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Definitions
The study of biological processes and phenomena
indicates that significant evolutionary developments are not observable
in the modern world. Similarly the great gaps in the fossil record make
it extremely doubtful that any genuine evolution, as distinct from small
changes within the kinds, ever took place in the past.
There is one consideration, however, which goes well
beyond the implications of the above difficulties. Not only is there no
evidence that evolution ever has taken place, but there is also
firm evidence that evolution never could take place. The law
of increasing entropy is an impenetrable barrier which no
evolutionary mechanism yet suggested has ever been able to overcome.
Evolution and entropy are opposing and mutually exclusive concepts. If
the entropy principle is really a universal law, then evolution must be
impossible.
The very terms themselves express contradictory
concepts. The word "evolution" is of course derived from a
Latin word meaning "out-rolling". The picture is of an
outward-progressing spiral, an unrolling from an infinitesimal beginning
through ever broadening circles, until finally all reality is embraced
within.
"Entropy," on the other hand, means
literally "in-turning." It is derived from the two Greek words
en (meaning "in") and trope (meaning
"turning"). The concept is of something spiraling inward upon
itself, exactly the opposite concept to "evolution." Evolution
is change outward and upward, entropy is change inward and downward.
That the principles of evolution and entropy are both
believed to be universal principles and yet are mutually contradictory
is seen from the,- following authoritative definitions:
"There
is a general natural tendency of all observed systems to go from order
to disorder, reflecting dissipation of energy available for future
transformation—the law of increasing entropy." 1
As far as evolution is concerned, (the classic
definition of Sir Julian Huxley is as follows:
"Evolution
in the extended sense can be defined as a directional and essentially
irreversible process occurring in time, which in its course gives rise
to an increase of variety and an increasingly high level of organization
in its products. Our present knowledge indeed forces us to tile view
that the whole of reality is evolution—a single process of
self-transformation."2
Thus, in one instance, "all observed systems ...
go from order to disorder," and in the other, "the whole of
reality ... gives rise to an increasingly high level of organization in
its products." It seems obvious that either evolution or entropy
has been vastly over-rated or else that something is wrong with the
English language.
The entropy principle, however, is nothing less than
the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is as universal and certain a
law as exists in science. First, however, before discussing the Second,
Law, we should define the First Law and, for that matter, thermodynamics
itself.
Thermodynamics is a compound of two Greek words, therme
("heat") and dunamis ("power"). It is the
science that speaks of the power or energy contained in heat, and its
conversion to other forms of energy. The term energy" is itself
derived from the Greek word energeia ("working"), and
is normally defined as "the capacity to do work. In modern
scientific terminology, "energy" and "work" are
considered equivalent, each measured as the product of a force times the
distance through which it acts (foot-pounds, in the English system of
dimensions). Something which has "energy" has the
"capacity to do work" ... that is, the capacity to exert a
force through a distance."
The concept of "power" is closely related to
that of "energy" except that the time factor must also be
taken into account. Power is the work done, or the energy expended to do
the work, per unit of time measured in foot-pounds per second.
The First Law of Thermodynamics
Since all processes are fundamentally energy
conversion processes, and since everything that happens in the physical
universe is a "process" of some kind, it is obvious why the
Two Laws of Thermodynamics are recognized as the most universal and
fundamental of all scientific laws. Everything that exists in the
universe is some form of energy, and everything that happens is
some form of energy conversion. Thus the Laws which govern energy and
energy conversion are of paramount importance in understanding the world
in which we live.
Isaac Asimov defines the First Law as follows:
"To
express all this, we can say: ‘Energy can be transferred from one
place to another, or transformed from one form to another, but it can be
neither created nor destroyed.’ Or we can put it another way: ‘The
total quantity of energy in the universe is constant.’ When the total
quantity of something does not change, we say that it is conserved. The
two statements given above, then, are two ways of expressing ‘the law
of conservation of energy.’ This law is considered the most powerful
and most fundamental generalization about the universe that scientists
have ever been able to make."3
Asimov makes a very interesting point when he says
concerning this Law: "No one knows why energy is conserved."4
He should have said, of course, that science cannot tell us why
energy is neither created nor destroyed. The Bible, however, does give
us this information.
The reason why no energy can now be created is because
only God can create energy and because God has "rested from all His
work which He created and made" (Genesis 2:3). The reason why
energy cannot now be destroyed is because He is now "upholding all
things by the word of His power" (Hebrews 1:3). "I know that,
whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it" (Ecclesiastes 3:14).
The Second Law in Classical Thermodynamics
The First Law is itself a strong witness against
evolution, since it implies a basic condition of stability in the
universe. The fundamental structure of the cosmos is one of
conservation, not innovation. However, this fact in itself is not
impressive to the evolutionist, as he merely assumes that the process of
evolution takes place within the framework of energy conservation, never
stopping to wonder where all the energy came from in the first place nor
how it came to pass that the total energy was constant from then on.
It is the Second law, however, that wipes out the
theory of evolution. There is a universal process of change, and
it is a directional change, but it is not an upward
change.
In so-called classical thermodynamics, the Second Law,
like the First, is formulated in terms of energy.
"It is
in the transformation process that Nature appears to exact a penalty and
this is where the second principle makes its appearance. For every
naturally occurring transformation of energy is accompanied, somewhere,
by a loss in the availability of energy for the future
performance of work."5
In this case, entropy can be expressed mathematically
in terms of the total irreversible flow of heat. It expresses
quantitatively the amount of energy in an energy conversion process
which becomes unavailable for further work. In order for work to be
done, the available energy has to "flow" from a higher level
to a lower level. When it reaches the lower level, the energy is still
in existence, but no longer capable of doing work. Heat will naturally
flow from a hot body to a cold body, but not from a cold body to a hot
body.
For this reason, no process can be 100% efficient,
with all of the available energy converted into work. Some must be
deployed to overcome friction and will be degraded to non-recoverable
heat energy, which will finally be radiated into space and dispersed.
For the same reason a self-contained perpetual motion machine is an
impossibility.
Since, as we have noted, everything in the physical
universe is energy in some form and, since in every process some energy
becomes unavailable, it is obvious that ultimately all energy in
the universe will be unavailable energy, if present processes go on long
enough. When that happens, presumably all the various forms of energy in
the universe will have been gradually converted through a multiplicity
of processes into uniformly (that is, randomly) dispersed heat energy.
Everything will be at the same low temperature. There will be no
"differential" of energy levels, therefore no
"gradient" of energy to induce its flow. No more work can be
done and the universe will reach what the physicists call its ultimate
"heat death."
Thus, the Second Law proves, as certainly as
science can prove anything whatever, that the universe had a
beginning. Similarly, the First Law shows that the universe could not
have begun itself. The total quantity of energy in the universe is a
constant, but the quantity of available energy is decreasing.
Therefore, as we go backward in time, the available energy would
have been progressively greater until, finally, we would reach the
beginning point, where available energy equaled total energy. Time could
go back no further than this. At this point both energy and time must
have come into existence. Since energy could not create itself, the most
scientific and logical conclusion to which we could possibly come is
that: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the
earth."
The evolutionist will not accept this conclusion,
however. He hypothesizes that either: (1) some natural law canceling out
the Second Law prevailed far back in time, or (2) some. natural law
canceling out the Second Law prevails far out in space.
When he makes such assumptions, however, he is denying
his own theory, which says that all things can be explained in terms of
presently observable laws and processes. He is really resorting to
creationism, but refuses to acknowledge a Creator.
Entropy and Disorder
A second way of stating the entropy law is in terms of
statistical thermodynamics. It is recognized today that not only are all
scientific laws empirical but also that they are statistical. A great
number of individual molecules, in a gas for example, may behave in such
a way that the over-all aspects of that gas produce predictable patterns
in the aggregate, even though individual molecules may deviate from the
norm. Laws describing such behavior must be formulated statistically, or
probabilistically, rather than strictly dynamically. The dynamical laws
then can theoretically be deduced as limiting cases of the probabilistic
statements.
In this context entropy is a probability function
related to the degree of disorder in a system. The more disordered a
system may be, the more likely it is.
"All
real processes go with an increase of entropy. The entropy also measures
the randomness, or lack of orderliness of the system; the greater the
randomness, the greater the entropy."6
Note again the universality expressed here—all
real processes. Isaac Asimov expresses this concept interestingly as
follows:
"Another
way of stating the Second Law then is: ‘The universe is constantly
getting more disorderly!’ Viewed that way, we can see the Second Law
all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to
itself it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we
never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain
houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order; how
easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and
everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by
itself and that is what the Second Law is all about."7
Remember this tendency from order to disorder applies
to all real processes. Real processes include, of course, biological and
geological processes, as well as chemical and physical processes. The
interesting question is: "How does a real biological process, which
goes from order to disorder, result in evolution. which goes from
disorder to order?" Perhaps the evolutionist can ultimately find an
answer to this question, but he at least should not ignore it, as most
evolutionists do.
Especially is such a question vital, when we are
thinking of evolution as a growth process on the grand scale from atom
to Adam and from particle to people. This represents in absolutely gigantic
increase in order and complexity, and is clearly out of place
altogether in the context of the Second Law.
Footnotes
1 . R. B.
Lindsay: "Physics—To What Extent Is It Deterministic?" American
Scientist, Vol. 56, Summer 1968, p. 100.
2. Julian Huxley: "Evolution and Genetics" in What is Man? (Ed.
by J. R. Newman, New York, Simon and Schuster, 1955), p.278.
3. Isaac Asimov: "In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics You
Can’t Break Even," Smithsonian Institute Journal, June,
1970, p. 6.
4. Ibid.
5. R. B. Lindsay: "Entropy Consumption and Values in Physical
Science," American Scientist, Vol. 47, September, 1959, p.
378.
6. Harold Blum: "Perspectives in Evolution," American
Scientist, October, 1955, p. 595.
7. Isaac Asimov: op cit, p.10
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