>>> It seems very difficult to discuss the issue of the second
>>> law because of "prepared statements" like the one above.
[the rhetorical question, "How long does the sun have to shine on a pile of
lumber to turn it into a house. A well-known creationist -- I forget who --
actually used this one.]
>>> The answer has a certain common sense about it but yet
>>> there is a subtle (or not so subtle) switch wherein it
>>> suddenly seems that the evolutionist has made this really
>>> extraordinary claim (that the sun shining on piles of lumber
>>> will turn it into a house) when actually no such claim was
>>> made. Instead, it is the creationist who has made an
>>> extraordinary claim, that evolution violates the second
>>> law. Pointing out that the earth is an open system merely
>>> casts considerable doubt on the creationist's claim.
>>> It is now their turn to actually present some evidence
>>> that doesn't involve word games.
I think those kinds of answers are, purely and simply, an effort to cast
the questions in common-sense terms that will give a nontechnical audience
a laugh at the evolutionists' expense -- as well as give a nontechnical
person a response that might at least cause an evolutionist to hesitate in
his/her response. They are counterproductive because they distract
attention from the kinds of examples that might help people understand what
the second law permits. The energy input from the sun enables processes
that can increase order to function. For quartz to form crystals it first
had to be heated to a molten state. For crystals to form from solutions,
the substance that crystallized first had to be dissolved. Prigogine in
his books, "Order out of Chaos" and "From Being to Becoming" discusses
chemical reactions in which the concentrations of the various reagents
oscillate chaotically, again using ambient energy. Reactions like that
didn't use to be discussed in the chemistry classes most of us took in
undergraduate school. But that sort of reaction demonstrates that some of
the capabilities needed by living things -- signalling, sensing, etc. may
be present in fairly simple combinations of chemicals. Howard Van Till in
his book, "The Fourth Day" discusses stellar evolution, showing how the
elements we need to live were made through a complex process or successive
fusion burns producing ever heavier elements. Again, a tremendous energy
inpout is used to produce material structure. (And I can't resist this:
and shows how much our Lord was willing to do to build a home for us.)
Actually, one response to the question above might be that the sun shone on
the earth for billions of years, making it possible for the trees the
lumber came from to evolve and grow, and for men to develop to the point
they could make plans for houses, cut trees and build houses, and all the
sun has to do is keep shining for a few more weeks and the men it made
possible will use the lumber it made possible to build the souse it made
possible. And as a Christian of Calvinist bent I cannot quit without
adding that God is in control of the entire process.
Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr, Ph.D. | Staff Research Engineer
Chassis and Vehicle Systems | General Motors R&D Center | Warren, MI
William_E._Hamilton@notes.gmr.com
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX) | whamilto@mich.com (home email)