Let me repost part of my reply at #73:
My feeling, at the risk of sounding neo-Lamarckian, is that there is some sort of built-in adaptive genetic mechanism which somehow induces mutation and/or speciation in response to external stresses or opportunities. Something akin to the triggers that cause stem-cells to differentiate into different tissues.
I have no evidence for this, but I just don't find random mutation over time compelling. Nor is there evidence for that theory.
The moment where a species originates is where we're all grasping at straws.
I should amend that last to say "evidentiary straws."
Let me elaborate a little on my neo-Lamarckian speculation... The possibility that makes the most sense to me is that we were designed to evolve. At times, organisms are in evolutionary stasis, at other times an evolutionary response is triggered. What that is or how that works... Beats me.
But the experiments cutting off rat-tails for 20 generations don't disprove Lamarck, they only fail to prove him. That being said, I have absolutely no proof for him.
But some of the underlying principles of stem-cell research intrigue me in this regard... Given that cells with the same initial genetic code differetiate into different tissues based on selective cultivation (not quite the word I want) of latent portions of that code, it seems to me analogous to the idea of a latent capacity in organisms for an evolutionary response.
But a theoretical mechanism for speciation needs to account also for the evolutionary dynamism of some families vs. the near stagnation of others. Why have the cichlids of lake Malawi radiated into nearly a thousand species and several dozen genera in a few million years, yet lungfish have evolved hardly at all in hundreds of millions of years?
It seems to me that random mutations would tend to even out over time, but they don't. For this reason, I also have big problems with so-called "genetic clocks," where rates of mutations are assumed to give such results as a 130 thousand year-old "African Eve."
How do we reconcile punctuated equlibrium and genetic clocks? If the big hand and the little hand can sometimes spin as fast as the second hand, how can we tell the time?
Earlier you made the point that 95% of all the scientists who ever lived are alive right now. Assuming your figures, and applying the axiom that 90% of everything is crap, we're left with the disconcerting conclusion that about 85% of all the garbage scientists who ever lived are alive right now... and most of them masquerade as "experts."
Obtuse experts are fertile ground for hubris. You made the statement: "Science is not a dogmatic philosophy---simply a methodolgy of inquiry." True of science, but huge numbers of scientists fall short of the scientific method and thrive on waxing dogmatic and philosophical.
See: Global Warming and the Ozone Hoax.
But what the hell? I see I haven't answered your question...
"Would you be happy with spontaneous and random but without the mutagenic aspect?"
It's actually what I believe to be the grossly unsubstantiated zealotry of many, many scientists for "random" that is the issue. It is a convenient fall-back for lazy thinking, IMO. As I said to jennyp, "random did it" is no more compelling than "God did it."
Basically, the random position says, "We can't think of anything else, therefore it's random."
I realize randomness is tough to prove, but so what? If it isn't proven, scientists shouldn't have a problem conceding that and qualifying their theories and conclusions accordingly.
