The Fate of Public Enemy Number One

THE FATE OF PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE
We live in a world of patterns. But, according to science, patterns are unlikely. Any patterns that do occur are described as chance events that become quickly reabsorbed into a pervading trend towards formlessness or featurelessness. You can test this easily. Take several coins and pile them up, one on top of the other, on the palm of your hand. You will observe a 'cylinder' of coins - a recognizable pattern. Now toss them on the ground. If three or four of those coins wound up in a pattern you would be surprised. If you tossed the coins again and they fell into the same pattern you would be completely flabbergasted. What generally happens, of course, is that the coins wind up in a scattered arrangement on the ground. All of the natural forces identified by science, except one, lead to randomness. The exception is gravity, which leads to the simple spherical shapes of planets and stars. But even the stars and planets are scattered across the heavens. If there are any patterns, these have occurred by chance and will not last.