Creation/Evolution & the Second Law of Thermodynamics

John Doughty

May 17, 2015

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I. Two Opposing Models:

Creation Model: The creation model thus postulates a period of special creation in the beginning,

during which all the basic laws and categories of nature, including the major kinds of plants and

animals, as well as man, were brought into existence by special creative and integrative

processes which are no longer in operation.  Once the creation was finished, these processes of

creation were replaced by processes of conservation, which were designed by the Creator to

sustain and maintain the basic systems He had created.  Henry Morris, Scientific Creationism,

Evolution Model: By naturalistic mechanistic processes due to properties inherent in inanimate

matter.  -Origin of all living things from a single living source which itself arose from inanimate

matter. -Origin of each kind from an ancestral form by slow gradual change.  -Unlimited

variation.  All forms genetically related.

“Evolution comprises all the stages of development of the universe: the cosmos, biological, and

human a cultural developments.  Attempts to restrict the concept of evolution to biology are

gratuitous.  Life is a product of the evolution of inorganic nature, and man is a product of the

evolution of life.” Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Changing Man,” Science, January 27, 1967, p. 409.

“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 the view that the whole of reality is evolution—a single process of self-transformation.”

Julian Huxley: “Evolution and Genetics” in What is Man? (Ed. by J. R. Newman, New York,

Simon and Schuster, 1955), p. 278.

II. Evolution Theory Contradicted by Second Law

“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 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.” Isaac Asimov, Smithsonian Institute Journal, June 1970,

III. Open vs. Close Systems

“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.” R. B. Lindsay: “Physics-To What Extent Is It Deterministic?” American Scientist, Vol.

56, Summer 1968, p. 100.

“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.” Harold

Blum: “Perspectives in Evolution,” American Scientist, October, 1955, p. 595.

IV. Bible Verses Anticipating Entropy Principle

Psalm 102:25 “Of old You founded the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. 26

“Even they will perish, but You endure; And all of them will wear out like a garment; Like

clothing You will change them and they will be changed. 27 “But You are the same, And Your

years will not come to an end.…

Romans 8:20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will

of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage

to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

James 1:17  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the

Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them

who are the called according to his purpose.

V. Professors of Thermodynamics See the work of a Creator:

“The final point to be made is that the second law of thermodynamics and the principle of the

increase of entropy have philosophical implications. Does the second law of thermodynamics

apply to the universe as a whole? Are there processes unknown to us that occur somewhere in

the universe, such as “continual creation,” that have a decrease in entropy associated with them,

and thus offset the continual increase in entropy that is associated with the natural processes that

are known to us?  If the second law is valid for the universe (we of course do not know if the

universe can be considered as an isolated system), how did it get in the state of low entropy? On

the other end of the scale, if all processes known to us have an increase in entropy associated

with them, what is the future of the natural world as we know it?”

Quite obviously it is impossible to give conclusive answers to these questions on the basis of the

second law of thermodynamics alone.  However, the authors see the second law of

thermodynamics as man’s description of the prior and continuing work of a creator, who also

holds the answer to the future destiny of man and the universe.  Fundamentals of Classical

Thermodynamics, (2nd ed, 1973, by Van Wylen and Sonntag, New York; John Wiley & Sons, p.248