On Reconciling Atheism and Meaning in the Universe

[LTX]

40. Actually, yes.

None of these passages address my principal point. Each presupposes that randomness is a non-iterative event, an inverse to a "rule" if you will. But by this definition, there is nothing about molecular mutation itself that is "random." Mutation occurs as a consequence of relatively well-known molecular attractions and collisions, and mutational "rules" can be used to explain on a post-hoc basis many molecular mutations. What has not been done (and perhaps cannot be done) is prediction of future mutational events. Such predictions, so it is said, are impossible because molecular "events" are themselves random (a proposition that gives many physicists hives).

Similarly, natural selection (although, ironically, itself less well understood than molecular mutational events) operates according to a general "fitness rule." But "environmental fitness" is contingent on environmental conditions. Those environmental conditions can be known in present and past, and hence operative selection pressures giving rise to a given species are subject to (somewhat murky and often just-so) explanations on a post-hoc basis. But again, what has not been done (and perhaps cannot be done) is prediction of future environmental conditions and hence future iterations of naturally selected species. Nonetheless, the very environmental pressures that operate on natural selection are, oddly enough, viewed as non-random "events."

I have consistently argued against the notion that natural selection is anything other than random. I have been told that I am stuck on "random outcomes," as opposed to "random interactions," but that in and of itself dismisses the random interactions that cause environmental change, and hence speciation. We know only that there is a vague "rule" associating fitness, selection and environment, but it is a non-linear "rule," and it has (at least thus far) defied any predicative powers.

Prof. Dawkins says "Natural selection is anything but random. Natural selection is a guided process." Ok. So is mutation. Perhaps you can explain the difference between the two. Nobody else has.