re: Calling stats nerds...

Random variation is also called chance variation in statistics, at least what I know of it.

quote:

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one of which is that its the probability that the findings are due to chance.

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I think that is the definition of the p-value. I believe you are overthinking it or I am not understanding what you are trying to get at.

But this is certainly not my area of expertise so I could easily be way off.

One thing I think I know about randomness or chance calculations is they only predict the likelihood of some random thing happening and not specific things randomly happening if that makes sense. So you could predict the probability a virus or bacteria will eventually mutate randomly but you cannot predict the probability it will mutate a certain way.