[b_sharp]

"Actually, there aren't two processes, there are four (selection, mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift). But they aren't independent. They are directly interrelated. Mutation is random on the individual level, but it is guided by natural selection, which is inherently non-random and purpose-driven."

Mutation itself isn't truly random. It occurs more frequently in some parts of the genome than in others. More pseudo-random than strictly random.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Mutation itself isn't truly random. It occurs more frequently in some parts of the genome than in others.

That may still be truly random, only that the underlying distribution isn't uniform. Having a uniform distribution isn't all that important as the distribution may be changed by looking at things differently.

For example; atoms undergoing radioactive decay have a uniform probablity for within a given time interval is constant (depending on the length of the interval, not the starting point of the interval); however, the waiting time for an atom to decay is exponentially distributed. The number of atoms decaying in an interval is Possionly distributed.

It's not a big point, but I have seen some papers by economists who think only a Normal distribution is random or some who think only a uniform distribution is normal.

What's Normal for one may be Poisson to another.

[Alter Kaker]

Mutation itself isn't truly random.

Fair enough. Likewise genetic drift isn't truly random.