Ami Chopine:
>Uhm, coming out of the woodwork...
>
>Natural selection has been observed. Mutation has been observed. Have we
>been able to show it was completely random?
at the moment mutations *appear* to be random, in the sense that they are
caused by gene replication errors. It seems entirely reasonable to me that
certain kinds of environmental stresses might cause the number of errors to
increase and therefore increase the probability that one of the errors is
beneficial. Someone recently posted on this list a url for some research
that seems to indicate that that is the case. If it turns out to be true,
that still leaves a random *element* in mutation.
Susan
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"Life itself is the proper binge."
--Julia Child
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/