On Fri, 14 May 1999, S.B. Feldman wrote:

> << The thing that I have found most disconcerting is that there is
>  virtually no empirical evidence for (3).  But without (3) natural
>  selection (items (1) and (2)) can only interact with the
>  variation that is already present in the gene pool.  Since
>  biologists are unhappy with this, (3) is *assumed* to be true. >>
>
> I don't think it is a question of being unhappy but that a mutation is, by
> definition, a random event.

I'm not sure what you are getting at here.  The randomness of
mutations is not in question, as far as I am aware.  The question
is whether mutations are the source of the variations that
natural selection selects.  That's the point that lacks empirical
evidence.

Todd Moody
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