Things don't spontaneously get better...

Do things always decay? What about Evolution, isn't that the opposite of decay?

Has anyone proven that the seemingly inexorable forces of decay don't hamper Evolution?

Every chemical process uses up a form of potential energy irreversibly.

Perhaps this is very boring stuff to most people ...

but the larger implications relate directly to the viability of Evolution itself!

• The 1st Law of Thermodynamics tells us that ENERGY is neither being created nor destroyed.
• The 2nd Law tells us that POTENTIAL ENERGY is being destroyed!
  • In other words, something in the universe is continuously being used up and not replenished.

Entropy

ENTROPY is DECAY. The term "Entropy" means "inward turning". The word-picture intended is of a downward spiral... as seen when liquids go down the drain. We are to picture everything constantly losing Energy, Complexity, Order, and Information.

The term "Evolution", however, is the exact opposite. It means "outward turning"! The word-picture intended for this term is an ever expanding spiral, continuously encompassing larger areas as it arcs outward.

Evolution is continuous improvement, Entropy is continuous decay.

So, Which word explains the real trend in our physical universe? They seem to be mutually exclusive, but could it be possible that they both operate simultaneously?

This is why Entropy is so important. The answer to this question would differentiate between the world's dominant (and viciously competitive) philosophies. Indeed, people have fought wars over religion and philosophy. One would not readily be criticized for indicting Communism and Fascism (both children of Social Darwinism) as major motivators in the greatest wars and bloody revolutions of the 20th Century. And there are also spiritual consequences. Depending on who's correct (Atheists or Theists) the consequences of this issue may even affect us after we die!

Therefore, this is no trivial matter. Our hopes, fears, lives, and deaths are all affected by the outcome of this debate. Perhaps the reader will agree that one would be wise to consider it closely?

"Open Systems" is the argument that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics only prevents Evolution in closed systems, but, since the Earth is constantly bombarded with energy from the sun, it is an open system... and, therefore, Evolution is "fueled" by this flow of energy.

This is a powerful attempt to get around the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics which seems to rule out Evolution. It is a defense of Naturalism at its most fundamental level... Can things be created by random processes or do we require an intelligent designer? Can we rule God out or not?

But we know, from experience, that things simply don't get better on their own... even if you add energy. Why is it that the math and science seems to tell us what our experience denies? Is our every-day experience just plain wrong? Does the input of the sun ultimately create life in all its forms, and if so, how? Or is the Evolutionist misapplying the math and science?

Ambiguous Words

Plain English: ... not random.
This means that things are arranged either according to a regular formula OR to produce a functional machine OR any other purpose of a designer. This includes the regularity of repeated patterns (like in a crystal) and specific, functional order (like in a machine).

Plain English: ... not simple.
This includes both random messes and functional or meaningful structures (like in a machine or message).

Information - The quality and quantity of data that is required to duplicate a structure or communicate a concept. This data must have purpose or function that is either useful for explaining or duplicating. It is potentially useful either intellectually (as an idea) or functionally (as a machine).*

It will be noted by the careful observer that Information is found when Complexity and Order intersect.

That is to say, Information is both Complex and Ordered... but it is not random and it is not repetitive... which ironically are both alternate definitions of Complexity and Order respectively!

This speaks to the real-world examples used by Evolutionists in their debate: That crystals and random messes can form spontaneously does not mean that information can be formed spontaneously.

Intangible Yet Real

But we all know that there is a very important difference between the two. The arrangement of molecules in the rabbit contains more information because, in addition to being Complex, it is also Ordered! The rabbit possesses a specific architecture which functions as a machine. Even a child can readily appreciate the difference, although they might not articulate what that difference is.

So, we can see that INFORMATION is appreciated BOTH subjectively (intellectually) and objectively (a functional machine is produced). The Evolutionist is correct that the concept of "information" is subjective... but he misses that it is also objective; it can be appreciated from both perspectives.

The Evolutionist likes to ignore anything that is not physical. This is one of the defining points of a Naturalist and Atheist. Yet, many things can be proven to be real even though they are not tangible. For example, an idea is not tangible, yet it can have a very real effect on physical things, for example, the concepts of Democracy and Communism and their effects on history. Indeed, it is said that we now live in the "information age". Now, more than ever before, are the powerful effects of ideas felt in the tangible world.

It is easy to see that the intangible, or metaphysical, can have a tangible and physical effect. Information is intangible, it is a property found in the arrangement of a variety of things... atoms in DNA, neurons in our brains, ink on paper, and electrons on our TVs and computer screens.

We can all distinguish static on a TV from an information-containing picture. One is rather boring and useless, the other is rather enticing!

INFORMATION!

Something that is BOTH complex AND ordered is obviously present or absent.

How does this relate to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? Why is it that both Creationists and Evolutionists apply the 2nd law (a law of chemistry) to the origin of information?

There is a deeper, more fundamental process involved. In fact, one mathematical model applies to the analysis of both chemical reactions AND information!

Pioneered by Ludwig Boltzmann in 1896 and confirmed by Max Planck in 1912, this foundational idea is known as Statistical Thermodynamics. Planck proved mathematically, that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics could be completely derived from STATISTICS!*

He proved that chemical potential energy was actually a property of rare organization, and that after a reaction, the arrangement that the atoms take is always far more common than when they began. Therefore, the chemical change that occurs when fuel is burned is a special case of atoms going from a rare organization to a common one. 

We often think of statistics as a way to calculate the odds of something happening.

Yet, in this example, statistics is seen as a very powerful and regularly-acting force.

Chemicals possess potential energy because of their arrangement (like gasoline mixed with oxygen). The same atoms exist after the gas is burned... they are just arranged differently.

It is the same with information. If you randomly changed letters in a meaningful sentence, what are the odds that the sentence will become more meaningful? Or how about the number of different TV images filled with static? Their number dwarfs the number of TV screens with meaningful pictures. 

If we watched the static for a couple billion years, as the TV screen randomly shows values for each pixel, the odds that all the pixels would ever add up to a single randomly created picture that is both complex and ordered is extremely close to zero.

So, there are two different applications for the law of Statistical Thermodynamics: Chemical Entropy (Thermodynamics) and, Information (Information Science).

Crossing Over

Can Chemical Energy be used to fuel increases in Information?

Can you pay for new information by burning chemical fuel?

Natural Selection
Evolutionists have proposed the process of Natural Selection as a mechanism for converting assets of chemical potential energy into assets of information. But this runs into problems at many levels.

In other words, it is supposed to generate new information. 

This makes the concept irrational by definition. It is no surprise then, that the concept is untestable.

The fitness of any organism cannot be measured in an independent way since it is always in relation to it's environment... 

So, instead of saying, "Survival of the Fittest", they say "Survival of the Least Degraded". Instead of trying to measure the increase in information (that probably isn't there), creationists can measure the retention of genetic information.

It is clear that Natural Selection is not capable of transforming chemical potential energy into information since it is an irrational theory. Unfortunately for the evolutionist, no other mechanism has had much success.

Then compare it with an identical but blank book.  

Likewise, the entropy of the Earth is lowered by the energy that it receives from the sun, but this does not establish that this lower entropy is converted into information, into structures that are simultaneously original, ordered, and complex.

What the Sun does
The sun gives us energy and lowers our entropy. The sun does not give us information directly. The energy is raw and not specifically directed, therefore the energy is randomly applied. Evolutionists must provide a post-radiation mechanism for transforming this energy into information rather than into, at best, making copies of pre-existing information. And, as we've seen, Natural Selection won't do.

Laboratory Example (in vitro):

1. On a smaller scale, if we use a heat lamp to radiate some food with heat, the food actually rots faster than normal.
2. And, if we use the same energy to run a refrigerator, the decay can be slowed.
3. But, no known machine can receive energy and improve the status of rotten food. As far as natural processes are concerned, decay is irreversible (2nd Law) and unstoppable (3rd law)... we can only affect the rate of decay.

Real World Example (In vivo)

1. The Sun increases the rate of decay on the Earth (cf.#1 at left).
2. Living things use the sun's energy to drive the functions of life and to copy their DNA (cf.#2 at left).
3. But Evolution, the creation of new information, is not seen (cf.#3 at left). Despite a century and a half of searching, not one clear example of increased information has ever been found, not in the fossil record, not in bacteria with their rapid reproductive rate, and not even in a computer simulation with its blinding speeds.

Increases in information are a change, but so are neutral and detrimental changes. Information is always lost in mutation even if survivability is increased!

Simply put, the original creatures of each kind contained a high degree of genetic information (heterozygosity) and each generation following them possessed an ever decreasing amount of information. This process allowed for all possible environmental niches to be filled successfully... and irreversibly since the genes not being used in each particular niche were lost to genetic drift.

In this scenario, older forms of life are actually better than newer ones (contain more information) even though their adaptation is improved.

If we could obtain samples of ancient DNA and compare it with living ancestors of that kind of animal or plant, then we could identify the differences in heterozygosity and also in amounts of mutated/diseased genes. And if young-earth creationists are correct, that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old, then such DNA may actually still exist in some fossils*. Some animals are supposedly unchanged... the coelacanth, the shark, the common ant, ... and many others. These animals would be ideal candidates for such a study.

Deceptive Converters

Even though it may appear so at first, a computer or calculator merely changes input into output according to a formula.

Brains are actually not much more than fantastically intricate computers. But, there is arguably something different about a human mind as compared with a computer. Human minds, as opposed to computers or animal brains, have been known to create amazing new information!

• Evolutionists may say that this merely proves that chemical energy can be converted into new and creative information.
• Creationists may respond that this proves, instead, the existence of a supernatural element in the human makeup.

The conclusion cannot be used in the proof... that would be and example of "Begging The Question" a logical fallacy.

Natural Selection is the closest thing Evolutionists have to fill this void.

It is only rational as a conservative mechanism (which is why creationists can use it without conflict).

There are currently no practical applications, technologically, that reflect evolutionary principles. If Evolutionists were right, they would be able to produce a machine that creates new information. Such a machine would be able to take over the chore of designing other machines and systems on our behalf, but currently only humans can do this.

In other words, the development of an A.I. is hopelessly stalled because of this dilemma. Where information is concerned, they have not found a way to make output greater than input. The absence of an A.I. is a powerful indication that the conversion in question is impossible.