Orde en wanorde *

Summary Order and disorder Order is a quite definite notion as long as it means a special kind of order. Disorder in the sense of absence of any order is a vague notion. Statistical notions do not depend on notions like order and disorder. Instead of disorder independency is the fundamental statistical notion. Statistical independency can be obtained by creating disorder. But pseudo‐random‐material shows that it can also be obtained by suitable strictly causal methods. It is not possible to test whether a given material is produced by stochastic devices. It is dangerous to try disorder as a null hypothesis in order to refute it by showing some regularities in the underlying material. This is shown by analyzing of statistical sham proofs for the impossibility of generatio spontanea, such as tried by some biologists.