THERMODYNAMICS FALSIFIES EVOLUTION
The second law of thermodynamics, which
is accepted as one of the basic laws of physics, holds that under
normal conditions all systems left on their own tend to become disordered,
dispersed, and corrupted in direct relation to the amount of time
that passes. Everything, whether living or not wears out, deteriorates,
decays, disintegrates, and is destroyed. This is the absolute end
that all beings will face one way or another, and according to the
law, the process cannot be avoided.
This is something that all of us have observed. For example if
you take a car to a desert and leave it there, you would hardly
expect to find it in a better condition when you came back years
later. On the contrary, you would see that its tires had gone flat,
its windows had been broken, its chassis had rusted, and its engine
had stopped working. The same inevitable process holds true for
living things.
The second law of thermodynamics is the means by which this natural
process is defined with physical equations and calculations.
| The
Law of Thermodynamics holds that natural conditions always
lead to disorder and loss of information. Evolutionary theory,
on the other hand, is an unscientific belief that utterly
contradicts with this law. |
This famous law of physics is also known as "the law of entropy".
In physics, entropy is the measure of the disorder of a system. A
system's entropy increases as it moves from an ordered, organised,
and planned state towards a more disordered, dispersed, and unplanned
one. The more disorder there is in a system, the higher its entropy
is. The law of entropy holds that the entire universe is unavoidably
proceeding towards a more disordered, unplanned, and disorganised
state. The truth of the second law of thermodynamics,
or the law of entropy, has been experimentally and theoretically
established. All foremost scientists agree that the law of entropy
will remain the principle paradigm for the foreseeable future. Albert
Einstein, the greatest scientist of our age, described it as the
"premier law of all of science". Sir Arthur Eddington also referred
to it as the "supreme metaphysical law of the entire universe".138
Evolutionary theory ignores this fundamental law of physics. The
mechanism offered by evolution totally contradicts the second law.
The theory of evolution says that disordered, dispersed, and lifeless
atoms and molecules spontaneously came together over time, in a
particular order, to form extremely complex molecules such as proteins,
DNA, and RNA, whereupon millions of different living species with
even more complex structures gradually emerged. According to the
theory of evolution, this supposed process-which yields a more planned,
more ordered, more complex and more organised structure at each
stage-was formed all by itself under natural conditions. The law
of entropy makes it clear that this so-called natural process utterly
contradicts the laws of physics.
Evolutionist scientists are also aware of this fact. J.H. Rush
states:
In the complex course of its evolution, life
exhibits a remarkable contrast to the tendency expressed in the
Second Law of Thermodynamics. Where the Second Law expresses an
irreversible progression toward increased entropy and disorder,
life evolves continually higher levels of order.139
The evolutionist author Roger Lewin expresses
the thermodynamic impasse of evolution in an article in Science:
One problem biologists have faced is the apparent contradiction
by evolution of the second law of thermodynamics. Systems should
decay through time, giving less, not more, order.140
Another defender of the theory of evolution, George Stravropoulos
states the thermodynamic impossibility of the spontaneous formation
of life and the impossibility of explaining the existence of complex
living mechanisms by natural laws in the well-known evolutionist
journal American Scientist:
Yet, under ordinary conditions, no complex
organic molecule can ever form spontaneously but will rather disintegrate,
in agreement with the second law. Indeed, the more complex it
is, the more unstable it will be, and the more assured, sooner
or later, its disintegration. Photosynthesis and all life processes,
and even life itself, cannot yet be understood in terms of thermodynamics
or any other exact science, despite the use of confused or deliberately
confusing language.141
As we have seen, the second law of thermodynamics constitutes an
insurmountable obstacle for the scenario of evolution, in terms
of both science and logic. Unable to offer any scientific and consistent
explanation to overcome this obstacle, evolutionists can only do
so in their imagination. For instance, Jeremy Rifkin notes his belief
that evolution overwhelms this law of physics with a "magical power":
The Entropy Law says that evolution dissipates
the overall available energy for life on this planet. Our concept
of evolution is the exact opposite. We believe that evolution
somehow magically creates greater overall value and order on earth.142
These words well indicate that evolution is a dogmatic belief rather
than a scientific thesis.
The Myth of the "Open System"
Some proponents of evolution have recourse to an argument that
the second law of thermodynamics holds true only for "closed systems",
and that "open systems" are beyond the scope of this law.
An "open system" is a thermodynamic system in which energy and
matter flow in and out. Evolutionists hold that the world is an
open system: that it is constantly exposed to an energy flow from
the sun, that the law of entropy does not apply to the world as
a whole, and that ordered, complex living beings can be generated
from disordered, simple, and inanimate structures.
However, there is an obvious distortion here. The
fact that a system has an energy inflow is not enough to make that
system ordered. Specific mechanisms are needed to make the energy
functional. For instance, a car needs an engine, a transmission
system, and related control mechanisms to convert the energy in
petrol to work. Without such an energy conversion system, the car
will not be able to use the energy stored in petrol.
The same thing applies in the case of life as well. It is true
that life derives its energy from the sun. However, solar energy
can only be converted into chemical energy by the incredibly complex
energy conversion systems in living things (such as photosynthesis
in plants and the digestive systems of humans and animals). No living
thing can live without such energy conversion systems. Without an
energy conversion system, the sun is nothing but a source of destructive
energy that burns, parches, or melts.
As may be seen, a thermodynamic system without an energy conversion
mechanism of some sort is not advantageous for evolution, be it
open or closed. No one asserts that such complex and conscious mechanisms
could have existed in nature under the conditions of the primeval
earth. Indeed, the real problem confronting evolutionists is the
question of how complex energy-converting mechanisms such as photosynthesis
in plants, which cannot be duplicated even with modern technology,
could have come into being on their own.
The influx of solar energy into the world would be
unable to bring about order on its own. Moreover, no matter how
high the temperature may become, amino acids resist forming bonds
in ordered sequences. Energy by itself is incapable of making amino
acids form the much more complex molecules of proteins, or of making
proteins from the much complex and organised structures of cell
organelles. The real and essential source of this organisation
at all levels is flawless creation
The Myth of the "Self Organization of Matter"
Quite aware that the second law of thermodynamics renders evolution
impossible, some evolutionist scientists have made speculative attempts
to square the circle between the two, in order to be able to claim
that evolution is possible. As usual, even those endeavors show
that the theory of evolution faces an inescapable impasse.
One person distinguished by his efforts to marry thermodynamics
and evolution is the Belgian scientist Ilya Prigogine. Starting
out from chaos theory, Prigogine proposed a number of hypotheses
in which order develops from chaos (disorder). He argued that some
open systems can portray a decrease in entropy due to an influx
of outer energy and the outcoming "ordering" is a proof that "matter
can organize itself." Since then, the concept of the "self-organization
of matter" has been quite popular among evolutionists and materialists.
They act like they have found a materialistic origin for the complexity
of life and a materialistic solution for the problem of life's origin.
But a closer look reveals that this argument
is totally abstract and in fact just wishful thinking. Moreover,
it includes a very naive deception. The deception lies in the deliberate
confusing of two distinct concepts, "ordered" and "organized." 143
We can make this clear with an example. Imagine a completely flat
beach on the seashore. When a strong wave hits the beach, mounds
of sand, large and small, form bumps on the surface of the sand.
This is a process of "ordering": The seashore is an open system
and the energy flow (the wave) that enters it can form simple patterns
in the sand, which look completely regular. From the thermodynamic
point of view, it can set up order here where before there was none.
But we must make it clear that those same waves cannot build a castle
on the beach. If we see a castle there, we are in no doubt that
someone has constructed it, because the castle is an "organized"
system. In other words, it possesses a clear design and information.
Every part of it has been made by a conscious entity in a planned
manner.
The difference between the sand and the castle is that the former
is an organized complexity, whereas the latter possesses only order,
brought about by simple repetitions. The order formed from repetitions
is as if an object (in other words the flow of energy entering the
system) had fallen on the letter "a" on a typewriter keyboard, writing
"aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" hundreds of times. But the string of "a"s in
an order repeated in this manner contains no information, and no
complexity. In order to write a complex chain of letters actually
containing information (in other words a meaningful sequence, paragraph
or book), the presence of intelligence is essential.
The same thing applies when wind blows into a dusty room. When
the wind blows in, the dust which had been lying in an even layer
may gather in one corner of the room. This is also a more ordered
situation than that which existed before, in the thermodynamic sense,
but the individual specks of dust cannot form a portrait of someone
on the floor in an organized manner.
This means that complex, organized systems can never come about
as the result of natural processes. Although simple examples of
order can happen from time to time, these cannot go beyond limits.
But evolutionists point to this self-ordering which emerges through
natural processes as a most important proof of evolution, portray
such cases as examples of "self-organization". As a result of this
confusion of concepts, they propose that living systems could develop
their own accord from occurrences in nature and chemical reactions.
The methods and studies employed by Prigogine and his followers,
which we considered above, are based on this deceptive logic.
The American scientists Charles B. Thaxton,
Walter L. Bradley and Roger L. Olsen, in their book titled The Mystery
of Life's Origin, explain this fact as follows:
...In each case random movements of molecules in a fluid are
spontaneously replaced by a highly ordered behavior. Prigogine,
Eigen, and others have suggested that a similar sort of self-organization
may be intrinsic in organic chemistry and can potentially account
for the highly complex macromolecules essential for living systems.
But such analogies have scant relevance to the origin-of-life
question. A major reason is that they fail to distinguish between
order and complexity... Regularity or order cannot serve to store
the large amount of information required by living systems. A
highly irregular, but specified, structure is required rather
than an ordered structure. This is a serious flaw in the analogy
offered. There is no apparent connection between the kind of spontaneous
ordering that occurs from energy flow through such systems and
the work required to build aperiodic information-intensive macromolecules
like DNA and protein.144
In fact even Prigogine himself has accepted
that the theories he has produced for the molecular level do not
apply to living systems-for instance, a living cell:
The problem of biological order involves the transition from
the molecular activity to the supermolecular order of the cell.
This problem is far from being solved.145
So why do evolutionists continue to believe in scenarios such as
the "self organization of matter", which have no scientific foundation?
Why are they so determined to reject the intelligence and planning
that so clearly can be seen in living systems? The answer is that
they have a dogmatic faith in materialism and they believe that
matter has some mysterious power to create life. A professor of
chemistry from New York University and DNA expert, Robert Shapiro,
explains this belief of evolutionists about the "self-organization
of matter" and the materialist dogma lying at its heart as follows:
Another evolutionary principle is therefore
needed to take us across the gap from mixtures of simple natural
chemicals to the first effective replicator. This principle has
not yet been described in detail or demonstrated, but it is anticipated,
and given names such as chemical evolution and self-organization
of matter. The existence of the principle is taken for granted
in the philosophy of dialectical materialism, as applied to the
origin of life by Alexander Oparin.146
All this situation clearly demonstrates that evolution is a dogma
that is against emprical science and the origin of living beings
can only be explained by the intervention of a supernatural power.
That supernatural power is the creation of God, who created the
entire universe from nothing. Science has proven that evolution
is still impossible as far as thermodynamics is concerned and the
existence of life has no explanation but Creation.
  
138
Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View, New York, Viking Press,
1980, p.6
139 J. H. Rush, The Dawn of Life, New York, Signet,
1962, p 35
140 Roger Lewin, "A Downward Slope to Greater
Diversity", Science, vol. 217, 24.9.1982, p. 1239
141 George P. Stravropoulos, "The Frontiers and
Limits of Science", American Scientist, vol. 65, November-December
1977, p.674
142 Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View,
p.55
143 For further info, see: Stephen C. Meyer, "The
Origin of Life and the Death of Materialism", The Intercollegiate
Review, 32, No. 2, Spring 1996
144 Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley &
Roger L. Olsen The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current
Theories, 4. edition, Dallas, 1992. chapter 9, p. 134
145 Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers, Order Out
of Chaos, New York, Bantam Books, 1984, p. 175
146 Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Sceptics Guide
to the Creation of Life on Earth. Summit Books, New York: 1986,
s. 207
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