I believe that evolutionists are in denial about the Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLOT), sometimes known as the Law of Increasing Entropy. Any time a creationist mentions the SLOT, evolutionists have a fit. We'll discuss why in a moment. In the simplest terms, entropy means disorder and the SLOT basically says that over time, systems naturally tend toward disorder. This applies in a many ways but here are two examples:
First, imagine I have a 500-piece, jigsaw puzzle and I put together 250 pieces. Then I take all 500 pieces (both the joined and unjoined) and put them back in the box and shake it for 5 minutes. At the end of the shaking, do you think there will be more or less than 250 pieces put together? Obviously there will be less. The more violently I shake the box, the more pieces are likely to come apart. It would be ridiculous to believe that any amount of shaking will arrange all 500 pieces in order.
Second, the SLOT also applies to the transfer of heat. Heat naturally moves from hotter to cooler areas. Again, imagine there is a room where heat cannot enter or leave. In the room is a hot cup of coffee and a cold soft drink. The heat in the room will not enter the coffee and warm it up. The heat in the soft drink will not leave and make the soft drink colder. Instead, the heat will leave the hot coffee and enter the room; the heat will leave the room and enter the soft drink. Eventually, everything in the room will become the same temperature.
In the origins debate, the SLOT seems to argue against evolutionists' theories. After the Big Bang, matter must have arranged itself into orderly systems. Chaos became the cosmos. Lighter elements, like hydrogen (H), somehow arranged themselves into heavier elements. Here on earth, random chemicals arranged themselves into amino acids, which arranged themselves into RNA, which eventually became the first living cell, which eventually evolved into all the current diverse species. It all sounds very uphill and a direct contradiction to the idea that systems naturally run downhill. This is why evos don't like to hear about the SLOT and this is why creationists like to bring it up.
Of course, evolutionists disagree. The most common reason they object, by far, is on the grounds that the SLOT only applies to closed systems – that is, it only applies where neither matter nor energy can enter the system. They claim the earth is not a closed system because it receives energy from the sun. Hmmm. Let's think about that for a second. If I grant, for a moment, that the earth is an open system, what about the solar system? We are 12 light years away from closest star (besides the sun) so we are far removed from any of its effects. So how did the closed system of our solar system arrange itself into our sun and planets? On a broader scale, our universe is certainly a closed system. There is absolutely no matter/energy entering the universe so how did the random matter at the Big Bang arrange into heavier elements and eventually become the galaxies?
The sophomoric retort that the earth is an open system doesn't solve the problem that the universe – from the Big Bang until now – seems to be a history of order out of disorder. It is not what we would expect if systems tend toward disorder.
But here is the dirty secret about the SLOT: it applies even in open systems. Consider my example above about the jigsaw puzzle. Even though the box is closed, my shaking of the box is adding energy to the system. In that case, it is the energy that is accelerating the disorder. The same is true for the sun. The introduction of raw energy doesn't magically introduce order into a system. Sunlight destroys the roof of my house, it fades my furniture, and ruins the paint job on my car. All of these things that were put together with order, are being destroyed by the sun. Likewise, simply applying heat to random chemicals doesn't arrange them into DNA or living cells. Applying heat to chemicals tends to break them down into simpler chemicals – not more complex chemicals.
For energy to create order, there must be some mechanism that directs the energy. Consider putting gasoline in your car. If you just pour gas on the hood and light it, that won't make your car run. You must put the gas into the tank, which delivers it to the combustion engine, which, through a system of controlled explosions, can make the car move. So you see, it's not just “energy” that moves the car. There must be some mechanism that directs the energy. Simply saying the sun gives energy does not overturn the downhill consequences of the SLOT. For that to happen, there must be some mechanism that converts sunlight into useful energy.
A car, of course, is an open system. I must continuously add fuel. I must also continuously do maintenance because the car will wear out. So even though it is an open system, it eventually will succumb to entropy. At some point, my car will become scrap. Every system, open or closed, will eventually fall victim to entropy. In the meanwhile, every time I create order in the car, I'm creating more disorder somewhere else. Burning the gas creates waste. Drilling for the oil that makes the gas also creates waste as does building the parts for my car. The little bit of order which I gain from a tank of gas in my car comes as the expense of greater disorder in the world in which I live which is another demand of the SLOT. In a large system, there could be pockets of order (when there is some mechanism which arranges it) but the order only comes at the expense of more disorder somewhere else in the system. In the universe, while hydrogen was becoming helium and turning into stars and galaxies, where was the disorder that was being created?
This brings me to still another point: if the universe is running down now, the SLOT would demand that it was more orderly in the past! This is exactly the opposite of what the Big Bang theory (cosmologically speaking) and evolution (biologically speaking) claim. As is always the case, creation is a far better explanation of the evidence. The universe was indeed better in the past. When God initially created everything, He said it was very good (Genesis 1:31). The Bible says that heavens and earth are waxing old and wearing out (Isaiah 51:6).
The SLOT is antithetical to all secular ideas of origins yet is perfectly consistent with the Bible. It makes me laugh, then, when I hear evolutionists complain that creationists are “denying science.” It's easy to see who's in denial about entropy!
3 comments:
I think, on this issue, I will go with cosmologists, who hold that in fact the entropy of the universe has consistently increased since the Big Bang, when all the energy of the universe was in one tiny, dense, hot place, whereas now much of it is dispersed as waste heat unavailable for further work.
You ask where the extra entropy was supposed to come from when hydrogen was fusing into helium. A first year chemistry class would answer that: hydrogen fusing into helium releases energy, which radiates outward and is dispersed, which raises the total entropy of the universe. Much the same, I would suppose, applies to stars forming: potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy as gravity pulls gas clouds together, and kinetic energy is radiated outward as waste heat.
You will surely recall hearing of the Urey-Miller experiments, which did not produce life, and used an inaccurate model of the early Earth's atmosphere, but which did show that chemicals, exposed to energy, with no "ordering mechanism" beyond the laws of physics and chemistry, can organize into more complex molecules. Your own "jigsaw puzzle in a box" model implies that the experiment should have smashed carbon dioxide and water vapor into their constituent atoms, not conglomerated them into amino acids, sugars, and nucleic acids.
I should point out that the theory of evolution, strictu sensu, has nothing to say about the origin of the universe, galaxies, or Earth, or even necessarily the origin of life itself. It deals with how life changes once it exists.
In many experiments, mutations and selection have led to E. coli bacteria that acquire novel traits not found in their ancestors, from the ability to resist penicillin to the ability to digest citrate. Experiments with the single-celled organism Chlorella vulgaris led to a multicellular colonial strain. Small changes, no doubt, compared to single-cell-to-blue whale, but the point, again, is that your SLOT argument implies that not even these changes would be possible. How can the SLOT permit gene duplication, speciation, the origin of multicellularity, the origin of novel metabolic traits (all of which have been observed), and yet somehow kick in and call a halt to evolution when it comes time to turn Ardipithecus into you?
Steven J,
Long time, no hear. Thanks for visiting and for your comments. They're a little more thoughtful than the last visitor's comments – the ones posted under the screen name, “You are an idiot.” I always try to reply to polite comments but gave me a lot to chew on and I've been a little pressed for time so it took a while.
You said, “I think, on this issue, I will go with cosmologists, who hold that in fact the entropy of the universe has consistently increased since the Big Bang, when all the energy of the universe was in one tiny, dense, hot place, whereas now much of it is dispersed as waste heat unavailable for further work.”
Were it not for the promised intervention of God (the Return of Christ) a heat death would seem to be the inevitable end of the universe. But do you really think it's credible to say that the universe is more ordered as we move back into the past up to being the most ordered at the beginning? The initial moments after the expansion there was just randomly distributed matter from which supposedly came stars and galaxies and – ultimately – us.
You said, “You ask where the extra entropy was supposed to come from when hydrogen was fusing into helium. A first year chemistry class would answer that: hydrogen fusing into helium releases energy, which radiates outward and is dispersed, which raises the total entropy of the universe.”
Yeah, I was a little careless in how I worded that. I thought about going back and editing it but I hate doing that. It makes it look like I'm trying to cover up mistakes and pretending I didn't make them.
The process of fusion, which we believe “creates” the heat from the sun/stars, raises the total entropy of the universe. However, my point is still about the original formation of the stars which creates the fusion, which creates the heavier elements. The formation of stars seems to require organization. At this point, we've never witnessed a star igniting so their formation remains purely hypothetical. You could say that energy from the Big Bang allowed the organization of the first stars but, as I said in my post, energy alone isn't a magical ingredient. There must be some mechanism to direct the energy.
== continued ==
You said, “You will surely recall hearing of the Urey-Miller experiments, which did not produce life, and used an inaccurate model of the early Earth's atmosphere, but which did show that chemicals, exposed to energy, with no "ordering mechanism" beyond the laws of physics and chemistry, can organize into more complex molecules.”
It's funny you mention that, I was intending to write about that in the near future. In the Miller-Urey experiment, it's a stretch to say the “process” simulated was entirely natural. The system itself could be considered a mechanism. It's also my understanding that a trap was used to capture the amino acids as they were formed. If they were not removed from the process, they would likely be smashed as quickly as they formed. In my jigsaw puzzle analogy, it would be like me opening the box every few seconds and removing any pieces that happened to fall together.
You said, “How can the SLOT permit gene duplication, speciation, the origin of multicellularity, the origin of novel metabolic traits (all of which have been observed), and yet somehow kick in and call a halt to evolution when it comes time to turn Ardipithecus into you?”
DNA has been likened to a “blue print” and it allows the organization of cells into life. However, like any system, it is subject to degradation over time – we call duplication mistakes in DNA, “mutations.” Natural selection leads to the removal of traits unsuited to a particular environment which, in turn, leads to speciation. Animals become more specialized and adapted to their environment but it represents a net loss of information. Evolution would require the acquisition of novel traits which most people attribute to mutations. Mutations always represent a loss of function – even in your “beneficial
examples of penicillin resistance or nylon-digesting bacteria.
The SLOT would demand that DNA was more ordered in the past. This is consistent with the Bible given that God created the original creatures perfectly. Everything has degraded over time. It's not consistent with evolution.
Thanks again for visiting. I'll be getting to your other comments soon.
God bless!!
RKBentley
Post a Comment