I have stated mine too, but I'll do it again. A physical system is deterministic if and only if complete knowledge of its state at a given time is sufficient to determine its state at a later time. Evolution doesn't even come close to matching that definition. Complete information about what the world is like now wouldn't be enough to determine what it's going to be like a nanosecond from now. Evolution only tells us roughly what sort of things we're going to see in the future. Back when there were no animals on land, it may have been possible to predict with a reasonable degree of certainty that animals would at some point evolve to live on land, that some would be herbivores and some would be carnivores, that some would walk on four legs and others would fly, but this isn't determinism.
By focusing on what you cannot predict (the little things) you label all the things you can predict (the big things) as unpredictable.
First, lets look about that "how far out" your prediction is determined. You have to account for not knowing in advance the conditions which will exist. Is a car factory randomly producing cars because you cannot predict what the designers will design for next year's model? Is the car factory randomly producing cars because there could be a change in demand which will require a change in production volume? The owner could sell and the new owner could make changes. Does that make the car factory randomly producing cars?
As far as can't predict what will evolve a nanosecond from now, evolution does not move in nanoseconds and now you are focusing on the parts and not the whole.
If the paint sprayer in the car factory is almost but not quite completely exact from car to car, are those cars randomly painted? If the cars' weights differ by some tiny fraction of a gram does that mean the cars have random weights? If a machine part gets slightly more worn with each car making each car slightly different, and every now and then the machine part gets replaced, think of the random variation that would cause in the cars.
If you wanted to discuss the minute variation in paint or weight or shape or size you could certainly talk about the random molecular variation. But how many people would say the
cars were randomly produced because of the minute randomness of the paint application? It would be absurd to do so.
Yet with evolution you are talking about even smaller differences (in a nanosecond anyway). Surely you could find molecular level randomness in any thing you manufactured. To call the manufacturing processes random because of molecular level differences would be ludicrous and useless.
So let's move up to the 'rougher' differences. If you agree the cars are not randomly produced because of variable paint molecules at what point would random differences make the process random? There would be some continuum where something became major enough that you would begin to think of the car production as random. If a variable number of people came to work, for instance, it could easily change the nonrandom car production into random or sporadic production.
How would you decide what best described that car production as random or nonrandom? What criteria would you use? The rate of production, just how discrepant the outcome was, and some people would likely disagree as to just where on those continuums they were going to change the description of car production from nonrandom to random. A random car is missing a bolt. Production differs by more than 3 cars per week starts sounding random.
The key thing is you want random or nonrandom to apply to the car, not to a molecule of paint on the car. So right there I am not going to call a single nucleotide substitution as the reason to call evolution random. The largest majority of those copy errors have no effect whatsoever on the organism.
But from there on we have a continuum. You want to call the process of evolution random because you draw the line waaay down by the slightest deviation as describing the whole. Yet I doubt you'd consider an equivalent difference between two cars on a production line makes the car
randomly produced. You would describe the actual random variation on the car random if you were discussing that, but you wouldn't tag the
production process as random.
I have no issue with there being randomness within the evolution process system. There is some randomness in outcome. But just as you can't predict a car model 3 years out doesn't make car production process random, that tiny bit of randomness has a very limited application in the process of evolution. In fact we are finding it is even less and less random by these more recent studies. I draw my dividing line higher up the continuum than you do when I'm describing the entire process because that is a better description of the whole.
You are looking at what one cannot predict, I am looking at the features you can predict. Hair color isn't predictable, the behavior and physical features of predator and prey are. Describing the entire process as random because the hair color is random makes for such a poor description of the actual system. Describing the entire process as nonrandom because physical features of predator and prey are predictable is a better description of the actual overall process.
I feel the same way. She's entitled to her opinion. I happen to disagree, but it's not something I want to argue about and it's not an unreasonable opinion.
