This is the first installment in a three-part subseries in our "Bringing the Real World to Genesis" series, curated by Jan M. Long. These three articles, written by Mailen Kootsey, address the sources of variation in biology. Previous "Bringing the Real World to Genesis" articles can be found here.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://spectrummagazine.org/article/mailen-kootsey/2013/08/12/bringing-real-world-genesis-randomness-and-chaos