Here is the attempted dichotomy:
And what is qualifies as a "selection" of Nature, does Nature "select" things randomly or are you relying on some sort of deification of Nature in which it "selects" things rationally, purposefully, etc.?This is a "con" game. The dichotomy is false.
Nature does not select randomly as most would understand it. At any given time, in some specific population, it is selecting stronger, or smarter, or swifter, or better armored, or more precisely specialized in grabbing the leftovers from a shark's meal. The pressures in these directions are not random; they result from one specific kind of relative difference being situationally superior.
The Miller experiment showed that undirected simple compounds will form complex ones. That does not mean the behavior is random. In fact, if you do the same experiment again for the same length of time, you should (and do) get about the same mix of results as did Miller.
Those results are not the only theoretically possible ones, given the input mix. They are the only ones you actually get because the probabilities are skewed by the underlying chemistry of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen.
For the most part I agree with what you are saying - except for one point. Sorta a chicken and egg issue. Nature can not do anything - nature does not direct selection. Nature has no intelligence nor ability to select or direct. What we have are observation AFTER THE FACT rather than example of nature directing actions. I agree that "nature does not select randomly" but this is an AFTER THE FACT observation - nature did not direct the selection - that would take some form of intelligence and then Evolution would be Intelligence Design.
And, amazingly enough,
At any given time, in some specific population, it is selecting weakerer, or dumberer, or slower, or less armored, or more randomly being grabbed as a shark's meal.