Allowing that could lead to the perception that saying evolution is the result of “random” mutations could just be a misconception resulting from insufficient data, rather than an intentional, calculated act of malevolence against your religious beliefs.
My "religious beliefs" are not the main driver of my stated objections, dear tacticalogic. Nor do I believe you've said anything that "attacks" them.
Unless one wants to call Socrates' sense of "cosmic piety" a religious belief. Or Einstein's characterization of the Creator of the Universe as "the Old Man" a religious belief. Both these men have been profoundly influential on the way I think about the world I live in and its problems.
However, for the record, my religious beliefs are mainly RC. But I am not interjecting Catholic theology per se into my criticism of Darwin's theory.
Rather than agree with me, that "random" means "something we don't (and perhaps can't) know," you suggest this problem is tractable, provided we find a way that shows —on the basis of a sufficient number (how many???) of "observations" made and subsequently analyzed, in "real time" — if we're just patient enuf — perhaps eons of time are involved here — "random" will finally "resolve itself" (by what principle???) so to enlighten mankind as to how it IS possible to have an ordered universe arise from total disorder, all by its own bootstraps.
Sorry. Still sounds like a fairy tale to me.
Dear tacticalogic, you are a longtime colleague and collaborator, and I thank you for your conversations that, I have not the least doubt, have always been conducted in the spirit of good faith and good will.
May God ever bless you and your loved ones!