Isn't this obvious to anyone who takes a little time to think about evolution and biodiversity? Yes, little changes caused by chance persist if they don't hinder the creature's ability to survive & reproduce. And these relatively benign mutations can accumulate until one family is very different from one that was once more obviously related. I don't see how this "surprising" and "provocative" proposal that chance plays a role in biodiversity is at all "controversial" or even new. What's more, the journalist seems to think that this "finding" means she can downplay natural selection, when in fact this article should really be nothing more than an emphasis of the role of chance in speciation since natural selection is basically predicated on the biodiversity caused by chance mutations. This really seems like publishing something 100 years after the first airplane was built to say: "Hear ye! Amazing new finding: In the absence of wings or power, an airplane simply falls due to gravity!" Maybe the actual research/paper is of more merit than the article suggests?
It makes sense that simple historical happenstance is the cause of much speciation. When learning about evolution and natural selection, we hear so much about nice-sounding stories about Species X and how they got some particular Adaptation Y because it allowed them to be more fit in some particular way Z. While these are likely true, they run the risk of being just-so evolutionary psychology stories that are told not because they are <i>representative</i> of mutations and adaptations, but because they are <i>illustrative</i> of the concept.<p>There are about 400,000 known species of beetle, some of which are extremely similar. For how many of them can we point to a cause-and-effect meaningful-to-humans story of why they have diverged from their closest relative?<p>Sometimes weirdness just happens and circumstance leads to change.
Natural Selection however is the process that chooses one random mutation to succeed over the existing line, or another slightly less advantageous random mutation.