CLEARING THE PATH

The science of thermodynamics is critical to the question of origins and has thus been one of the main battlegrounds where the intellectual war between creation scientists and evolutionists has been waged.  Creation scientists maintain that the science of thermodynamics, more particularly the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is the Achilles heel of all naturalistic evolutionary theories on origins.  Although there are no absolute proofs in science, the proper understanding of the science of thermodynamics comes as close as is possible to providing proof that the theory of evolution is scientifically untenable.  All evolutionists believe otherwise, of course.  By not even considering nor exploring the possibility of Creation they've left themselves no other choice.   

The First Law of Thermodynamics is the law of the conservation of energy.  This law states that the total quantity of energy in the universe is constant.  Energy may be transformed from one form into another and energy may be transformed into matter and matter into energy, but the total quantity remains constant—energy can neither be created nor destroyed.  The first law has given an excellent account of itself not only in experimental tests of its veracity, but also in serving as a foundation for developing a quantitative understanding of many different branches of physics. 

While the first law states that the amount of energy is constant, the Second Law has to do with the quality or usability of that energy—its availability to do work.  As energy is utilized to perform work, some of the energy becomes unavailable to perform further work.  In other words, energy can never be 100 percent converted into work.  Even though the first law says that energy cannot be destroyed, the second law says that it does degrade, so that as energy radiates, less of it is available for mechanical work. 

It was later discovered that the Second Law could be applied to problems relative to the energy required to construct and maintain complex systems.  It was noted that all organized complex systems tend to become more random and more disorderly.  It is easy to see why this is so.  

The construction and maintenance of complex systems (systems meaning anything from molecules to machines to galaxies) requires the expenditure of energy, and as this energy is consumed to perform work, some of the energy becomes unavailable to perform further work, as the Second Law states.  Thus the system tends to run down and deteriorate. 

The term used to define this energy that is no longer available for work, and the resultant randomness and disorder in the system, is entropy.  Entropy never decreases in any physical interaction.  As things run down, deteriorate, and decay, their entropy increases.  It has been found through observation and experimentation that the second law applies to all natural processes. Natural processes are inefficient.  There is a waste of energy in any natural process.  As more and more energy is utilized, more energy is wasted, and the entropy of the universe increases. 

On the basis of evolutionary theory, the prediction is for matter to possess an all-pervasive tendency to increase in order and complexity.  However, if we look at the natural world from common experience, or by the most sophisticated efforts scientists can arrange, it is apparent, first of all, that matter does not have an inherent tendency or intrinsic ability to transform itself from disorder to order, from simple to complex.  No scientist has ever detected such a property of matter—it is not known in science.

The origin of information is another consideration, the importance of which cannot be overemphasized.  Evolutionists believe that information has spontaneously arisen within systems with no help from the outside.  Our human observations and experience tell us, however, that this never happens.  These two laws of physics, therefore, preclude the possibility that evolution as described could ever have taken place.  

Obviously, evolutionists are well aware of the forbidding barrier the Second Law of thermodynamics places upon their theory.  Almost without exception, evolutionists will scoff at the barrier physics create and claim an “open-system” solves this issue.  They claim that the Second Law only applies to “closed” systems, that is, systems that do not gain energy from the outside or lose energy to the outside.  They state that the earth’s surface cannot be described as a closed system because the sun represents an external energy source.  They further state that the only truly closed system we know of is the universe as a whole.  They even attempt to propagate the nonsense that creation scientists do not take into account this matter of open and closed systems or are ignorant of it. 

First, it must be pointed out that the Second Law applies to all systems, open or closed!. Every system, whether open or closed, tends to deteriorate, to become less orderly and more random. All open systems eventually reach a state of maximum disorder, or entropy.  Living organisms are exceedingly complex, they are all open systems free to take in energy—but they all die and decay. The entropy content of open systems may not increase as rapidly as that of a closed system, but it does increase to the point of equilibrium, as evidenced by decay and death.  On the subject of open and closed systems, Harvard scientist Dr. John Ross states:

  …there are no known violations of the second law of thermodynamics.  Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems…there is somehow associated with the field of far-from equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of thermodynamics fails for such systems.  It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetrate itself. (1)

Evolutionists maintain that for evolutionary processes to succeed, to proceed from disorder to order, from simple to complex, all that is needed is for the system to be an open system and the existence of an adequate flow of energy into the system from the outside.  Creation scientists maintain that these are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the evolutionary process to avoid the consequences of the Second Law.  When the literature of evolutionists who consider the relationship of evolution and the Second Law is carefully searched, it is discovered that they agree with creation scientists that more is required than simply having an open system and a flow-through of energy. (2) 

 George Gaylord Simpson and W.S. Beck, both evolutionists, have clearly seen the problem:  

We have repeatedly emphasized the fundamental problems posed for the biologist by the fact of life’s complex organization.  We have seen that organization requires work for its maintenance and that the universal quest for food is in part to provide the energy needed for this work.  But the simple expenditure of energy is not sufficient to develop and maintain order.  A bull in a china shop performs work but he neither creates nor maintains organization.  The work needed is particular work; it must follow specifications; it requires information on how to proceed. (3)

The flow of uncontrolled, raw energy into a system is destructive, not constructive. Life on earth is possible only because it is protected by the ozone layer. Ozone is triatomic oxygen (O3) and is produced from molecular oxygen (O2) by radiant energy from the sun. If there were no oxygen in our atmosphere there could be no ozone. 

Evolutionists must, of absolute necessity, postulate that there was no oxygen in the atmosphere before and during the origin of life. This is so because oxygen would destroy all organic molecules, such as ammonia, methane, amino acids, nucleotides, sugars, etc., by oxidation. However, if there were no oxygen, then, of course, there could be no ozone.  All of the energy from the sun, including the high energetic, short-wave, deadly destructive ultraviolet light would flow unimpeded to the surface of the earth. This radiation would destroy any organized systems that might exist. So there could be no organized systems on the earth because they could not exist, let alone originate, in the presence of this destructive energy. 

If even a simple substance such as ammonia would be rapidly destroyed by the radiant energy from the sun bathing the primordial earth, how could more complex substances that are more unstable and thus more easily destroyed, survive, let alone be produced?  How could living organisms, the most complex, unstable arrangements of matter on the earth, survive, let alone evolved in the presence of this deadly radiation?  Proteins, DNA, and RNA can be synthesized by organic chemists using very carefully controlled conditions and employing specially devised chemical reagents as energy donors.  No organic chemist would be foolish enough, however, to try such syntheses using UV light as his energy donor. He would know the only result would be the destruction of his starting materials.  So we can clearly see that uncontrolled energy is destructive, not constructive.

Evolutionists have suggesting absurd examples of supposed circumventions of the Second Law. 

One argument often encountered that supposedly circumvents the Second Law is that of a fertilized egg  developing into the adult animal.  However, this has nothing to do with evolution.  A fertilized egg contains all of the information in its genetic apparatus to produce the adult creature.  No new information is added during the developmental process.  Furthermore, it is fully equipped with the metabolic machinery required for life.  All that is required is a steady supply of nutrients and energy. 

Another frequently encountered, simplistic and totally false argument involves ice crystals. Evolutionists who use this and similar arguments based on crystallization obviously do not understand the difference between crystallization and evolution.  In crystallization, the material crystallizing goes to a lower energy level, a more probable state.  In fact, a crystal exhibits no activity whatsoever.  It is at equilibrium. 

On the other hand, every step in the origin of life would require movement to a higher energy level, and to a less probable state.  A crystal is highly ordered, but it has very little complexity.  It has a totally repetitive structure.  Knowledgeable evolutionists know that crystallization gives no information on how the origin of life could take place in spite of the Second Law.  Evolutionist Jeffrey Wicken points out::

“Organized” systems are to be carefully distinguished from “ordered” systems.  Neither kind of system is “random,” but whereas ordered systems are generated according to simple algorithms and therefore lack complexity, organized systems must be assembled element by element according to an external “wiring diagram” with a high information content.(4) 

Wicken is admitting here exactly what creation scientists have long argued: Information must be introduced from the outside to construct or originate complex, organized systems.  This is in contrast to that required to form mere ordered systems, such as crystals, where a simple algorithm based on internal forces yield repetitive structures.  Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen state:: 

It has often been argued by analogy to water crystallizing to ice that simple monomers may polymerize into complex molecules such as protein and DNA. The analogy is clearly inappropriate, however….Organic monomers such as amino acids resist combining at all at any temperature, however, much less in some orderly arrangement.(5)

The universe is wearing down, therefore we know that the universe cannot be eternal.  It could not have been wearing down forever.  Working backwards, the laws of thermodynamics clearly point to a beginning.  In fact, it points not only to a beginning, but to a highly ordered beginning.  This raises the obvious question: If the universe is becoming less ordered, where did the initial order come from?  Physicists have long been asking this question and have had no success in finding a naturalistic solution. 

You can search the internet and find articles that try to explain away the facts of thermodynamics, usually by reinterpreting the proven rules in their favor.  Most use condescending tones as if their viewpoint is easily proven.  But the truth is, these are just desperate attempts to salvage their theory.  Since evolutionary scientists discount the possibility of Creation, and therefore are forced to believe that evolution has actually taken place, they have no choice but to accept flawed solutions to the problem, assuming a solution will be found in the future.  

On the next page we will look in more detail at the barriers that make a naturalistic origin of first life impossible