So back to our original question: Can you get the cosmos we see, including the complex biological designs of the brain and the trumpeter swan, through random atom collisions alone? If randomness requires thirty-six trillion years to type a single passage of fifteen letters and spaces, the answer is obvious: not a chance. On the other hand, if the desired endpoint is not some specific accomplishment like mangoes or the genesis of life, and you’re merely asking those colliding billiard balls to come up with something or other, anything at all, it will surely oblige.
