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Einstein himself felt uncomfortable with the idea of random process (his
famous "god does not play dice with the universe" quote) but that turns
out to be one of his greatest blunders.  We now know very well that a
theory with randomness at its heart (quantum theory) very well explains
a broader range of phenomena than deterministic theories such as
Newtonian gravity.  As best we know, for example, there is nothing
deterministic at all about the decay of an unstable nucleus.  That's not
the same as saying we don't understand the mechanism.

With regard to evolution, the talk.origins archive faq on misconceptions
(http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html) has an
excellent discussion of randomness in evolution and what it does and
does not mean.

Dave Smith

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