Making Sense of Randomness in Evolution

In my last post we had a lengthy discussion about whether evolution shows that the biological process is totally random, accidental, and unguided. I thought these two video clips would help clear up some confusion over the subject for us who are committed Christians but laymen when it comes to biology. 

The first clip is a short one from BioLogos Foundation described as follows:

“The Distinctions” series — featuring biologists Sean Carroll and Kerry Fulcher, Smithsonian Human Origins Program director Rick Potts, and Old Testament scholar John Walton — we look at the concept of randomness. While it is understood by many simply to mean blind, undirected and purposeless, in truth, randomness is far more complex and awe-inspiring than this overly-simplified definition.”

They talk about what is meant by randomness, that it doesn’t necessarily mean purposelessness, and that evolution is not entirely a random process. Rick Potts, Director, Smithsonian Human Origins Program, said this about it:

“There’s a lot of information out there that tries to redefine science and redefine evolution in ways that are simply untenable. For example, the idea that evolution is only a random process doesn’t make any sense to scientists.”

As Sean B. Carroll said, what’s not random is the process of natural selection.

Another point the video makes is the misconception we may have as creationists when we think of creation as a one-time event in the past rather than as an on-going process that’s actually more profound and breathtaking and beautiful. Here’s the first clip.

The second clip is longer but just as interesting. But because it’s longer I will outline it for you and provide links so you can skip ahead if you wish.

Ard Louis is a professor of theoretical physics at Oxford where he leads an interdisciplinary research group studying problems on the border between chemistry, physics and biology. He gives an interesting talk here about metaphors and confusing terms used in evolutionary theory. This is very helpful if you’re like me and not involved in this world.

Louis begins by talking about how he got involved in biology and his work with self-assembling viruses and bacteria and explains some of the metaphors used to help understand the commonality in genes between species, what genes actually do and what makes us different. Then Louis goes into the three ways that “evolution” is talked about and common misconceptions starting here.

The first way is evolution as natural history and how that wouldn’t have conflicted with what the early church believed about the creation story starting here.

Louis then talks about evolution as a mechanism for change over time starting here.

The third kind of evolution he talks about is evolution as a big picture worldview (scientism) starting here. It’s scientism that gives anti-theists like Dawkins and Hitchens an alternate worldview to religion. As Louis puts it, these anti-theists “engage in a naïve and populist “Natural Theology”—extracting knowledge about God from looking at the natural world.” They smuggle in their scientistic worldview, making conclusive statements under the guise of science in order to displace “God” with their own creation narrative (that doesn’t need a creator).

Louis gives an example of classic scientism using Francis Crick’s “Nothing Buttery” analogy and shows how his reductionism is self-refuting here.

Another example of scientism’s purveyors smuggling their worldview in when trying to extract meaning from nature is shown with a statement by Richard Dawkins from his book, The Selfish Gene here.

The most interesting and relevant part of Louis’s talk is where he covers what is meant by the word “random” in evolution starting here. This is one of those loaded words because some equate it with purposelessness or having no direction of any kind, which is not necessarily the case.

Louis gives examples in biology where he shows that to call it “random” is really a misnomer and confusing (a better technical term would be “stochastic optimization”). Here’s what he said:

“It turns out that that process [stochastic process] is the most efficient way of solving high-dimensional problems. So, given that that’s the way the world works, it’s not that surprising that if God were to create the world He would use the stochastic process….If God were to create a world that makes itself, that would be the most efficient way to do it.”

Louis finishes by talking about the non-random variations with natural selection starting here.

Here’s the whole video.