Time and chance: the stochastic nature of disease causation

The Journal : Current Issue: "Time and chance: the stochastic nature of disease causation"
Conclusion

If our analysis is correct, it follows that for many, if not most, diseases we cannot reasonably expect to ever understand exactly why some people are affected and others are not. The best we can hope for is to identify causes that account for a substantial number of cases and that are amenable to preventive intervention. This conclusion applies whether the disorder is a stochastic outcome of unmeasurable subcellular events, or the combined effect of factors, both genetic and environmental, that are potentially measurable but too numerous to characterise fully.

The title of this essay is from the book of Ecclesiastes: "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all".2 Pepys would certainly have been well acquainted with this text. Perhaps we too should keep it in mind.