1. A physical explanation is not the same thing as a physical cause, much less a physical first cause. So evolution in itself (which posits a physical explanation) poses no threat whatsoever to Christian belief. In fact highly improbable events at the macro-level can occur without violation of any physical laws at the micro-level. God didn't have to will the violation of any physical laws at the micro-level in order to bring about the creation of life, or different species of life.
2. However, when evolutionists start talking about "chance" or "random" events, they have stepped out of the bounds of science and into philosophy. Randomness or chance have no rigorous mathematical or scientific definition. Nor is it possible to design a foolproof test for "randomness" - taking the number pi to umpteen decimal places looks like a "random" sequence without the prior knowledge of where it came from. Thus, claiming life arose out of "random" events is not science.
3. Moreover, from information theory information doesn't just pop out of nowhere. Somehow, some way the information necessary to construct a system as complex as the human brain must have been encoded into the universe. Or, if you like, an earlier version of this argument is the attempt to disprove evolution from thermodynamics and the law of entropy. The evolutionists' correct response is that this only applies in a closed system, but what that means is that the information (or order, if you prefer) must have been elsewhere in the universe. So, eventually the debate is going to have to reduce to debating the origins of the universe (for which evolutionists will have to admit they are on much more shaky ground).
Exsqueeze me? I take it you've never taken a decent Statistics course...
Nor is it possible to design a foolproof test for "randomness"
No, but the point is that one can detect *non-randomness* pretty easily. If there were actually an "invisible hand" loading the dice, its intervention would stick out like a sore thumb (no pun intended) in statistical analysis.
Thus, claiming life arose out of "random" events is not science.
That claim (that something is "not science" if it's based on the properties of randomness) is going to come as a *big* surprise to the quantum physicists... Not to mention the classical physicists, since things like the Gas Laws and Thermodynamics and Fluid Flow and Aerodynamics and Buoyancy, among just a few examples, are all results of the reliable statistical properties of large numbers of interacting objects (molecules, in the case of most of classical physics).
Yes, actually, it does. Or can, anyway. And nothing in "information theory" says otherwise.
Somehow, some way the information necessary to construct a system as complex as the human brain must have been encoded into the universe.
Nope. There's no "law of conservation of information". Information *can* be created without limit.
As for how "order can arise from chaos" informationally, it's pretty simple (in concept, anyway) -- Stochastic processes make "random information" (or pseudo-random, if you prefer, makes no difference to the result), commonly known in data-processing as "noise", and then selection concentrates the pearls of more "useful" information while discarding the "useless". Rinse, repeat. In short, by evolutionary processes, which provably *do* generate what the creationists like to (inaccurately) call "specified complexity".
Or, if you like, an earlier version of this argument is the attempt to disprove evolution from thermodynamics and the law of entropy. The evolutionists' correct response is that this only applies in a closed system,
Correct -- that, and the anti-evolutionists confuse "available energy" with "information"...
but what that means is that the information (or order, if you prefer) must have been elsewhere in the universe.
No, actually, no it doesn't mean that.
So, eventually the debate is going to have to reduce to debating the origins of the universe
Nope. Although that is an interesting question in its own right.