In one sense you are right. The notion of stochastic process has scientific utility. For those who wish to peek at the mathematical description, see this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_process
However, most everyone on the internet of any persuasion is a “philistine” with respect to understanding, really understanding stochastic process to any degree of usefulness. My uncle was probably one of the few people on the planet who actually worked with such concepts on a daily basis, as he did serious fluid modeling back when computers were just giant collections of relays that could barely outperform modern four-function calculators. He could do in his head what most people even today would be unable to do without significant computing horsepower.
The funny thing is, I never felt like a “philistine” in his presence. He was a quiet, humble, happy man, who distributed Gideon Bibles to hotels. And because he really understood these things, he could explain them to those of us less gifted, in a way that made it easy to grasp the main concept.
But without a brilliant mathematician in your life to help explain these things, it is easy to see how the concept could be degraded by some and even made the basis of a quirky religious theory that embraces randomness as a philosophy and tries to give it respectability by dressing it up in a term of scientific origin.
However, as a tool to evade the essentially deterministic arguments of intelligent design, stochastic process may not be the holy grail you seek. Dembski has written a book called Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, in which he dismantles the case that stochastic process works as a wildcard to escape the effect of deterministic process in biological system. You may be interested.
Peace,
SR
>>The funny thing is, I never felt like a “philistine” in his presence<<
Post in haste, repent in leisure (I will never be able to decide if it is good or bad that FR doesn’t have “edit”).
You and the target of my ill-advised rant are clearly intelligent and articulate.
A moment of pique — please accept my apologies.
Thanks. For as low as $4.00 (used) it's not too expensive.
My own take is that if SETI were to discover an “intelligent” signal from outer space that told us to reduce greenhouse emissions "or else," then it would be immediately hailed as being from a superior intelligent entity.
But if that message stated judgment was coming due to fornication, sodomy etc. then the consensus would be that this was a wrong translation, or metaphor, etc. or a random transmission.