It is silent on whether or not that speciation was random, spontaneous, and mutagenic. There's no evidence otherwise. No one has noted anything that resembles a pattern or a plan in speciation other than of course what natural selection would dictate. We note spontaneous mutations all the time.
At the same time, no one suggests that a single mutation is responsible for speciation so your question as stated is not relevant. As for the causes of mutation - many are noted in intro bio texts. Of course any particular mutation is unpredictable which would be one way of saying it was random.
In short, we observe mutations all the time. However observing speciation over human time frames is difficult simply because as best as can be determined from the fossil record the process is much longer than a single human lifetime and is in fact much longer than hundreds of human lifetimes. The point of the theory of natural selection is that speciation in some sense isn't random but depends on the environment a species lives in.
I'm not sure this answers your question partly because I'm not sure what point you're attempting to make with line of questioning.
Of course any particular mutation is unpredictable which would be one way of saying it was random.I agree. But let me add this slight change:
"Of course any particular mutation is unpredictable which would be our way of saying it was random."
Yet, that is not truly random.
The concept of randomness as introduced here by Sabertooth is not germaine nor is the absence of randomness destructive to his position. I think that it is a pedagogical device to explain a type of mutagenesis which appears to be without exogenous causation.
I'm not sure this answers your question partly because I'm not sure what point you're attempting to make with line of questioning.
I'm posting the question again, just to get it onto this page.
Where is the observation or evidence of random spontaneous mutagenic speciation?
In a way, you addressed it here:
"...observing speciation over human time frames is difficult simply because as best as can be determined from the fossil record the process is much longer than a single human lifetime and is in fact much longer than hundreds of human lifetimes."
Seems you're saying that it hasn't been observed. Which I agree with.
The point I've been trying to make is that the assumption that random processes are sufficient for evolution is just that: an assumption.
That's all.
