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One thing I had trouble with in the Dennett reading from last week was the concept of evolution as an Algorith. I'm no math scholar, but as I understand (or thought I understood) it, an algorithm is something that performs a certain process through a series of steps to create the same result every time. How is it possible that evolution, which certainly does not create the same result every time, is an algorithm? The steps are perhaps the same, but the results are so incredibly varied due to circumstances that I just don't get the connection. I'd love for someone to spell it out for me in layman's terms.

 Some lovely individual above (though unfortunately I seem to have lost the post where this was mentioned) discussed how she/he had trouble with evolution as an algorithm because of all the possible outside forces(see, the Big Bang) that could be affecting it. That also factors into my confusion.