What evidence is there for evolution being non-random?

[articulett]

I commend you on yet another mischaracterization of my argument. Identical objects fall identically whether they are in a vacuum or not. When an object is in a vacuum, its relative motion in the direction of the gravitational field is only determined by the gravitational constant and its initial velocity. To determine its final position (and therefore its absolute motion), you also need to know its initial position. In a fluid (and air is a fluid), you need to know additional quantities such as the viscosity of the fluid and the shape and mass of the object. The point is if you know and they are identical for two different objects, those two object will behave identically, making the system deterministic.

With the identical individuals that we have been discussing with respect to evolution, however, there are two possibilities of how they can "behave"; they can:

1. pass on their genes to the next generation
   
   
2. not pass on their genes to the next generation

The fact that individuals with advantageous genes don't always pass their advantageous genes on to the next generation and the individuals with don't always not pass their disadvantageous genes to the next generation means that natural selection is inherently based on probability and therefore stochastic.

No, identical objects do not fall identically. A piece of paper may blow up before falling down on a windy day while it would fall at the rate of gravity in a vacuum. Because identically fit papers can fall differently in differing environments, it's stochastic per your argument.

Advantageous to whom? Advantageous in what way? Forget it. I'm tired of the semantic games.

I understand your point completely. There is no evidence for evolution being non-random that mijo will compute. You asked for the evidence knowing that there was no evidence that you would accept. I got it. Evolution is stochastic because you say it is and you feel that it's informative and that somehow that is even more informative and useful than saying "selection is the opposite of random." You feel you are giving a rigorous definition. I say your definition is identical to creationist conundrum #4 and Behe's blatherings on "random". You feel like if you repeat it enough it will make it true and useful and that scientists can't argue your fantastic explanation just like you concluded that scientists can't explain the discontinuity in the fossil record.

Look at the penny example I gave. It's much better than your tortured definition. I am not mischaracterizing you. You are mischaracterizing the scientific understanding of evolution. And you are doing it on purpose. You are not capable of understanding how evolution is non-random nor what the non-random aspects of evolution are nor why Dawkins et. al. would say that selection is the opposite of random. You cannot understand my penny example. You insult those who would help you understand. You presume you know the answer when your definition is as tortured and uninformative as Behe's. And your definitions are semantic twistings designed to fit the conclusion you reached long ago: "evolution is random". It's also a 4 syllable world. Neither statement means much in regards to understanding natural selection and how it builds complexity through time the way my penny example would build wealth through time.

 

[mijopaalmc]

No, identical objects do not fall identically. A piece of paper may blow up before falling down on a windy day while it would fall at the rate of gravity in a vacuum. Because identically fit papers can fall differently in differing environments, it's stochastic per your argument.

Uh...no, that is a misstatement of some fundamental physics. Objects behave differently in a vacuum than in a fluid because the equations governing their motion are different. In a vacuum, the motion of an object in the direction of the gravitational field is only dependent on the magnitude and direction of the gravitational field and the initial velocity, whereas in a fluid, the motion of an object is dependent on additional properties of the object (e.g., its shape and mass) and properties of the fluid (e.g., its viscosity and density). In other words, the equations that determine the motion of an object are different in a vacuum than is a fluid. However, given the same initial conditions (e.g., velocity, mass, and shape), two object will move in the way.

 

[whiteyonthemoon]

In laminar regimes free fall could be considered fairly deterministic, but one can contrive objects that will fall through stagnant fluids in non deterministic (or less obviously deterministic) ways.

 

[Meadmaker]

And again, articulett:

It is a circular (and therefore meaningless) definition.

Not quite. It isn't truly circular, although I have said the same thing myself at times.

The definition says that a gene is fit if it is passed on. That isn't circular. It only becomes circular when you turn around and argue that the fitness of a gene will cause it to be passed on.

I prefer to say that the fitness of a gene is equal to the probability it will be passed on, and then note that the probabilty of a gene being passed on is correlated with the traits it causes in the organism that make that organism more likely to survive and reproduce.

 

[Meadmaker]

Uh...no, that is a misstatement of some fundamental physics. Objects behave differently in a vacuum than in a fluid because the equations governing their motion are different.

This isn't correct. The laws of motion are the same in each case. It's just that certain terms of the equation become 0 in a vacuum, and can be neglected, making the math a lot simpler.


Speaking of whether or not pieces of paper falling are stochastic, I haven't ever modelled falling pieces of paper. However, I have modelled flying airplanes, and I used stochastic models when doing so.

No one got upset when the prof said that airplane flight was random.

 

[articulett]

How does describing natural selection as "random" or a "stochastic process" minimize its important?

Preferential survival is not "random" survival, and I have no idea if it's useful or means anything to call it a "stochastic process". I guess you could ask physicists or engineers. Calling it either fails to show the accumulation of successes through time.

Remember the penny example. You can toss the coins randomly, but imagine that you are only allowed to keep the heads. I guess that could be a "stochastic" process per your definition. But your evolving wealth would not be. You would accumulate wealth via selection (not randomly or stochastically)--and the more penny's that were tossed and the more people that were tossing them for you, then the faster your wealth would accumulate. Organisms inherit genomes of accumulated "winning coin tosses". This is simplistic, but your definition is useless for conveying this vital information.

I think this IS the answer to your question. Though I don't think anyone would say you accumulate wealth non-randomly, because it's almost as vague as saying you accumulate wealth randomly (or stochastically). These are useless words in conveying the idea. Your words are similarly useless in conveying natural selection.

 

[articulett]

This isn't correct. The laws of motion are the same in each case. It's just that certain terms of the equation become 0 in a vacuum, and can be neglected, making the math a lot simpler.


Speaking of whether or not pieces of paper falling are stochastic, I haven't ever modelled falling pieces of paper. However, I have modelled flying airplanes, and I used stochastic models when doing so.

No one got upset when the prof said that airplane flight was random.

I don't think intelligent design proponents care about people understanding or not understanding paper airplane flight.

It's not the word that is the problem. It's the conveyance of an idea. Don't confuse the two. Remember the question in the OP.

 

[mijopaalmc]

In laminar regimes free fall could be considered fairly deterministic, but one can contrive objects that will fall through stagnant fluids in non deterministic (or less obviously deterministic) ways.

This isn't correct. The laws of motion are the same in each case. It's just that certain terms of the equation become 0 in a vacuum, and can be neglected, making the math a lot simpler.


Speaking of whether or not pieces of paper falling are stochastic, I haven't ever modelled falling pieces of paper. However, I have modelled flying airplanes, and I used stochastic models when doing so.

No one got upset when the prof said that airplane flight was random.

Well, I guess I got that one wrong. I have never dealt at all seriously with fluid dynamics, so I didn't know that more advanced models of drag were stochastic in nature. What I was referencing were the relatively simple models of linear and quadratic drag to which I was introduced in my elementary differential equations class where the drag is simply proportional to the velocity or the square of the velocity. These specific models are deterministic because, objects with identical initial velocities and drag coefficients (an amalgam of all factors related to the mass and shape of the object) will fall identically if they are in identical environments.

However, articulett's argument is that calling the evolution by natural selection "stochastic", which she analogizes to calling the falling of objects "stochastic", is somehow absurd because it makes everything "stochastic"; therefore, "stochastic" is a meaningless word. Such a statement is profoundly naïve because there are (simplified) physically important systems which behave deterministically (e.g., the Lorenz attractor, which is a simplification of the equations for convection in fluids and is therefore important to weather prediction).

 

[articulett]

Uh...no, that is a misstatement of some fundamental physics. Objects behave differently in a vacuum than in a fluid because the equations governing their motion are different. In a vacuum, the motion of an object in the direction of the gravitational field is only dependent on the magnitude and direction of the gravitational field and the initial velocity, whereas in a fluid, the motion of an object is dependent on additional properties of the object (e.g., its shape and mass) and properties of the fluid (e.g., its viscosity and density). In other words, the equations that determine the motion of an object are different in a vacuum than is a fluid. However, given the same initial conditions (e.g., velocity, mass, and shape), two object will move in the way.

If you and I tossed identical pieces of paper from a high building, they can land at different times. Moreover one can land up and one can land down. Therefore gravity is, by definition, stochastic.

(BTW, I know that gravity is not stochastic...but the error I make in the above is the same type of error you are making in describing evolution.)

Natural selection would be more akin to tossing dollars off the building, and letting the janitor keep the ones that landed heads up. His accumulating wealth would be based on randomness (heads or tails), but driven by selection (he gets to keep the heads) which is the "opposite of chance".

 

[mijopaalmc]

Preferential survival is not "random" survival, and I have no idea if it's useful or means anything to call it a "stochastic process". I guess you could ask physicists or engineers. Calling it either fails to show the accumulation of successes through time.

The preponderance of evidence shows otherwise. There are 85 years of research on modeling evolution by natural selection as a stochastic, which has been quite successful. In your scheme of how stochastic interpretations of evolution by natural selection is viewed in the scientific community, the publication of such work in prestigious academic journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews would have ceased many years ago if such work had been considered counterproductive or fringe.

Remember the penny example. You can toss the coins randomly, but imagine that you are only allowed to keep the heads. I guess that could be a "stochastic" process per your definition. But your evolving wealth would not be. You would accumulate wealth via selection (not randomly or stochastically)--and the more penny's that were tossed and the more people that were tossing them for you, then the faster your wealth would accumulate. Organisms inherit genomes of accumulated "winning coin tosses". This is simplistic, but your definition is useless for conveying this vital information.

I think this IS the answer to your question. Though I don't think anyone would say you accumulate wealth non-randomly, because it's almost as vague as saying you accumulate wealth randomly (or stochastically). These are useless words in conveying the idea. Your words are similarly useless in conveying natural selection.

Natural selection would be more akin to tossing dollars off the building, and letting the janitor keep the ones that landed heads up. His accumulating wealth would be based on randomness (heads or tails), but driven by selection (he gets to keep the heads) which is the "opposite of chance".

These examples also do not explain natural selection the way that it works in nature. You have someone keeping all of the objects that land a certain way and discarding all of those that land another. That is is a deterministic process because the state of the object determines whether or not it is retained.

How would your wealth evolve if you started with a finite number of objects, you had a probability p of keeping the objects in state A and a probability 1-p of keeping the object in the state B, and the objects in state A produced on average more copies of themselves that those in state B?

 

[mijopaalmc]

If you and I tossed identical pieces of paper from a high building, they can land at different times. Moreover one can land up and one can land down. Therefore gravity is, by definition, stochastic.

(BTW, I know that gravity is not stochastic...but the error I make in the above is the same type of error you are making in describing evolution.)

I would like to note that the analogy is also essentially false because gravity is not the force that effect the motion of objects stochastically. Instead, the forces exerted on the objects by the fluid are what effect the motion of the objects stochastically. Gravity remains a deterministic force. In the case where other non-gravitational forces are acting on the objects in the direction of the gravitational force are either absent (as in an idealized vacuum where there is no fluid pressure or interaction) or negligible (as in a real vacuum where there is very little fluid pressure or interaction) gravity completely determines the motion of the object in the direction of the gravitational force.

 

[articulett]

The preponderance of evidence shows otherwise. There are 85 years of research on modeling evolution by natural selection as a stochastic, which has been quite successful. In your scheme of how stochastic interpretations of evolution by natural selection is viewed in the scientific community, the publication of such work in prestigious academic journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews would have ceased many years ago if such work had been considered counterproductive or fringe.

You are twisting things exactly like Behe does here. There is modeling of Mendelian genetics and recombinations using probabilities...and studies showing stochastic components in natural selection--but you are overstating your case to the extreme to pretend that there is 85 years of productive research on modeling evolution on stochastic models. You are hung up on finding any evidence you can that makes it so you can justify calling evolution random or natural selection stochastic no matter how misleading or uninformative that is. You are pretending that you have all this academic research in your favor while you ignore the very top research and researchers in the field today who are so much better at explaining evolution and the intricate details than you are.

You are not able to fathom the "non-random" aspects of evolution no matter how carefully explained, nor can you fathom why all top biologists today carefully make a distinction so as not to engender confusion such as yours.
Maybe your explanation will help physics students make sense of evolution--but it just does not convey the process of natural selection and it boils down to a common creationist obfuscating technique as does your conclusion in the "discontinuity in the fossil records" thread. Moreover, you've shown a complete inability to understand the answer to your own poor question--on both threads...repeating your same conclusion over and over and over again.

Mijo says:
Evolution is stochastic which means that it's random because, although better fitness confers an advantage, the fittest don't always preferentially survive and reproduce; therefore, in answer to my OP there is no evidence that evolution is non-random.

It might be trueish, but tangential to the basic principle of evolution. No biologist calls natural selection "random" except for "intelligent design proponents". No biologist would sum up such a basic principle in such a non-informative mish-mashy meaningless way. Calling preferential survival "stochastic" is just so uninformative that I can't imagine why you think it conveys anything at all about evolution or how you think it answers your question (except it leads you to be able to conclude that evolution IS random--which is what you presumed the answer to from the get go.) It is truly as obfuscating as my gravity example. You are mixing up details with the principle and are very confused about "fitness" (fittest in regards to WHAT?)

I can do all sorts of things exactly like you including papers rating gravitational fall as a stochastic process. That doesn't make gravity stochastic, nor does it add to anyone's understanding, nor does it explain the "non-random" aspects of gravity. I could use your words exactly in a thread called "how is gravity non-random" and identical examples and then you might see how what you are saying as unclear and meaningless and as obfuscating as what Behe is saying. But you probably wouldn't even then. Because all the "intelligent design" proponents think they are being much clearer than all the other "intelligent design" proponents...they all think they are being more scientific and accurate and rigorous and academic.

You have an end game in mind, and all answers will boil down to your original presumption. You cannot understand how evolution is non-random nor why biologists wince at your descriptions and Behe's or why they'd say natural selection is the opposite of chance. You can't because you are probably a male "intelligent design proponent" over 40 is my guess. You can't because your question was designed to show that evolution IS random...with whatever meaning you've given that. It is identical to creationist conundrum #4. You are a brilliant example of just how difficult it is to teach or reach people like Behe. You are a brilliant example of twisting words and semantic games down to a definition that feels right to you. You have a very poor way of conveying very simple ideas and a way of implying information when nothing at all is said. You are a brilliant example of how hard it is to nail down the claims of an ID proponent--the semantic games and doublespeak, and obfuscating pedantry. You hear what you want to hear and take whatever you can glean from the few postings or links you read to support the conclusion you had from the moment you made your first post on this thread.

I should save these posts for posterity to show my students what it is like to talk with "intelligent design proponents', but I think the Behe transcripts are better--and a matter of public record to boot. And Kleinman moves the goalposts better.

I know you have convinced yourself of your rightness, but there is no rightness in regards to the facts; they are the same for everybody. You can just understand it or not. You do not seem to understand the basics of evolution as most biologists do. You seem to have a need to describe it vaguely or sum it up in an unclear way just so you can avoid understanding the "non-random" aspects of evolution. Even your fellow randomites seem to understand why it's uninformative to call natural selection "random". Per your silly definition, any process that involves probabilities is a "stochastic process". Every time I engage an "intelligent design" proponent, I sympathize with Dawkins and Shermer all the more. The goal is never to facilitate common understanding of the facts--rather it always seems to be about making some point that obfuscates understanding. This is exactly what you did in the fossil thread too. I hope everybody goes and has a peek at that, and reads some of the Behe transcript so that they realize that they can be sure someone is not an "intelligent design" proponent and be absolutely wrong.

Being trusting is not as shameful as being dishonest. Admitting you don't understand something or were wrong is better than spreading confusion and misunderstanding and mistaken notions.

Meadmaker, his definition of random and stochastic is not your definition; it's Behe's definition. That's why we are careful in our word usage and our emphasis on natural selection. You can see it Whitey's finch example, that he understood the "random" part just fine--but not the details of accumulating complexity through time--how natural selection is a force that shapes what species become. Whether it's stochastic or not won't help whitey learn these details. That's because it takes more than the word "random", "chance", or "stochastic" to understand the process of natural selection. You do understand, don't you, why biologists would refer to natural selection as the "opposite of chance"? Do you think mijo understands? Do you think his explanation conveys the facts better than all the other explanations or even anywhere as well as the other definitions.

 

[jimbob]

On another note, it seems that we might all be accused of sounding like Behe, because, as Articulett posted above, he claims that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and that man has a common ancestor with chimpanzees. So let's drop the comparisons to Behe.

So Behe's point is that Humanity could not have evolved by natural selection, it needed supernatural selection, by the "farmer in the sky", nbeing able to "choose" the "worthless" mutations allowing the "irriducable" complexity to be bridged?

Saying evolution is not random plays right into his hands. Devil's Advocate: " "Evolution is nonrandom, therefore it is directed, and who better to direct it than a designer?" "

Argue for an accurate definition of random, and that humanity is not "the pinnacle" of evolution, and you have a chance.

 

[mijopaalmc]

articulett-

Can you actually provide a quote from any of the articles that I cited that says that evolution is non-random in the way that you want it to be non-random?

If you think that the effects of gravity are better modeled by stochastic processes you need to actually provide a citation that supports your claim.

On another note, I think that it is interesting that your "falling paper" example is an example where stochastic parts of the system make the whole system stochastic. In other words, it support neither my interpretation of evolution because it contains the deterministic force of gravity not your interpretation of evolution because the stochastic fluid forces make the whole system stochastic.

 

[jimbob]

If mijo says that humanity evolved but that this was the result of probabilistic processes, how does that make him/her anywhere near intelligent design proponents?

As I see it, the ID proponents pretend that they think evolution is random, so they can present their counter proposal as not random.

They can then argue "what is the selective process that directs evolution? The designer."

More accurate and avoiding this pitfall is to say that evolution is "random but not blind chance", (probabilistic or stochastic, if you think that seems less likely to be misunderstood):

I think the important point about evolution is that some forms/roles are highly likely to be found/occupied, but the route, and the species is not inevitible.

mijo, I think you could show whether you suscribe to ID or not by answering the questions in my post below:

articulett, I think you are probably misunderstanding mijo's viewpoint, and I suspect that (s)he does understand, and accept evolution perfectly well. It is just the definition of the word random where the disagreement lies.

mijo:
a) Did humanity evolve?

b) When Australia became an island, were kangaroos inevitable?

c) When Australia became an island, were large herbivorous marsupials highly likely? And carnivorous marsupials to prey on them?

articulett
my answers would be a) yes, b) no, c) yes.

Jim

 

[articulett]

articulett-


Can you actually provide a quote from any of the articles that I cited that says that evolution is non-random in the way that you want it to be non-random?

If you think that the effects of gravity are better modeled by stochastic processes you need to actually provide a citation that supports your claim.

On another note, I think that it is interesting that your "falling paper" example is an example where stochastic parts of the system make the whole system stochastic. In other words, it support neither my interpretation of evolution because it contains the deterministic force of gravity not your interpretation of evolution because the stochastic fluid forces make the whole system stochastic.

Mijo, I don't want evolution to be non-random. I want it to be described in a way that facilitates understanding of the basic principle. You are the one who bears the burden of proof showing that evolution in it's entirety can be summed up as random...that that somehow means something or somehow conveys natural selection.

Let's review: This is strawman #4 that creationists argue: The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance.

Your question is: What evidence is there for evolution being non-random? That would certainly imply that if there is no evidence for evolution being non-random, then that means it is "random". However, this thread and almost everything written by Behe shows how the word random and synonyms there of can be so used so ambiguously, that no meaning is conveyed in using them while misleading conclusions can be drawn.

The answer to your question is: there is NO evidence than says evolution is non-random that Mijo will accept. This, means that you agree with the creationist straw man.

1. Whether the creationist strawman can be construed as true is not as relevant as whether it can be used to obfuscate the understanding of natural selection.

2. Talk origins answers the question thusly:
"The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance."

There is probably no other statement which is a better indication that the arguer doesn't understand evolution. Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but this argument completely ignores the fundamental role of natural selection, and selection is the very opposite of chance. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out certain variations. Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out.


Presumably that answer is not satisfactory to you because it doesn't say "how". In fact none of the many similar answers satisfied you.

Does this mean that it makes sense or is meaningful to describe evolution as "random", "non-random" or a "stochastic process"? I don't think so. Does this mean your definition explains more about natural selection, than the straw man definition? Nope, it caters right to it. Does this mean there is no evidence for evolution being non-random or no evidence that this is a misleading way to characterize evolution and allows for known obfuscation techniques? Nope. It is misleading. And most creationist misunderstanding have to do with misunderstanding randomness. For example, the Goldilocks universe which even physicists buy into is a complete backwards understanding of evolution. It holds that things are so fine tuned for life, that such conditions could not have been due to chance alone. Humans do this weird thing and look at coincidences after the fact and say, "what are the odds of THAT happening?" But there is a difference between "what are the odds of a specific lottery number showing up" and "what are the odds of someone winning the lottery". Before the fact, the odds are astronomical that any one person in particular will win the lottery--but the odds are also that someone will win it.

People understand the random parts of evolution just fine (see whitey)--it's how natural selection acts as a force to shape and prune the branches of the tree of life through time that is hard to intuit. Your explanation doesn't have that part. It conveys no more information than the creationist conundrum.
It doesn't mean that evolution is "random"--it just means you have a very obfuscating way of describing a fairly simple principle. I'm not saying evolution is "non-random". I think, as many, have said, such adjectives are just damn useless. I feel it is more correct and clear to say "natural selection is the opposite of chance" (the de-randomizer) then it is to say that evolution is a "stochastic process". If all you are meaning is that we humans can't predict which of the alleles we find most fit will survive, why not just say that. And how is that important to facilitating the understanding of the non-random aspects of evolution?

And here are papers on stochastics modeling gravity
http://arxiv.org/list/math-ph/0704?skip=150&show=25
http://www.springerlink.com/content/u47g1m0471j05447/
...there are tons...but it's irrelevant...and I'm tired of the way intelligent design proponents obfuscate with side issues and cannot stay on topic.
This topic wasn't about the non-random aspects of gravity. I'm merely pointing out that I could answer like you have and argue for it being a stochastic process which makes your definition about as informative as me doing the same. Saying evolution is a stochastic process is about as informative and useful as saying gravity is a stochastic process.

I don't even know why anyone cares whether evolution is "stochastic" or "deterministic" or "random" because those all seem to be words that invite ambiguity... And the basic principle of evolution is so simple, that there really is no need to make things ambiguous unless you want to prevent people from understanding and going "aha!, now I see how complexity can arise through time without a designer...!-- I understand how that "which works" sticks around to make more of that "which works" and is built upon from the bottom up like the internet!"

 

[mijopaalmc]

mijo, I think you could show whether you suscribe to ID or not by answering the questions in my post below

I composed a response and thought that I had posted it, but it obviously wasn't posted.

Anyway, I agree completely and without reservation with your answers to the questions you posed. I believe that naturalistic evolution can occur even if it has a probabilistic basis. However, that means even if we were able to perfectly reproduce the conditions of an organism's evolution, we would almost certainly come up with a different result because natural selection is based on sampling a population where fitter individuals are more likely to end up in that sample than the would be if they were picked at random from the population and less fit individuals are less likely to end up in that sample than the would be if they were picked at random from the population. Since the samples are not necessarily identical, the evolution of the population isn't necessarily identical.

 

[articulett]

I composed a response and thought that I had posted it, but it obviously wasn't posted.

Anyway, I agree completely and without reservation with your answers to the questions you posed. I believe that naturalistic evolution can occur even if it has a probabilistic basis. However, that means even if we were able to perfectly reproduce the conditions of an organism's evolution, we would almost certainly come up with a different result because natural selection is based on sampling a population where fitter individuals are more likely to end up in that sample than the would be if they were picked at random from the population and less fit individuals are less likely to end up in that sample than the would be if they were picked at random from the population. Since the samples are not necessarily identical, the evolution of the population isn't necessarily identical.

And I think that Michael Behe would completely agree with that interpretation.
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1259,n,n


The better question is, Do you accept that life arose through entirely naturalistic means--that it is very unlikely that any sort of "intelligent design" was involved?

Yes or No is fine.

And is your goal to understand it and convey this factual knowledge in a way that works for the most people?

Again--yes or no is fine.

Do you have the slightest clue as to how your words can be misconstrued so that natural selection is glossed over rather than understood?

Yes or no is fine.

If so, then you have the answer to your original question. If not, it's because you had an answer at the get go, and can't "hear" anything that doesn't fit that answer.

And I'll take all wordy answers, oblique answers, and non-answers as a "no". Clarity is important when attempting to facilitate understanding.

 

[jimbob]

Engineers are people too.

from my POV mijo's description is more accurate, becuse it is probabilistic, allows for convergent evolution, and could possibly be summarised as "survival of the luckier of the fitter".

What are the odds of getting ten hands with royyal flushes in a row?

What if for every card that had been drawn a pair of dice were shaken and any card with a face value lower than the total score was removed, and replaced by a card with the face value on the dice. And this process had been repeated for 20 whole hands preeviously. This is still not as efficient as natural selection, but might prove the point. How many twos would remain?

ETA, and those that survive, one tosses a pair of coins: heads add on to the card value and tails decrease, twice to "breed", and allow some cards to remain for 20 "generations"

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

The non-random part to evolution is blindingly obvious: It is a bias (defined by the environment particular organisms find themselves in) that allows more individuals with certain traits survive than others.

In evolution selection criteria must remain fairly stable compared to the rate of random mutations else no organism could adapt.

In mathematical terms, think of arbitrary (near constant) bounding thresholds controlling the selection of numbers from a random number generator. The resulting sets of numbers each still have random components, but have smaller variances and possibly shifted means compared to the original random source.

When the data from a Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial shows the same variance reduction and/or shift in mean, no one explains the active drugs action as "random", do they?

As for stochastic gravity, how about this?