{"id":97146,"date":"2026-08-08T15:58:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=97146"},"modified":"2026-08-08T15:58:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:58:05","slug":"can-random-events-create-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-random-events-create-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Random Events Create Order?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\tby Michael Talbot, “Mathematical Evidence of the Existence of God<\/em>,” p. 195
\nvia\u00a0Sentry Magazine<\/em>, Vol. 22 No. 1, March 1996\n

From Beyond the Quantum<\/em>:<\/p>\n

“David Ossekon chided his fellow mathematicians for ever popularizing the issue of monkeys and typewriters. The basic mathematics behind the notion that, given enough time, a group of monkeys would eventually type the works of Shakespeare may be simple, but the sheer enormity of such a task makes it meaningless as an explanatory principle. According to Osselton’s calculations, it would take a million million monkeys roughly a million million years to type out only the name of William Shakespeare. And to obtain a paltry two lines from one of Shakespeare’s plays would require 10150<\/sup> strokes on a simplified fifty-two-character typewriter, or billions and billions of times more than the number of atoms in the whole universe. Ossekon concludes, ‘The idea that in the fullness of time random events will ineluctably come up with the right combination is less potent than has commonly been supposed.'”<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Michael Talbot, “Mathematical Evidence of the Existence of God,” p. 195 via\u00a0Sentry Magazine, Vol. 22 No. 1, March 1996 From Beyond the Quantum: “David Ossekon chided his fellow mathematicians for ever popularizing the issue of monkeys and typewriters. The basic mathematics behind the notion that, given enough time, a group of monkeys would eventually…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[201],"tags":[80],"class_list":["post-97146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","tag-evolution"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":55976,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/dont-blame-the-monkeys\/","url_meta":{"origin":97146,"position":0},"title":"Don\u2019t Blame the Monkeys!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jerry Blount Don't blame the apes when men act like animals!\u00a0 For several generations now, our society has gone to great lengths to teach our children that they were born in the image of\u00a0an ape, i.e. descended from an ape.\u00a0 After indoctrinating folks carefully that they are animals, why\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/11\/MonkeyBusiness-300x195.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":62752,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-old-is-the-world-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":97146,"position":1},"title":"How Old Is the World? (Sermon)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Job 38:1-11 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The assumption that our world is billions of years old appears everywhere in our culture. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is so prevalent that few stop and question whether it is true. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But as God pointed out to Job, man wasn\u2019t there at the beginning (Job\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61213,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wrong-about-the-grand-canyon\/","url_meta":{"origin":97146,"position":2},"title":"Wrong About the Grand Canyon","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kyle Butt, M.A. via\u00a0Apologetics Press For many years, awe-stricken tourists to the Grand Canyon have been fed a steady stream of uniformitarian propaganda designed to teach that the amazing chasm took six million years to form. Uniformitarian geologists, however, recently concluded that the \"traditional\" age of six million years\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/GrandCanyon.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":61063,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-have-penitentiaries-anyway\/","url_meta":{"origin":97146,"position":3},"title":"Why Have Penitentiaries Anyway?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Samuel G. Dawson Most people realize that the court and penal systems in North America are seriously broken and must be fixed, yet contemplating doing away with penitentiaries sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Barely 200 years ago, an experiment began which has cost us untold billions of dollars. Just last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/Prisoner.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4231,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/who-made-the-discoveries-regarding-oceanic-springs-and-innumerable-stars\/","url_meta":{"origin":97146,"position":4},"title":"Who made the discoveries regarding oceanic springs and innumerable stars?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 5, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I found\u00a0your information on Evidence\u00a0very good pertaining to scientific evidence in proof of the Bible. I do have a few questions, although, on which I hope you can enlighten me. 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I like Carson's response to the fellow who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Ben-Carson-300x252.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}