Recently over a dinner conversation in Park City a friend asked me. "How do you reconcile evolution with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics?" This made for interesting discourse around the table, and I was glad the question was asked.
There are many people, uncomfortable with the notion of evolution, who use the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as an argument against evolution. http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-thermodynamics.html states this position "Thus, in the long term, there is an overall downward trend throughout the universe. Ultimately, when all the energy of the cosmos has been degraded, all molecules will move randomly, and the entire universe will be cold and without order. To put it simply: In the real world, the long-term overall flow is downhill, not uphill. All experimental and physical observation appears to confirm that the Law is indeed universal, affecting all natural processes in the long run", "Naturalistic Evolution requires that physical laws and atoms organize themselves into increasingly complex and beneficial, ordered arrangements. Thus, over eons of time, billions of things are supposed to have developed upward, becoming moreorderly and complex." and ". . this basic law of science (2nd Law of Thermodynamics) reveals the exact opposite. In the long run, complex, ordered arrangements actually tend to become simpler and more disorderly with time. There is an irreversible downward trend ultimately at work throughout the universe. Evolution, with its ever increasing order and complexity, appears impossible in the natural world."
To the Christian author's point, the physicists Lawrence M. Krauss has publicly voiced on many occasions that the quickening expansion of galaxies will cause them to "drop out of view"[1] and that in the distant future the universe will become cold and dark. Creation theism and science both agree that one day the universe will be void. However how does this relate to the 2nd law of Thermodynamics and evolution thus far? According to science, the creationist's interpretation of the law is simply misguided. "Creationists have created a 'voodoo' thermodynamics based solely on metaphors in order to convince those not familiar with real thermodynamics that their sectarian religious views have scientific validity." [2] In other words, most scientists agree creationists are putting a square peg in a round hole. The science community states there is no link between evolution and mathematical analysis of entropy. Which interpretation is correct? My inclination is to sit on the side of the scientists as they are the body that came up with the law. But, there is a third interpretation that is less explored.
Consider the wording in which creationists use for the anti-evolution argument and the law. They will tell you, the law teaches us only disorder comes from order, that order cannot come from disorder; hence the conclusion is evolution is not possible - right? I will not disagree with the creationist's wording, rather the conclusion. However, I will also not discourage the relationship of the law with evolution as many in the science community do. Instead, I will argue evolution requires disorder - complex life forms cannot develop without disorder! Thus, the argument is the law does apply, but it is a pro-evolution, not anti-evolution position.
Google defines disorder in the verb as “disrupting the neat arrangement of”. Disrupting the neat arrangement of matter is a requirement for evolution. This disruption of particles is intrinsic to our basic understanding of evolution. We can see this disruption every day, in countless forms:
There are many people, uncomfortable with the notion of evolution, who use the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as an argument against evolution. http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-thermodynamics.html states this position "Thus, in the long term, there is an overall downward trend throughout the universe. Ultimately, when all the energy of the cosmos has been degraded, all molecules will move randomly, and the entire universe will be cold and without order. To put it simply: In the real world, the long-term overall flow is downhill, not uphill. All experimental and physical observation appears to confirm that the Law is indeed universal, affecting all natural processes in the long run", "Naturalistic Evolution requires that physical laws and atoms organize themselves into increasingly complex and beneficial, ordered arrangements. Thus, over eons of time, billions of things are supposed to have developed upward, becoming moreorderly and complex." and ". . this basic law of science (2nd Law of Thermodynamics) reveals the exact opposite. In the long run, complex, ordered arrangements actually tend to become simpler and more disorderly with time. There is an irreversible downward trend ultimately at work throughout the universe. Evolution, with its ever increasing order and complexity, appears impossible in the natural world."
To the Christian author's point, the physicists Lawrence M. Krauss has publicly voiced on many occasions that the quickening expansion of galaxies will cause them to "drop out of view"[1] and that in the distant future the universe will become cold and dark. Creation theism and science both agree that one day the universe will be void. However how does this relate to the 2nd law of Thermodynamics and evolution thus far? According to science, the creationist's interpretation of the law is simply misguided. "Creationists have created a 'voodoo' thermodynamics based solely on metaphors in order to convince those not familiar with real thermodynamics that their sectarian religious views have scientific validity." [2] In other words, most scientists agree creationists are putting a square peg in a round hole. The science community states there is no link between evolution and mathematical analysis of entropy. Which interpretation is correct? My inclination is to sit on the side of the scientists as they are the body that came up with the law. But, there is a third interpretation that is less explored.
Consider the wording in which creationists use for the anti-evolution argument and the law. They will tell you, the law teaches us only disorder comes from order, that order cannot come from disorder; hence the conclusion is evolution is not possible - right? I will not disagree with the creationist's wording, rather the conclusion. However, I will also not discourage the relationship of the law with evolution as many in the science community do. Instead, I will argue evolution requires disorder - complex life forms cannot develop without disorder! Thus, the argument is the law does apply, but it is a pro-evolution, not anti-evolution position.
Google defines disorder in the verb as “disrupting the neat arrangement of”. Disrupting the neat arrangement of matter is a requirement for evolution. This disruption of particles is intrinsic to our basic understanding of evolution. We can see this disruption every day, in countless forms:
When the ordered molecular arrangement in a unique snowflake melts as liquid water; the neat
arrangement of particles in frozen water must be disrupted for life as we know it to exist.
When a bee cross-pollinates flowers; over time, bees will disorder the particles of
a few flowering plants into millions of distinct flowering plants.
There are over 800 breeds of cattle, which are all descended from the disruption of ~80 wild ox. Cattle is interesting subject for all followers of the Abrahamic religions, as Genesis 1 states God created cattle before humans. However, cattle didn't evolve from natural selection at all, humans created cattle through domesticated breeding ~11 thousand years ago[3]. The author of Genesis had no way of knowing about DNA tracing when it was written at the collapse of the bronze age.
All domesticated canines' DNA –
is the disordered DNA from a small number of wolves ~40,000 years ago. Both examples, dogs and cows, are stories of extremely accelerated evolution with humans controlling the breeding process.
However, arguably the best example of disruption is us. 7.2 billion humans evolved a unique genome from the a single group of humans who lived 135,000 years ago.[4] From the order of a few, comes the massive disorder of all humans on the globe.
Entropy: the lack of order or predictability – evolution cannot exist without it.
This rule applies beyond these examples of evolution on Earth, beyond Newtonian laws, even beyond Einstein's relativity. Today we have a view into the beginning of time which neither Newton or Einstein had access to. Human achievement has produced machines such as the microwave telescopes at the South Poll and the LHC
Disorder is required for life as we know it.
[1] SPACE. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v298/n3/full/scientificamerican0308-46.html
[2] Thermodynamic, Evolution and Creationism. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo.html
[3] DNA traces cattle back to a small herd domesticated around 10,500 years ago (n.d.). Retrieved from
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/March2012/120327-cattle-traced-back-80-animals
[4] Genetic 'Adam' and 'Eve' Uncovered (n.d.) Retrieved from
http://www.livescience.com/38613-genetic-adam-and-eve-uncovered.html
[5] The Early Universe (n.d.) Retrieved from
http://home.web.cern.ch/about/physics/early-universe
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