There Ought to Be a Law Against Evolution — And There Is!
by Dr. David N. Menton, Ph.D.
This version copyright (c) 1994 by:
Missouri Association for Creation[No. 3 in a series] September 1993, Vol. 3, No. 9
Perhaps the reason so many people continue to reject the notion of
evolution is that it seems contrary to ordinary experience. Things left
to chance just don't get done. Random changes in anything simply do not
produce higher levels of organization and complexity. Rather, all
complex machines and devices with which we are familiar are the result
of intelligent design and manufacture. Random changes can only destroy
them.
None the less, the essential claim of evolution is that random change
and natural selection do make simple things spontaneously transform into
more complex things without recourse to intelligent purpose or design.
The famous evolutionist Julian Huxley has defined evolution 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." In his book
_Evolution in Action_, says that nowhere in the process of evolution "is
there any trace of purpose, or even of prospective significance."
Huxley says that evolution is driven solely by "blind physical forces"
engaged in what he calls a great "chaotic jazz dance of particles and
radiations."
Incredibly, Huxley concludes that evolution is a process in which
"the only over-all tendency we have so far been able to detect is that
summarized by the second law of thermodynamics -- _the tendency to run
down_." Now think about this -- one of the most highly respected
spokesman for evolution tells us that evolution produces an increasingly
high level of organization in things by means of a chance process whose
only over-all tendency is to cause things to break down!
The whole notion that random change over a long period of time can
transform simple systems into ever more complex systems runs precisely
contrary to one of the most fundamental laws of nature -- the second law
of thermodynamics. The Second Law states that with time, everything in
the universe tends to undergo progressive _degradation_. With the
passing of time, things do not naturally increase in order and
complexity -- they _decrease_. Think of what spontaneous change over a
thousand years will do to an automobile, or your own body. Scientists
tell us that with enough time, this natural degradation process will
lead to the "heat death" of the whole universe when virtually everything
in nature will run down to the point that even molecular motion will
cease!
Evolutionists have tried to get around this formidable obstacle by
arguing that the Second Law only applies to _closed_ systems that do not
receive energy from the outside. The earth, they remind us, is an
_open_ system that receives energy from the sun. Evolutionists believe
that as long as energy flows into such a system, simple things will just
naturally transform into more complex things. They believe that the
immense complexity we see in all the living things here on earth has
occurred at the expense of our sun. While the sun is burning up, and
thus decreasing its free energy and complexity in accordance with the
Second Law, the sun's energy promotes a local _increase_ in complexity
here on earth.
To illustrate how all this is supposed to work, evolutionists often
give simple examples such as the earth's water cycle. The Second Law
predicts that in a closed system, water will naturally flow _down_ hill
and will not flow _up_ hill. But the earth being an open system,
receives energy from the sun which can in effect make water flow "up
hill." Specifically, the sun's energy can evaporate water which has
accumulated on the earth causing water vapor to rise up again into the
atmosphere. Having made a small investment in fact, evolutionists hope
to gain a wholesale return by huge extrapolation. They would have us
believe that just as a little energy from the sun can cause water to
evaporate and go "up hill," so a lot of energy impacting on the earth
over 4.5 billion years can cause a mixture of the gases methane and
ammonia to transform into people.
The evolutionist cannot get around the Second Law, as it applies to
evolution, with such trivial examples. All observed cases in which
complex things are derived from less complex things demand an already
existing machine that is at least as complex as that which it produces.
While this machine requires energy to do its work, energy by itself is
not enough. Energy and raw materials, for example, are used in an
automobile factory to make complex automobiles, but nothing would come
of these resources were it not for the even more complex machines,
designs, and intelligent workers associated with the factory.
Like factories, living animals and their cells are comprised of
extraordinarily complex machines that use energy and raw material in the
form of food to do work, produce complex products, and even make
identical copies of themselves. The food that sustains life is
ultimately a product of living green plants. Such plants uses energy
from the sun to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugar and starch.
This process, known as photosynthesis, involves still other complex
machines called chloroplast in the cells of green plants.
It is important to emphasize that all the different kinds of energy
consuming machinery in living cells are not the chance products of mere
energy and raw material, but are constructed according to
extraordinarily complex and precise "blueprints" in the genes of each
cell. Copies of these "blueprints" are read and implemented by still
other complex machines in the cell called ribosomes. When all of this
genetic information and machinery is present and working properly, in
say an acorn, it has everything it needs to use sunlight and simple raw
material to grow into an oak tree. But if the same sunlight shines on a
dead oak tree, it will eventually break it down into dust.
Creationists are convinced then that there is a law against the
theory of evolution -- the second law of thermodynamics. Evolutionists,
on the other hand, continue to reject the idea that thermodynamics is in
any way incompatible with evolutionary theory. They insist that
creationists simply don't understand thermodynamics. But the great
physical scientist Lord Kelvin, who was the very founder of the second
law of thermodynamics, was a Bible-believing Christian and a
creationist! Kelvin, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, was convinced
that the science of dynamics was incompatible with evolution. In one of
his published lectures, Kelvin said:
"I need scarcely say that the beginning and maintenance of life
on earth is absolutely and infinitely beyond the range of all
sound speculation in dynamical science. The only contribution of
dynamics to theoretical biology is absolute negation of automatic
commencement or automatic maintenance of life."
The Bible tells us that "every house is built by someone, but God is
the builder of everything." (Hebrews 3:4) It requires less faith to believe
this eminently reasonable statement about the origin of complex things
as revealed in the sure Word of God than it does to believe in the
unreasonable speculations of men.
Dr. Menton received his Ph.D. in Biology from Brown University. He has
been involved in biomedical research and education for over 30 years.
Dr. Menton is President of the Missouri Association for Creation, Inc.
Originally published in:
St. Louis MetroVoice
PO Box 220010
St. Louis, MO 63122
Corrections and revisions have been made by the
author from the original published essay.
This text file prepared and distributed
by the Genesis Network (GenNet).
