The keyword you are looking for is Laplace's demon[1]. Also, note that there are physical phenomena which are known to have no deterministic outcome. Consider e

The keyword you are looking for is Laplace's demon[1]. Also, note that there are physical phenomena which are known to have no deterministic outcome. Consider e.g. chaotic systems or certain quantum mechanical systems where the observed end state is one of a set of states following a probability distribution and no way to predict the end state in each individual iteration of the experiment. To the first part of your question: I thought long about how to put it succinctly and I cannot. The best thing that I can come up with is to point you to the safeguards that are in place for gene expression within cells. A bit of Google-fu brought me to an entire volume dedicated to explaining how that particular process can be so reliable[2]. (I already know that this stuff was complex, but this takes the cake!) Now, these complex mechanisms take tons of resources to maintain. Natural selection generally gives processes with lower resource usage an edge. This has in some cases lead to amazingly efficient solutions, e.g. for some single-cell organisms. But gene expression stayed this complex. It stands to reason that every bit of this mechanism is required to keep cells reasonably alive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace's_demon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace's_demon [2] https://books.google.de/books?id=Czv25w1HNcEC&lpg=PA252&ots=PjDEfyRXiI&dq=gene%20expression%20errors&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.de/books?id=Czv25w1HNcEC&lpg=PA252&ots=...