Abstract

The consequences of interactions between deterministic and random events are increasingly referred to in the biomedical literature. Parallels have been drawn between, for example, their intersection and the evolution of life-forms that to a major extent are believed to be influenced by the randomness of chance. Similarly, the origin of malignancies currently is considered to depend in the main on mutational events, broadly defined but especially those involving elements of the genome. The stressing of non-linear, dynamic, physical or chemical systems beyond their equilibria, that can lead to the multiple bifurcations underlying "chaos theory" with its strange attractors and fractals, contribute in surprising ways to macroscopic and possibly even submicroscopic events. With an interest in the properties that these terms represent, able to influence events in biology, we cite some of the evidence available for their application in evolution and malignancy and suggest a hierarchical classification of functional change.

Keywords: Interaction, stochasticism, determinism, random