If you read about natural history, even just popular accounts, you know about the epic mass extinctions visited on the living world throughout life's tenure on Earth. Words like 'devastating' and 'catastrophic' barely capture their scale—the most thorough purge is called The Great Dying and extinguished at least 95% of the species on the planet. And this isn't just animals dying. It's whole lineages dying.

The concept of randomness is caught up in evolution, in two broad ways. The first and most famous aspect is the oft-misunderstood randomness of mutation. The second aspect is the role of chance in the trajectory of evolution. It is this question—is evolution predictable, or is it a random "drunkard's walk"—that Conway Morris tackles in the second chapter of From Extraterrestrials to Animal Minds: Six Myths of Evolution.

Okay, so not really weekly. 1. John Farrell has an interesting discussion of protein folding as a problem or challenge for evolutionary theory. His post includes quotes from experts with whom he has corresponded, and he cites the primary literature.

Well, it's the first sampler since June, but I won't try to make up for lost time. 1. Todd Wood has started a blog, and it's excellent. His slant is unique -- he's a young-earth creationist -- but his writing is superb and his expertise in genetics and genomics is world-class. My favorite entry so far: a commentary on a recent report describing genetic variation among humans.

Okay, wow, that was a long hiatus. I can explain, really I can. Here's a report on my activities in the last six weeks. 1. I wandered into Telic Thoughts in search of intelligent intelligent design advocates.