THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
The second law of thermo- dynamics, which is accepted
as one of the basic laws of physics, holds that under normal conditions
all systems left on their own will 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 tyres 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.
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 towards 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 entropy law, 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 science." Sir Arthur Eddington also referred to it as
the "supreme metaphysical law of the entire universe."1
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.2
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.3
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.4
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, the well-known evolutionist
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.5
These words well indicate that evolution is a dogmatic
belief rather than a scientific thesis.
 |
If you leave a bus unattended in
the desert it will gradually fall apart and lose all its features.
The next time you look, you see the tyres have burst, the windows
have broken, the bodywork is rusted and the engine has failed.
This inevitable process happens even faster in living things.
In the same manner, all systems in the universe fall apart without
conscious intervention. |
The Myth of the "Open System"
Confronted by all these truths, evolutionists have
had to take refuge in a mangling of the second law of thermodynamics,
saying that it 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 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 can 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 form the much more complex and organised structures of
cell organelles. The real and essential source of this organisation
at all levels is conscious design: in a word, creation.
The "Chaos Theory" Evasion
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 endeavours
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 forms from chaos (disorder).
However, despite all his best efforts, he was unable to reconcile
thermodynamics and evolution. This is clearly seen in what he says:
There is another question, which
has plagued us for more than a century: What significance does the
evolution of a living being have in the world described by thermodynamics,
a world of ever-increasing disorder?6
Prigogine, who knows quite well that theories at the
molecular level are not applicable to living systems, such as a
living cell, stresses this problem:
The problem of biological order involves
the transition from the molecular activity to the super-molecular
order of the cell. This problem is far from being solved.7
This is the point most recently arrived at by the chaos
theory and related speculations. No concrete outcome has been attained
that would support or verify evolution, or eliminate the contradiction
between evolution, law of entropy, and other physical laws.
Despite all these evident facts, evolutionists try
to take refuge in simple subterfuges. Plain scientific truths show
that living things and the ordered, planned, and complex structures
of living things could in no way have come into being by coincidence
under normal circumstances. This situation makes it clear that the
existence 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.
-------------------------------------------------------
1 Jeremy
Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View, New York, Viking Press, 1980,
p.6
2 J.H.Rush, The Dawn of Life, New York, Signet, 1962, p.
35
3 Roger Lewin, "A Downward Slope to Greater Diversity,"
Science, vol. 217, 24.9.1982, p. 1239
4 George P. Stravropoulos, "The Frontiers and Limits of
Science," American Scientist, vol. 65, November-December 1977,
p.674
5 Jeremy Rifkin, Entropy: A New World View, p.55
6 Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos,
New York, Bantam Books, 1984, p. 129
7Ilya Prigogine, Isabelle Stengers, Order Out of Chaos,
p. 1758 |
The answer is "No," because research has revealed that the mere combination
of all the materials essential for life is not enough for life to get
started. Even if all the essential proteins for life were collected and
put in a test tube, these efforts would not result in producing a living
cell. All the experiments conducted on this subject have proved to be
unsuccessful. All observations and experiments indicate that life can
originate only from life. The assertion that life evolved from non-living
things, in other words, "abiogenesis," is a tale existing only in the
dreams of the evolutionists and completely at variance with the results
of every experiment and observation. 
