Not sure I followed this.
Seems to me that the concept of randomness, in regard to speciation, is germaine here, as long as folks are lining up to defend it, despite having no observation of it.
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.
And here, for me, is the crux of the difficulty. If randomity is being employed as a pedagogical device, then it must be teaching something, imparting new information. And yet, it is an "explanation" that explains nothing really. If a thing appears to be without cause then what could possibly account for its existence?
Also, the apparent absence of "exogenous causation" suggests the alternative of self-causation, which raises another difficulty, namely, that a thing can exist before it exists, in order to create itself.
But I really don't see what it gets us - if something "looks" random and "acts" randomly - it's just as useful and more parsimonious to say that it is "random" even if it's not possible (as it is in most cases) to prove that it's random.
Not sure I followed this.
Seems to me that the concept of randomness, in regard to speciation, is germaine here, as long as folks are lining up to defend it, despite having no observation of it.