[theorangejulius]

Originally posted by Ego Tripping
I used to be evolutionist, and an atheist, but that's changed over the years.

Evolution does seem to make sense, but once I started studying more, I realized it contradicts itself by The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Entropy to be more specific.

Entropy is described as:

en·tro·py ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ntr-p)
n. pl. en·tro·pies
Symbol S For a closed thermodynamic system, a quantitative measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work.
A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.
A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message.
The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.
Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.


Everything in our life, post-Big Bang is decaying. The 'natural order' of things is to decay. But what Evoultion won't account for, is it requires a system that gets better over time. One that has more information being put into it, to become adapted. For some reason, we've become smarter, while other animals' intelligence remains constant. Why are we getting more efficient though? Where's all the extra information for our DNA coming from?

The next problem I ran into was how we come together to begin with. Our bodies have cells in them. In the cells are DNA, and within the DNA strand is 20 amino acid chains. These have to be a certain exact pattern to work right. If even one is off, it could turn out to be something entirely different.

20p = 2432902008176640000 possible combinations (I believe I did this right). That means the chance of your DNA being as it is, has a once in chance probability out of the number above.

That bassically contradicts the other definition of Entropy, that order cannot come from disorder.

Lets say you have a glass tube filled with red + blue sand, both perfectly seperate. If you shake it enough, what are the chances they will mix almost entirely? 100%.

If you keep shaking, what are the chances that both colors will be come perfectly seperated again? 0%

But Evolution needs this to work.


At it's most detailed view, Evolution still needs a "motivation" behind it. A reason for all components to come together perfectly, in a world where everyday physics state it's a near impossibility. If Evolution is how we got to be the way we are today, the idea of a "god" simply must be applied for it to make sense. Otherwise, "it just is", and in Science, that's not an acceptable answer. Evolution is like taking a huge gamble, and winning every single time, with not one miss. Any hardcore Evolutionist can admit (if they are well versed on it) that it doesn't make sense, compared to the world around us. And even Darwin died a Christian.

An interesting standpoint, but I think you misunderstand the implications of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. What the law states is that order will not spontaneously spring from disorder in a closed system. The story is different though, if there is energy coursing through the system, providing the 'fuel' to create order. In our case, the sun provides energy to the Earth, so the Earth cannot be considered a closed system. The 2nd law says that if left undisturbed, with no outside influences, a closed system will not become more ordered (a messy room stays messy). Enter an outside influence, such as the energy from fusion reactions in the sun's core (someone using energy to clean up and organize the room), and order can be created from disorder.

If I put enough energy into it, I could separate all of the red grains of sand from all the blue ones, and create order from disorder. I call that energy the result of nuclear fusion, you call it god.

Macroscopically, the entropy of the universe (a closed system) will never decrease. If you zoom in a little bit, you'll see that in certisolated instances entropy CAN decrease, with the simple addition of energy.

If one is looking for a 'motivation' behind evolution, look no further than the sun, natural selection, and the fundamentals of life itself. One of the fundamentals of life is the tendency and ability to replicate. Natural selection governs the manner in which life replicates, by only allowing those most fit to replicate further. In the grand scheme, these miniscule changes 'motivate' the progress of evolution.

Otherwise, "it just is", and in Science, that's not an acceptable answer.

I'm not going to pretend to know how small, isolated systems (prebiotic systems) initially began to replicate. But, I'm also not going to assume that just because we don't know how it started that a god must have been responsible. I think there is a grey area between 'just is' and 'was created by a god'. As theoretical scientists struggle through the laws of physics and chemistry, they continually shed light on that grey area.

As far as each DNA code being a near impossibility, so is the probability of the existance of the Earth itself. If you think about the billions of galaxies we can see, and the billions of stars in each of those galaxies, and all the planets surrounding those stars, it's not hard to come up with a figure on the scale of 1 in 2432902008176640000. Even though the chances are that YOU won't be the 1 in that figure, something HAS to be the 1.

Who is to say that the intelligence of other animals remains constant while only human intelligence increases? The very fact that there are so many different variations of every species, all descending from somewhat common ancestors, implies that changes affect all living species in the long run. I personally believe that the human race was solely one of the first of these organisms on which the changes began to focus on mental growth, while other organisms adaptations were focused on keeping the organism alive long enough to reproduce. Because of this, we were able to climb high enough on the food chain to gain a secure position on top of it (at least for now). If you could watch a time-lapse film of the evolution of all life except humans for the next 3 billion years, I have little doubt that something as intelligent or moreso would spring up. (Assuming our sun is still burning bright, and Earth hasn't been slammed by a wandering asteroid)

On a final note, It's so easy to forget that humans and humanoid species have only been around for a blink of an eye on the time scale of life on earth. Assuming Australopithecus as the first humanlike ancestor, 4 million years divided by the 4 billion years that 'life' has been around, that means we've only been here .1% of the time that life has been on earth. That hardly makes us special, considering what kind of intelligence could spring up in the next 3 billion years.