Evolution - Supported Or Reputed By Entropy - The Second Law of Thermodynamics?

Question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics

If you actually read this article you will see that it states that for a system to fuction it must be fed by an "outside energy force". God?

Ok. I would just like to point out, before this goes on that if the sun being our energy source, keeps things from going from order to disorder, why does everthing die? People die, children die, animals die, plants die, even snowflakes become water again, even cars, houses, roads, anything left alone long enough eventually fall apart, could you explain this please?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_experiment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_L._Miller

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life

If you read these articles you will notice they explain life and then they tell you about the Miller experiment. They will never tell you that Miller even denies that his experiment was valid. Yet, they still include it in textbooks. You will then notice that they speak about the origins of life. One popular theory they mention is the "gene-first" theory. Do you not know that before something can have "life" it has to have the information to form that life? Where does "information" come from? You will never get a cucumber from a tomato seed, I don't care how many years you wait on it because it only takes a few months for it to grow. But, did you notice they never offer the possibility of a Creator? Is it not even possible? What are they afraid of?

Answer 1

The universe is decaying, all things put in order will tend to drift to disorder by natural processes (heated atoms vibrating and colliding with other atoms). Ancient buildings crumble, old cars rust, our bodies deteriorate, as they naturally should. So we have to work to restore old buildings, sand and primer the rust, etc. but they still decay. But evolution requires that molecules form more orderly and complex structures that in turn build orderly systems that then integrate with other orderly systems (immune systems, cardio vascular, nervous, etc.) all by random atom vibration. Do you buy that? If we found a brick house on the moon would you conclude it was the product of millions of years of erosion or that someone built it? So when you smell a rose do you think it evolved or that someone designed it?

Answer 2

Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics is a common misconception. The following is take from talkorigns and explains why there is no conflict:

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#thermo

Answer 3

Neither...

Entropy by itself is neither for nor against evolution.

Outside energy force = Sun (for example).

In a closed system, entropy increases over time (leading to decreasing order unlike what evolution is believed to do).

In an open system, where energy flow occurs from an outside source, local order can increase (effectively reducing entropy within the local system), however the overall entropy of the total system (which includes the outside energy source, e.g., the sun) is increasing.

The problem with evolution is not so much the increase in order, as rather the increase in information content.

There is no proof of mutation + natural selection creating information in quantities of greater than the rational probability limit (~10^-30 to ~10-^-50).

--
Having said that, it is worthwhile to note that...

There is no evidence that proves Atheistic MacroEvolution (without Intelligent Design)...

I used to believe in Evolution. However, over a period of time I have grown skeptical of the claims of Macro*Evolution... this is largely due to the weakness of the evidence for Macro*Evolution, and the fact that the evidence, rationally interpreted does not support the overarching claims made by Macro*Evolutionists...

For scientific and intellectual critiques of evolution, see http://www.godsci.org/gsi/apol/evo/00.html .

Cordially,
John

Answer 4

Read it, and many others over the years. Outside energy force- try the SUN, which no effort of faith is required to believe in. it also states: "The Second Law is a statistical law and thus applicable only to macroscopic systems."and "A common misconception is that the Second Law means that entropy never decreases. In fact, the Second Law asserts only a statistical tendency, hence it is only highly unlikely that entropy will decrease in a closed system..."

Answer 5

Evolution isn't a "system." It is, instead, a process. And while the individual "systems" involved in evolution, chemical and biological, require outside energy (sunlight, for example) to perpetuate, evolution itself is not a linear, closed system that requires such a catalyst. If you really want to find an "outside energy force" for evolution, I suppose you could point to environmental pressures which cause the adaption that defines evolution, or perhaps man-made mutagens. But to make the leap from a closed thermodynamic system to the evolutionary process as a way to "prove" or "disprove" God is fallacious.

Answer 6

The Law of Entropy indicates that all systems will become more chaotic over time. It is the law of decay. All things tend to decay , both linving and nonliving. Therefore, it would refute the theory of evolution, which asserts that things become more organized and complex over time.

The law of entropy supports the existence of God. So science can proove the existence of God by this law.

Answer 7

Try "the sun." Our ecosystem on the Earth does not come close to using all of the energy we receive from the sun each day - therefore the second law of thermodynamics, as it applies to a closed system, is irrelevant.

Answer 8

What?

Entropy applies to molecules and energy. Not evolution. All the support we need for evolution lies in the fossil evidence and the fact that any sane person can see that it is blatantly obvious.

Ok I suppose if you were trying to apply the principal of entropy to evolution you could say that it does support it because evolution is divergence, it makes things more spread out.

Answer 9

Try the sun