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.
I think a loose and often truly false definition (connotation) of randomness has been used too much lately by both the public and the scientific laiety. You, your ownself, pointed this out clearly in one of your posts. We mean random to mean "unpredictable." We also use random to mean that all likely events are equiprobable.
Meeting the latter criteria are stringent, mathematical requirements, commonly overlooked by those who converse cavalierly--as most of us do--about randomness.
Maybe it was you who pointed out that we are--on initial and even after centuries of repeated observations on the same phenomena--unable to discern true randomness.
Nevertheless, we use the ragged concept quite effectively to explain and teach about well-documented-but-unexplained observations.
Sabertooth, I believe (where is he, now that we need him?) used the term quite appropriately. But once we entered the world of real scientific discourse, "random" suddenly evolved from common usage to precise one.
Sabertooth meant to imply, I believe, that random equates with "unpredictability."
I should have said "exogenous influence." I was referring to instances where vigorous speciation has occurred in certain organisms, but not for others who live in the same or simlilar environments. There are other examples (e.g. speculate the selective pressures that produced the human brain.) The point is that such manifestations may imply a mechanism of heritable mutagenisis which accounts for the remarkable evolutionary progress (our point of view) that has been so far well-documented yet quite unexplained.
My use of the term, "endogenous," in this context, means that, regardless of environmental pressures, the process apparently emanates from within the organism and not in response to extraneous variables.
Of course this is inherently fallacious...because all things have their cause.
We just don't what they are.