution than my example is in describing whether seat belt usage saves lives. You are not answering your own question, and have shown a complete inability to do so. You still cannot understand why all biologists and others don't call the sieve, itself, random or "stochastic" or "chance".

If you stitch together "random pieces of fabric" you don't call the stitching process random--because it's certainly not random in the way the random pieces of fabric are random. You might be stitching in a pell-mell fashion, but you wouldn't apply the same definition when you mean such different things in regards to the process and expect to convey anything useful. Or rather, I wouldn't.

But that is truly what you are doing with your definition. You are lumping the randomness of mutation in with random events that are part of evolution and then lumping the whole thing under the term "stochastic" as if that means something to anyone other than you.

But, alas, I know I talk to deaf ears...

I am not mischaracterizing you. I am quoting you. You are truly incomprehensible to anyone but yourself. That is why no one can sum up what you are saying. (Except I must say, that I've done a fantastic job of attempting to do so.)

Mijo's position, according to articulett the mischaracterizer:

Evolution = rm + ns. NS has random components and so it's "stochastic". Stochastic is a synonym for random; therefore, ns is random. If rm is random (by definition) and ns is random (by tortured logic) then evolution is random ...or perhaps scientists just don't know enough to say whether it is or not. And by random, of course, I mean "non-deterministic" and "stochastic".

There now. Feel free to correct my errors. In fact, I invite everyone to tell me what you really mean if they think you mean something different or are saying something else. I invite anyone to tell me if they think this is a good definition of evolution and if it illuminates the details of natural selection that creationists have trouble with. Has mijo said more than this somewhere, and I missed it? Has he found the answer to the question he asked in his OP?

 

[articulett]

And, mijo, I know you are not saying that evolution is impossible--you are actually just restating creationist misunderstanding #4 from talk origins:

"The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance."

You are saying exactly that in your semantically funky way...hence my claim that you leave out the important aspects of natural selection that befuddle creationists everywhere.

 

[Walter Wayne]

That is mijo's quote...but just plug in "death" where it says evolution and "seat belt use" where it says mutation. It's all crystal clear now isn't it? Certainly as clear as mijo's stellar explanation of evolution.

That is a pretty horrible interpretation of that. You did note the term non-uniform in that quote didn't you. Non-uniform probabilities, a term he used in that description, are one of the items that would lead one to choose one option over another when outcome isn't guaranteed. In this case making one decide for seat-belts. But thanks for highly encouraging us not to use seat belts.

Everyone else can answer the question at the top of the thread or at least explain why it's a bad question or why it's misleading to define evolution as a random or stochastic process.

Really? How many people are you speaking for when you say everyone else?

Everyone else seems to find this meaningful in regards to natural selection and not conveyed at all in the creationist explanation: all life forms alive today are the result of an unbroken line of millions of years of successful reproduction and mutations--From the one in 200 million sperm that fertilized the ova, all the way back in time, all life forms are the product of the very few potential life forms that were able to copy themselves. And the further back in time you go, the fewer times the turning events had to occur...just like the furthest tip of a tree, has it's origin in the seed that begat it.

Exactly, we are products of an unbroken line going back millions of years. And break it just once, and humans aren't around. It is the nature of this chain that causes the randomness to show through in the end. Not only is it necessary that human evolution took the steps it did, but our "ecological neighbours" must go through the stages they did to put the selection pressures on us that they did.

Considering the gas in a container analogy - the first hundred molecules hitting the side do not influence the results for ever. The next hundred ... thousand ... million molecules land basically independently of the first hundred. Their affect drowns the affects of a series of unusual events. As such, gas pressure, even though a stochastic (technically random) process, appears non-random to an observer. In evolution, this doesn't happen. A series of unusual events can leave its mark on a species, and its neighbours, because of the hereditary nature of our character. Because these events can have a lasting impact on this unbroken chain, the result of random mutation even through the filter of natural selection will result in a future with a variety of highly likely possibilities.

Later Post

And as for you Walter Wayne, I don't speak gleebork or whatever you are saying. If I inadvertently confused you for a creationist it's because to me, you sound as incomprehensible and arrogant as one. I can never tell the point of what you are saying.

If I am incomprehensible to you, I shall attempt to explain better. A couple points I have been trying to make amongst others:
- There are various definitions of random used by layman. The one you have used several times (uniform probability) is the only one under which you can say evolution is not random. It is also unfair to use only it, since so may people use random in other ways (the example the sum of multiple dice I have pointed out).
- Just as a random input does not a random process make, a non-random filter does not a non-random process make (and it is definitely arguable that selection has a large random component when population sizes are small).

If I sound arrogant to you, shall I point out that you have repeatedly suggested that your argument was sound, and so simple that any non-creationist would be convinced.

If Dawkins and all the other summations of evolution by natural selection do not make sense to you...and if you can't understand how or why natural selection can be described as the "opposite of random", then you've got the makings of working at the Discovery Institute.

Dawkins descriptions of natural selection make a lot of sense to me, as did the descriptions of many biologist before them. It is by applying his description of the filter of selection that it becomes apparent that the evolutionary process as a whole (mutation, heredity and selection taken together) is in fact going to be random, not only on some technical sense but in layman's terms as well.

By the way...[mijopaalmc's] cite was referring to the allele frequency (mutation) as a stochastic process...not natural selection. Are you even able to understand the stuff you quote from.? It's akin to the phrase that "mutations are random" (more or less). In fact in goes out of it's way to say that it is not describing natural selection (page 3...I can't cut and paste from a pdf.) which it concedes is an important part of morphological changes!

Section 6. Selection, page 45 - Here they begin expanding on the neutral selection model to include selection preferences.

Later post

...But to get someone to actually understand the simplistic beauty of evolution, they must understand the selective process. And that is something creationists just cannot or will not grasp no matter how many ways it is presented to them.

Because creationist's will warp words whether we say it is random or non-random is precisely why the most accurate description is to be sought. Part of the simplistic beauty of evolution is how the sum of many small changes can have such a huge impact. But that same sum of small changes is what makes the random mutations have such an impact on the outcome, and why evolution is random. If a student does not understand how seemingly innocuous events can have such a large and lasting impact on the life we see around us, then they do not understand the simplistic beauty of evolution.

Random events do not a random process make. If that were the case, then all processes could be described as random, couldn't they? And how useful is that for describing or understanding anything about evolution?

And a non-random filter does not a non-random process make.

Walt

 

[whiteyonthemoon]

Why am I supposed to act like this doesn't resemble a witch hunt?

I'm sure if I were to speak my mind in honest intellectual discussion at various points in history I would have been called a heretic, a witch, an anarchist, a godless communist, and I'm sure some people today would say I have a bit of terrorist in me. I never thought I'd be called a creationist at all, and I never imagined that someone could think of creationists as being in some way heretical. As if creationists were somehow unsaveable, that their only allegiance is to a false god, and that they only go away when they die, that they are slaves of some creeping malevolent force. The whole thing is kind of too strange to take seriously. I never thought I'd see a day when the average atheist fears god more than the average Christian.

Even if I called Articulett the Grand Inquisitor, it wouldn't be with a tenth of the enmity with which she calls me a creationist.

As for Galileo:
Among the great men who have philosophized about [the action
of the tides], the one who surprised me most is Kepler. He
was a person of independent genius, [but he] became interested
in the action of the moon on the water, and in other occult
phenomena, and similar childishness.
Galileo, 1632

I acknowledge that Galileo may have been wrong about many things and still think very highly of him. Can you do the same for Dawkins?

 

[mijopaalmc]

Why am I supposed to act like this doesn't resemble a witch hunt?

Because I started this thread. There is no talk of ostracizing or banning people for holding controversial opinions.

In short, stop pretending that you are being persecuted for your beliefs. It only plays into the stereotype of "woos", which we have labeled as, as being winers when their views are challenged.

 

[articulett]

Evolution does not proceed by "random chance". Evolution proceeds because some organisms get parts of their genome copied and inserted into vectors before they die, though the majority do not. The organisms that pass on DNA are entirely selected by the environment they find themselves in. All life is the result of an unbroken chain of success when it comes to this blind process (the copying of DNA into the future and the building and honing of such DNA)--

Calling this "random chance" or a "stochastic process" is not only misleading--it takes away the beauty of one of the coolest things humans have the privilege of knowing IMO. Why would anyone who knows better leave out this detail by using ambiguous wording? I truly feel bad when people are not able to comprehend this stunningly simple and true bit of knowledge. It is so satisfyingly explanatory, that religious banalities and New Age claptrap are murky and pale in comparison.

I don't care what words you use, but if you actually understand evolution, please don't leave out the way natural selection ratchets up the complexity and prunes it through the eons.

And Walter, I'm not advocating random or non-random...just answering the question in the first post. Remember, I and others have said, "random mutation coupled with natural selection", and so far nobody seems to have come up with anything better. Maybe you are speaking engineer, but I just never see your point. I know you aren't a creationist, but you just seem like kleinman--tangential and unaware of where the conversation is headed or unclear on what your point is. You seem to think I care whether evolution is defined as a "random" vs. "non-random" process. I think both are inanely uninformative. But the question was about the non-random parts, remember?
You seem to think my definition of "random" is to narrow, but it's the one that most people seem to use in biology--but it's been said by me and others that there are so many definition that it's rather a useless word--or at least everyone in the conversation ought to agree to what it means...and random as it applies to mutation is not the same as random as it applies to evolution.

So what is mijo's definition of random? And yours? Is it the "lay persons" definition or a technical one? How does your definition clear up creationist conundrum #4? Or do you just not think it matters and somehow you have found the secret and special way to convey natural selection with the word random or stochastic? I just don't understand your point ever... Are you trying to say that mijo's definition sounds better than Dawkins definition and that people would understand it better? Or maybe you think that you've defined it well? Or maybe you think saying "evolution is random" says everything that needs to be said on the topic. Maybe you think the answer to the question is "there is no good reason to call natural selection "the opposite of random"? What's your point, I guess.

Or is your ego just bruised because I think you've been taken in by a creationist... or there are some qualities in your dialogue that remind me of them. Look, it could just be the engineer mind thing--I know several of them, and they really do speak a different language. I think that's why engineers don't write popular science books. They don't have the same give and take in a conversation--an autistic leaning--conversational blindness...I guess that's how I perceive you. I never knowhow to answer you, because I can't tell where you are coming from and where you are going. I worked with autistic kids before, and they would talk on and on about their pet interests with nary a care as to whether someone actually was listening or not.

But you do that weird thing where you pretend you've won some point or conversation because someone didn't respond. You have to admit, that's a very creationist thing to do. They find victories when their befuddled responses lead them to declare the great scientists are at a loss for words.
I think we can agree, that when it comes to evolution--the facts are the same for everyone. There are simply more or less clear ways of describing it or characterizing it. I think mijo has one of the least clear ways of ever seen. I've never heard you sum it up... I'm sure others will speak up if they find you or his or someone else's description more clear-- or if they feel that you or mijo or someone else helped them see the answer to the question in the OP.
I think there is tremendous evidence that people find Dawkins and the Talk Origins and the Berkeley site very good and clear on the subject. They truly are responsible for educating millions.

For some reason I just find it very entertaining. I love when blustery people get all aflutter. Why get your panties in a bunch. We are just talking about the clearest way to describe evolution, right? Or the "non-random" aspects of evolution so that we can clear up the common creationist conundrum. Right? I have no emotional investment in being the "winner" in describing evolution or describing how it's non-random. There have been many who came before and all those quoted sites do it so much better than I do. I'm just telling mijo that his definition doesn't convey the ratcheting effect of natural selection. And I thought I'd answer his question or point him in the direction of answers lest someone with actual curiosity come by and hope to get an actual answer to the question asked.

To me, mijo's explanation is on par with the seatbelt example. The same words even. The problem with the seat belt example is the same with mijo's example. Random components do not make the whole process random. If that is the case, then all processes are random and thus the term is useless. That does not mean that I think Natural Selection should be charatcerized as "non-random", silly; I prefer to think of it as the "de-randomizer"--the glue that sticks the stickies random components together, if you will. It's not like we have two choices to describe evolution--"random" or "non-random"--neither is particularly descriptive. But, the random part is easy to explain. It's natural selection the masses have problems with. Even you must concede that the random definition we are using to define random mutations is not the same random mijo wants to apply to the whole of natural selection.