Time and Chance

(Reference chapter 63 Parables of the Deer)

 

“All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”  John 1:3

 

   In my last two articles I referred to science’s twin gods of time and chance as the explanation for the universe. There are two fundamental problems with this hypothesis. First of all chance cannot cause anything. Chance is merely a mathematical tool that can be used to assess the likelihood that a given set of causes will produce a given effect. Time enters into the calculation only if at least one of the causes is somehow time dependent.

   The second reason is that many improbable causes must be simultaneously satisfied to get a “Big Bang” universe with the diverse and abundant life on Earth, or to photograph a big buck.  Let’s start with the easiest case, photographing a large buck. My favorite blind is located at a carefully selected junction of two heavily used deer trails, and I use it during the first and last two hours of daylight when deer activity peaks during the mating season. On average I photograph a 2½ year old or older buck about every four hours and a 3½ or older buck about every 12-15 hours. But what if I decided to sit on the Packers bench at Lambeau Field and wait for a large buck to pass by?  A deer is highly unlikely to ever go there, and if it did most of the time the stadium w ...