@Eddie
I don’t mean to get too technical with respect to biological stochastic processes so I will just say, at least for now, that genomic events (generalizing from just “mutations” to also include recombination, rearrangements, etc) are not observed in extant genomes with a uniform distribution over the whole genome; e.g., DNA copying machinery makes more errors in some types of sequences than others, DNA repair enzymes do a better job in some areas than others, etc. In brief, most of the genomic events observed in microevolution may indeed be useless (genotype/phenotype associations are still in their infancy) but a large majority of potentially harmful genomic events are already “fixed” inside the cell.
To the best of my knowledge, “random” and “stochastic” events drawn from the same probability distribution are indistinguishable from a scientific point of view. Given the immensity of parameters in most events of interest (starting with coin tosses all the way through evolution) and given our inability to ascertain precise values for all relevant parameters, science is highly unlikely to ever allow us to find out whether events are “truly random” (in the sense that the exact same experiment with the exact same parameters could result in a different outcome - Gould’s view, as I read it) or actually just stochastic. However, in view of the high predictive ability of scientific models, I would say that there is overwhelming evidence that nature is stochastic, not random.
It follows that if science cannot tell between “random” and “stochastic” then what remains is for scientists (not science), to impute their beliefs (aka, faith) that the process is random rather than stochastic. In fact, I find it odd for biologists to postulate that given the exact same initial conditions for the whole universe (which is only possible as a theoretical experiment, of course), it would still be possible to obtain a completely different outcome. More likely the statement was made in the limited context where the exact same first cell would have been exposed to a “similar” environment and thus the outcome could of course be different in a parallel universe.
If you pose the question in such simple terms then my purely scientific answer would also be that no, the outcome is not guaranteed because we don’t know the parameters for the rest of the universe. However, if you ask any scientist whether the exact same theoretical experiment conducted with the exact same parameters is expected to yield the exact same results them you will get an overwhelmingly positive response.
This is why I see no conflict in reconciling front-loading with a scientific understanding of evolution as a stochastic process. If it is to be understood that neo-Darwinism must include non-deterministic outcomes for the exact same initial parameters then I think you would find very few scientists supporting that view as a scientific paradigm.
As a Christian, I am much more inclined to front-loading than to the alternative hypothesis where our timeless, all-knowing, all-powerful God would be eternally bound to “dodging random bullets” much like Neo does in The Matrix when he’s revealed as “the one”. Of course, far from me to say that “it cannot be so” but that does not seem to me to agree with the Biblical description of God.
