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Given the incredible improbability of life arriving from non-life.....do you really believe that life as we observe it today came to be by chance and natural process, and you are willing to base your life on that belief?

I'm not willing to limit my definition to a couple of phrases, but basically, yes. I find Pascal's wager morally loathsome. Any deity that operated on that principle would be morally indistinguishable from Satan.

Your criticism of Avida and evolutionary algorithms is rather beside the point. Such algorithms are imperfect attempts to mimic nature. There's a lot to learn about how to make a self-sustaining self-replicating system.

Any criticism of evolution based on incredulity needs to recognize that six-sevenths of the history of life on earth is erased by geologic processes -- the first three billion years. The things we claim are descended from a common ancestor are not particularly different in degree of complexity. the cell machinery s pretty much the same in all living things, and the DNA variations are pretty much variations in parameters.

"Given the incredible improbability of life arriving from non-life.....do you really believe that life as we observe it today came to be by chance and natural process, and you are willing to base your life on that belief?

I'm not willing to limit my definition to a couple of phrases, but basically, yes. I find Pascal's wager morally loathsome. Any deity that operated on that principle would be morally indistinguishable from Satan."

Although Pascal's wager is relevant, asking whether or not one will make a life choices based the probability of something is true is not equivalent to Pascal's wager. Would you walk across a bridge that has a 99% chance (probability of random generation of even a single protein is much much lower even given your suggested ridiculously long three billion years.....much less spontaneous generation....one method of calculation below) of failing down is not equivalent to:

God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up...Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

We make choices based on the probability of something being likely or likely true all the time....engineers, actuaries, scientists etc. This is not equivalent to Pascals wager: Your only chance of winning eternal happiness is believing, and your only chance of losing is not believing. Pascal's wager is not asking the question whether or not something is likely or likely true, merely the consequences of being wrong.

Given your belief that matter is all there is Darwinian worldview, what is your source of ethics that makes you 'find Pascal's wager morally loathsome' (other then your presuppositions are hostile to 'God')?

"Your criticism of Avida and evolutionary algorithms is rather beside the point."

The criticism was not directed at evolutionary algorithms-- a particular stochastic method of machine learning. In fact, I use stochastic methods frequently. The criticism was directed at the fallacy of a carefully designed algorithm somehow proving that that the world has come to be by chance and natural process.

Calculations of Bradley and Thaxton for random production of a single protein.

Walter L. Bradley and Charles B. Thaxton calculated the probability of a random formation of amino acids into a protein to be 4.9 x 10-191. They began with the assumption that the probability of starting with an L-amino acid was .5, and the probability of starting with an L-amino acid was .5, and the probability of two L-amino acids joining with a peptide bond was also .5. They assumed that the twenty necessary amino acids existed in equal concentration in the prebiotic soup so that the probability of the right amino acid in the required position was .05.
Bradley and Thaxton were also generous towards the proponents of random processes when they also assumed that all of the chemical reactions would be with amino acids, ignoring the high probability of reactions with non-amino acid chemicals. They calculated the probability of the necessary placement of one amino acid to be .5 x .5 x .05 or .125. This, of coarse, meant that the probability of assembling N such amino acids would be .0125 x .0125 for N terms. Assuming a protein with 100 amino acids (.0125 x .0125 for 100 terms ), the mathematically impossible probability would be 4.9 x 10-191.
Bradley and Thaxton noted their agreement with Hubert P. Yockey and concluded that even assuming that all the carbon on earth existed in the form of amino acids and reacted at the greatest possible rate of 1012/s for one billion years (when actually only 130 million years were available), the mathematically impossible probability for the formation of one functional protein would be 10^-65.

Walter L. Bradley and Charles B. Thaxton, “Information and the Origin of Life” in The Creation Hypothesis, ed. J. P. Moreland (Downers Grove, Il : InterVarsity Press, 1994), p. 190