I find the following example to be a good illustration of how you can have random variation at the "molecular" level (letters in this case) while retaining "phenotypical" morphology and function (word and sentence meaning in this case):
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.'
This can be seen as genetic drift of the less significant letters, like the evolution of 'ye olde shoppe' to 'this old shop'.
http://www.lerfjhax.com/scrambler>Here is a site that will scramble a sentence in the above manner. In case I screwed up the hyper-tags, the site is: http://www.lerfjhax.com/scrambler.
As another example, we note that Kaicchos Man is phenotypically indistinguishable from a troll, but genetically is much lower on the Great Ladder of Being.
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