DNAunion: Part 2 of a multiple part series.
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Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
This shows more a misconception about thermodynamics than about evolution.
The second law of thermodynamics says, "No process is possible in which the
sole result is the transfer of energy from a cooler to a hotter body."
[Atkins, 1984, The Second Law, pg. 25] Now you may be scratching your head
wondering what this has to do with evolution. The confusion arises when the
2nd law is phrased in another equivalent way, "The entropy of a closed system
cannot decrease." Entropy is an indication of unusable energy and often (but
not always!) corresponds to intuitive notions of disorder or randomness.
Creationists thus misinterpret the 2nd law to say that things invariably
progress from order to disorder.
However, they neglect the fact that life is not a closed system. The sun
provides more than enough energy to drive things. If a mature tomato plant
can have more usable energy than the seed it grew from, why should anyone
expect that the next generation of tomatoes can't have more usable energy
still? Creationists sometimes try to get around this by claiming that the
information carried by living things lets them create order. However, not
only is life irrelevant to the 2nd law, but order from disorder is common in
nonliving systems, too. Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites,
graded river beds, and lightning are just a few examples of order coming from
disorder in nature; none require an intelligent program to achieve that
order. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you
are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system. If order
from disorder is supposed to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it
ubiquitous in nature?
The thermodynamics argument against evolution displays a misconception about
evolution as well as about thermodynamics, since a clear understanding of how
evolution works should reveal major flaws in the argument. Evolution says
that organisms reproduce with only small changes between generations (after
their own kind, so to speak). For example, animals might have appendages
which are longer or shorter, thicker or flatter, lighter or darker than their
parents. Occasionally, a change might be on the order of having four or six
fingers instead of five. Once the differences appear, the theory of evolution
calls for differential reproductive success. For example, maybe the animals
with longer appendages survive to have more offspring than short-appendaged
ones. All of these processes can be observed today. They obviously don't
violate any physical laws.
(http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html)
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DNAunion: Let’s see: “However, they neglect the fact that life is
not a closed system. The sun provides more than enough energy to drive
things.” Another vague appeal to open-system thermodynamics. You got
energy, you got evolution. Never mind all the biological machines needed to
harness that energy into replicating DNA, generating ATP, etc. Nope. All you
need is a source of energy – WRONG!
“Creationists sometimes try to get around this by claiming that the
information carried by living things lets them create order. However, not
only is life irrelevant to the 2nd law,”
And here, the author switched to talking about the 2nd law exclusively,
abandoning biology. He or she has moved from applying thermodynamics to life
- which is the actual topic Creationists and IDists bring up - to
thermodynamics alone. The issue is not whether or not "life [is] irrelevant
to the 2nd law", but rather that "the 2nd law is relevant to life".
"...but order from disorder is common in nonliving systems, too. Snowflakes,
sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just
a few examples of order coming from disorder in nature; none require an
intelligent program to achieve that order. In any nontrivial system with lots
of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising
somewhere in the system. If order from disorder is supposed to violate the
2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it ubiquitous in nature?"
The important word here is *ORDER*. "Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes,
stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning" are examples of increasing
*order*, but the origin of a cell (or evolution of an organism) requires more
than an increase in mere order. Think about the logic of the author’s
last question - if we allow ourselves to equate the kind of "order from
disorder" the author is talking about with the kind of "order from disorder"
involved in the evolution of the first cell, then why is not the spontaneous
formation of cells from raw materials ubiquitous in nature? Since we don't
see cells forming from scratch, then surely there is a fundamental difference
between the kind of *mere* "order from disorder" the author is discussing and
the "kind of order from disorder" being talked about when discussing the
origin of life.
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