Yes - I did say even in that thread that it might be best to avoid using the word 'random', perhaps popularising the word 'stochastic' instead - or even just using phrasing that describes the situation more accurately in the vernacular - phrasing more accurate than 'the exact opposite of random', for instance.JimC wrote:Your first point has merit, although I don't think the analogy is that close. It is essential that evolutionary biology be presented as a true science, with many areas of current disagreement and true complexity, and by being too simplistic, we could be exposed to attack. However, the "random" view of natural selection is truly built on abstruse mathematics, and does not communicate the consistent bias applied by selection on top of the stochastic processes...
And a stochastic process doesn't imply lack of bias - in fact it simply means a process that isn't deterministic, but where there is a bias in the probability of certain outcomes over others. This bias could be very strong - and it would still be described as a stochastic process, so long as it fell below being purely deterministic, to my knowledge. So the bias applied by selection is part of the stochastic process, not outside of it.
I don't know enough to comment on this...As for the second point, it is all a matter of emphasis. Their group likes to attack the straw man of the "uber-selectionist", when the Dawkin's school is quite accepting that a variety of other processes than NS play their part.
(My bold.)When viewing complex adaptive structures, however, natural selection is the dominant mechanism.
But of course... the whole idea of neutral genetic drift is that the traits are neutral, and so wouldn't be adaptive. Of course selective pressures are the dominant mechanisms of adaptive evolution. That's a little tautologous...
