Pasting a clip changes that clip's list position to the top
When I paste a clip from the list, it is then moved from it's original position in th elist to the top. Can I prevent this and have the list preserve each clip's original position?
You cannot prevent this in the version you use.
In the next versions, the clips do not move up, namely, they do not change their position after their selection. So you will get a new behaviour with new updates.