How to statistically test the predictability of evolution?
I think Lenski's evolutionary long-term experiment should be a good example, without being familiar with Luria &amp; Delbrück (1943). There they use replicated populations of E-coli to study (among other things) the "repeatability" (historical contingency) of evolutionary changes. Nice overviews of the project are given in Blount et al. (2008) and Philippe et al (2008), where they study to what extent certain mutations are repeated in replicate populations, in relation to citrate metabolism and size/shape.

References:


Blount, Borland &amp; Lenski. 2008. Historical contingency and the evolution of a key innovation in an experimental population of Escherichia coli. PNAS vol. 105 no. 23
Philippe et al (2008). Evolution of Penicillin-Binding Protein 2 Concentration and Cell Shape during a Long-Term Experiment with Escherichia coli. Journal of Bacteriology 191(3):909-21