domingo, janeiro 07, 2007

Energia e Criacionismo

Neste post vou-me aventurar num tema no qual não estou muito à vontade, e peço já desculpa por qualquer calinada. Mas o Jónatas Machado apontou a conservação da energia como evidência contra a teoria da evolução e a favor da sua fé criacionista, e é precisamente o contrário.

Na mecânica Newtoniana, e num espaço-tempo plano, podemos considerar o sistema como invariante a translações no tempo; ou seja, não interessa quando contamos o instante 0. A consequência disso é a conservação de energia, com energia sendo um valor com uma dimensão (um escalar). Daqui tiramos a tal regra simples que a variação da quantidade de energia num sistema é igual à energia que entra menos a que sai, porque nenhuma é criada nem destruída.

Temos duas formas de calcular isto. Podemos somar a energia que passa por toda a superfície do sistema, ou somar a variação de energia de cada volume infinitésimo dentro do nosso sistema. Se considerarmos os nosso sistema partido em volumes minúsculos, a energia que sai de um entra nos vizinhos, excepto para os que estão na fronteira do sistema e trocam energia com o exterior. A integração de variações em volumes infinitésimos dá assim o mesmo valor que o total de energia que atravessa a superfície. Num sistema isolado não entra nem sai energia, e a variação total é zero.

Com a relatividade isto complica-se. Num espaço-tempo curvo não podemos separar a coordenada do tempo da mesma maneira, e o que é conservado é um vector com quatro dimensões (momento e energia). Os detalhes da matemática ultrapassam-me, mas o resultado, trocado por miúdos, é que agora as duas formas de calcular a variação total de energia do sistema dão valores diferente: somar a energia que passa por toda a superfície não dá o mesmo que somar as variações em volumes infinitésimos porque não estamos a somar valores escalares mas sim vectores definidos em pontos diferentes do espaço-tempo.

Normalmente podemos ignorar a relatividade, e usar a formulação simplificada da conservação de energia. Na evolução e em toda a biologia a variação de energia de um sistema é sempre a diferença entre a que entra e a que sai, quer seja a Terra toda quer seja uma bactéria. Mas na cosmologia é preciso complicar a matemática para modelar o universo em expansão, e a conservação não se reduz a uma frase simples como a de Jónatas Machado:

«Os evolucionistas deveriam compreender que o seu sistema é um “non starter”, na medida em que a lei da conservação da energia afirma que em todos os processos os componentes que entram são equivalentes aos que saem»

Aqui na Terra todos os seres vivos persistem e evoluem à custa do Sol, que fornece energia de sobra para alimentar estes processos. No universo como um todo não se aplica a versão simplificada da lei da conservação de energia. Quando aplicamos correctamente as leis que conhecemos vemos que a expansão do nosso universo pode gerar todas as partículas de que tudo é feito. Não há contradição entre a cosmologia, a evolução, e a conservação de energia, desde que aplicada correctamente. Como alternativa à cosmologia e evolução, Jónatas Machado propõe:

«Criar algo a partir do nada é impossível. E no entanto, nós aqui estamos.[...] Isso é inteiramente consistente com a ideia de que Deus criou o Universo, numa semana de Criação muito especial e absolutamente singular»

Os criacionistas rejeitam a evolução por considerar que é impossível. Rejeitar o impossível é boa ideia, e neste caso é apenas um erro (não é impossível). Mas o passo seguinte é absurdo, pois defendem a criação ex nihilo precisamente por ser impossível. E não é só o criacionismo fundamentalista que sofre desta incoerência. Um dos principais argumentos para a existência de um deus criador sempre foi a necessidade aparente de uma primeira causa, e os teólogos apoiavam-se na filosofia natural por indicar que todo o efeito teria causa. Hoje em dia sabemos que não é assim. Ao nível sub-atómico muitos efeitos nem podem ter causa. O mesmo raciocínio que justificava inferir um deus criador até ao século XX obriga agora a rejeitar essa hipótese. Não só é desnecessário como é aparentemente impossível que um deus tenha criado o universo.

23 comentários:

  1. Tudo o que escreveste é verdade, mas nem vejo o que possa ter a ver com criacionismo.

    O criacionismo supostamente seria uma alternativa às teorias actuais da abiogénese, e não ao big bang.

    Mas para as teorias actuais da abiogénese não são necessárias essas considerações a respeito da relatividade geral, pois como bem disseste a terra recebe energia do sol.

    Essa tentativa do Jónatas Machado de confundir a questão da abiogénese com a da "causa primeira" para o Universo parece-me mais uma demonstração de que os criacionistas andam muito confusos...

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  2. É o cunfucionismo criacionista!

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  3. eu concordo com o joão vasco quando ele diz que esta história toda não tem nada a ver com a novela "criacionsimo vs. evolução". parece-me que essa gente anda muito confusa, e devo dizer que começo a suspeitar sériamente da fiabilidade intelectual do jónatas (bom, ok, já suspeitava há muito mais tempo...).

    quanto à afirmação do mesmo em que "criar algo a partir do nada é impossível", essa afirmação é falsa (mostrando apenas, e mais uma vez, um profundo desconhecimento científico). toda a cosmologia quântica é precisamente baseada nessa possibilidade: na aproximação de "mini-super-espaço"---em que congelamos uma série infinita de graus de liberdade, deixando apenas o grau de liberdade associado ao tamanho (raio) do universo, num modelo FRW---a equação de Wheeler-deWitt reduz-se a uma equação de Schrodinger com um potencial curioso; precisamente um potencial que nos descreve---através de efeito de túnel---a criação de um universo em expansão a partir do nada! sempre a aprender, jónatas!

    naturalmente a descrição efectiva do big bang em termos de gravitação quântica será necessáriamente mais complexa que o modelo indicado, mas o interesse deste mesmo é precisamente mostrar que a criação a partir do nada na realidade não é nada de mais!...

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  4. O criacionismo propõe que um deus criou todo o universo. A versão mais extrema defende que criou cada tipo de insecto e erva daninha individualmente, mas todos os tipos de criacionismo incluem a criação do universo por um deus.

    Este post destinava-se não apenas ao criacionismo defendido pelo Jónatas Machado mas aos outros, como o católico, que mesmo afirmando-se coerentes com a ciência moderna mantém a hipótese que o universo foi criado de propósito. Essa hipótese também deve ser rejeitada pelo que sabemos hoje.

    Apesar da teoria da evolução se referir apenas a populações de replicadores (vivos ou não -- mas disso falarei noutra altura) o criacionismo refere-se a tudo. Agora são os biólogos que levam em cima, mas não pensem os físicos que se safam se estes tipos continuarem a ganhar terreno :)

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  5. Caro Ludwig

    Se é possível criar o Universo a partir do nada, então se não se importa faz favor de criar um Universo a partir do nada só para me demonstrar que tem rzão.

    Quem diz o Ludwig diz o R S Carvalho com o seu funil.

    Fico à espera sentado até que me apresentem o tal universo a partir do nada.

    Como cientistas que são, espero que não me venham com teorias esquisitóides. Quero prática, empirismo, um universo mesmo pequenino só para eu ver.

    Obrigado e boa noite.

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  6. concordo com o joão e com o ricardo de que o que dizes não tem nada a ver com o criacionismo e muito menos ainda com o criacionismo bíblico.

    não há qualquer contradição entre a evolução por selecção natural e as leis físicas. até estranho que ainda não tenha vindo a baila a 2ª lei da termodinâmica, a favorita dos criacionistas. (a verdade é que não acompanho o diálogo jonatas-ludwig, eventualmente já terão falado disso)

    o criacionismo tem sempre resposta para tudo. mas pior do que o criacionismo, é ter como verdade os mitos da bíblia. não vale a pena andarmos para aqui a explicar-lhes ciência se eles não perdem um minuto a questionar porque raio aceitam a bíblia como verdade.

    o ponto de partida para ciência é a negação da fé. se o jónatas quer empirismo, tem que nos convencer a nós (a malta da ciência) o que o leva a aceitar o que está escrito na bíblia quando toda a ciência (e até a história) a contradiz de alto a baixo.

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  7. matarbustos:

    Isso já veio à baila (claro!) no mesmo diálogo ao qual o Ludwig está a responder.

    O Jónatas defende que a segunda lei não se aplica só a sistemas isolados, mas também aos outros sistemas fechados e a sistemas abertos!

    Pelos vistos não sabe que cada vez que existe uma transferência de calor de um corpo mais quente para um mais frio, o mais frio ganha entropia e o mais quente perde-a (e, se estiverem isolados, o ganho é superior à perda) - basta considerar o sistema "corpo quente" para que aconteça aquilo que o Jónatas afirma ser impossível. Aparentemente o Jónatas não acredita que algum corpo possa arrefecer...

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  8. Então o Universo a partir do nada? Já tá construído? Não quero modelos, quero um Universo quente e frio, com tudo o que um Universo tem que ter! Nem que seja dentro de uma caixa de fósforos! Um pequeno big-bang, sff!

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  9. Com a ressalva que em ciência não há teorias herméticas (está tudo interligado) concordo que há uma relação ténue entre a teoria da evolução e a termodinâmica.

    Mas discordo que isto não tenha nada a ver com o criacionismo bíblico. Este criacionismo não é uma teoria científica, pelo que não podemos deduzir quais as observações relevantes. É um movimento ideológico e político que ataca a ciência moderna deturpando-a e enganando as pessoas. Tem a ver com o criacionismo qualquer hipótese científica que seja assim atacada. A lei da conservação da energia é um exemplo.

    Matabustos:

    Eu acho que vale a pena explicar ciência. Sempre, porque é essencial numa sociedade como a nossa, e necessário que os que participam dela tenha alguma ideia do que é. E especialmente quando está a ser deturpada para fins políticos e ideológicos.

    João:

    Já estou a tratar desse da entropia :)

    António:

    Como eu mencionei e o Ricardo explicou em mais detalhe, um big bang é algo que acontece, mas não algo que se faça acontecer. Tal como a criação de particulas virtuais ou o decaimento radioactivo não tem uma causa, por isso não pode ser causado. Nem por nós, nem por um deus, pois nada pode causar o acaso.

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  10. Ludwig

    Obrigado pelas suas explicações. Fiquei esclarecido.

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  11. já agora, duas pequenas adendas (para complementar a resposta do ludwig ao antónio):

    1- não faz sentido o antónio aceitar a mecânica quântica para umas coisas (por exemplo, usar a internet através de computadores) e rejeitá-la para outras (por exemplo, modelos de mini-super-espaço em cosmologia quântica). a teoria é toda a mesma. não aceitar isso significaria uma profunda confusão sobre o que é ciência e o que é uma teoria científica. aceitar a teoria "só quando dá jeito" seria extremamente hipócrita.

    2- criar um universo no laboratório poderá não ter nada de mais. naturalmente é uma experiência complexa, e não se faz de um momento para o outro como antónio pede (é como pedir para portugal colocar um homem em marte até ao final do ano: requer uma concentração de meios que não é trivial de conjugar). no entanto, saliento duas notas: (a) alan guth, do MIT, tem vindo a sugerir este género de experiências há alguns anos (criação de universos em laboratório, por forma a investigar as propriedades da fase pré-inflacionária) e algum trabalho tem sido desenvolvido nessa direcção; (b) é já em novembro deste ano que o CERN vai ligar o novo acelerador, o LHC, que irá reproduzir condições muito próximas do big bang. quem sabe dentro de uma década ou duas o pedido do antónio será respondido. no entanto, não estou tão optimista que isso seja o suficiente para calar a sua cruzada anti-ciência...

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  12. Caro ricardo s. carvalho

    Há um equívoco da sua parte: não estou numa cruzada anti-ciência e não sou criacionista. É possível ser evolucionista, aceitar o Big Bang, a mecânica quântica, a teoria da relatividade geral, a teoria das cordas, todas essas tretas científicas sem deixar de acreditar na existência de Deus.

    E discordo da sua observação de que existe uma cruzada anti-ciência: penso é que existe uma cruzada anti-religiosa baseada, indevidamente, no ateísmo cientifista.

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  13. «E discordo da sua observação de que existe uma cruzada anti-ciência»

    A malta anda a sonhar. O movimento criacionista não existe. Quem diria...

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  14. João Vasco,

    Quando escreves "os criacionistas andam muito confusos" incorres num erro. A generalização precipitada.

    Há criacionistas e criacionistas.
    Eu considero-me criacionista, mas não me revejo em nenhuma das correntes criacionistas existentes, e isto porque encontro pontos de discórdia em todas elas.

    A generalização é muito arriscada.
    Seria sensato, perante um desacordo entre dois ou três ateus em concreto, deduzir que "os ateístas andam muito confusos"?

    Ou seria sensato, perante a enorme variedade de famílias evolucionistas, dizer que essa variedade ocorre porque "os evolucionistas andam muito confusos"?

    O debate Criação vs. Evolução é um debate multidisciplinar:

    a) Ciências exactas: Física, Lógica, Matemática

    b) Ciências da vida: Biologia, Genética

    c) Ciências humanistas: Filosofia, História, Teologia

    Por estas razões todas, este debate só tem interesse se o conseguirmos travar sem a "canga" habitual das guerras ideológicas. Sem estarmos sempre com a tendência para ridicularizar as ideias contrárias às nossas.

    O Ludwig tem razão quando afirma que é bem melhor ridicularizar ideias do que pessoas. Não lhe tiro essa razão. Vamos esquecer as pessoas e esgrimir ideias!
    Mas, por vezes, ridicularizar uma boa ideia só porque não a compreendemos, ou só porque essa boa ideia nos foi pessimamente explicada, já não me parece boa estratégia...
    Tu tens esse grande defeito, João Vasco, de intuir as intenções dos outros.

    Dizes:
    «Essa tentativa do Jónatas Machado de confundir a questão da abiogénese com a da "causa primeira" para o Universo»

    Sinceramente, a segurança com que afirmas as intenções e tentativas do Jónatas surpreende-me.
    Não estou a querer defender a pessoa do Jónatas, e não é interessante estar sempre a falar em "respeitar" ou "desrespeitar pessoas".
    Quando digo que a tua segurança em falar das intenções dos outros me surpreende é porque fazes afirmações que são claramente opinativas e subjectivas como se fossem afirmações factuais. Isso é péssimo...

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  15. Caro Bernardo,

    Em parte concordo com o que escreve: em geral todos os crentes são criacionistas. Todos crêm que um ou mais deuses criou isto tudo, de uma forma mais ou menos intervencionista.

    Mas discordo com a sua classificação «das ciências». Isso parece-me um mal entendido comum mas prejudicial. Há uma ciência, e como ciência é exacta. Propõe hipóteses claras e objectivamente testáveis.

    Acontece que em várias campos de investigação não temos o conhecimento suficiente para formular hipóteses claras e objectivamente testáveis, e por isso especulamos com modelos vagos até que se encontr alguma ponta por onde começar a fazer ciência.

    No estudo da humanidade a história, a neurologia, a psicologia são em parte ciência (e em parte especulação vaga). A teologia e a filosofia não são ciência, e penso que se disesse isso a algum dos meus professores de filosofia chumbavam-no logo :)

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  16. gostaria apenas de lembrar aos nobres senhores(as) que o que se chama lei da conservação da energia é um principio não uma lei, ainda que os dogmaticos queiram e afirmem isso as vezes de forma até violenta.
    se tua afirmação depende vitalmente da conservação da energia, cuidado pois no futuro ela pode cair junto com todo castelo cientifico iniciado na relatividade de Albert Eisten

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  17. Um artigo interessante digo de ser lido e reflectido:

    TEN MAJOR FLAWS OF EVOLUTION - REVISED
    by Randy Alcorn (with additional editing by Jim Darnall). I wrote the following article many years ago, but it needed to be thoroughly revised and updated. Thanks to Jim Darnall for adding some important new information.


    The complexity of living systems could never evolve by chance—they had to be designed and created. A system that is irreducibly complex has precise components working together to perform the basic function of the system. (A mousetrap is a simple example.) If any part of that system were missing, the system would cease to function. Gradual additions could not account for the origin of such a system. It would have to come together fully formed and integrated. Many living systems exhibit this (vision, blood-clotting, etc.). When you look at a watch, you assume there was a watchmaker. A watch is too complex to "happen" by chance. Yet such living systems are almost infinitely more complex than a watch. They could not be random—they simply had to be designed and created.


    The high information content of DNA could only have come from intelligence. Information science teaches that in all known cases, complex information requires an intelligent message sender. This is at the core of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). DNA is by far the most compact information storage/retrieval system known. A pinhead of DNA has a billion times more information capacity than a 4-gigabit hard drive. Ironically, evolutionists scan the heavens using massive radio telescopes hoping for relatively simple signal patterns that might have originated in outer space, all the while ignoring the incredibly complex evidence of superior intelligence built into every human's DNA. While we're waiting to hear signs of intelligence behind interstellar communication, we're ignoring those built into us.


    No mutation that increases genetic information has ever been discovered. Mutations which increase genetic information would be the raw material necessary for evolution. To get from "amoeba" to "man" would require a massive net increase in information. There are many examples of supposed evolution given by proponents. Variation within a species (finch beak, for example), bacteria which acquire antibiotic resistance, people born with an extra chromosome, etc. However, none of the examples demonstrate the development of new information. Instead, they demonstrate either preprogrammed variation, multiple copies of existing information, or even loss of information (natural selection and adaptation involve loss of information). The total lack of any such evidence refutes evolutionary theory.


    Evolution flies directly in the face of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics. This law of physics states that all systems, whether open or closed, have a tendency to disorder (or "the least energetic state"). There are some special cases where local order can increase, but this is at the expense of greater disorder elsewhere. Raw energy cannot generate the complex systems in living things, or the information required to build them. Undirected energy just speeds up destruction. Yet, evolution is a building-up process, suggesting that things tend to become more complex and advanced over time. This is directly opposed to the law of entropy.


    There is a total lack of undisputed examples (fossilized or living) of the millions of transitional forms ("missing links") required for evolution to be true. Evolution does not require a single missing link, but innumerable ones. We should be surrounded by a zoo of transitional forms that cannot be categorized as one particular life form. But we don't see this—there are different kinds of dogs, but all are clearly dogs. The fossils show different sizes of horses, but all are clearly horses. None is on the verge of being some other life form. The fossil record shows complex fossilized life suddenly appearing, and there are major gaps between the fossilized "kinds." Darwin acknowledged that if his theory were true, it would require millions of transitional forms. He believed they would be found in fossil records. They haven't been.


    Pictures of ape-to-human "missing links" are extremely subjective and based on evolutionists' already-formed assumptions. Often they are simply contrived. The series of pictures or models that show progressive development from a little monkey to modern man are an insult to scientific research. These are often based on fragmentary remains that can be "reconstructed" a hundred different ways. The fact is, many supposed "ape-men" are very clearly apes. Evolutionists now admit that other so-called "ape-men" would be able to have children by modern humans, which makes them the same species as humans. The main species said to bridge this gap, Homo habilis, is thought by many to be a mixture of ape and human fossils. In other words, the "missing link" (in reality there would have to be millions of them) is still missing. The body hair and the blank expressions of sub-humans in these models doesn't come from the bones, but the assumptions of the artist. Virtually nothing can be determined about hair and the look in someone's eyes based on a few old bones.


    The dating methods that evolutionists rely upon to assign millions and billions of years to rocks are very inconsistent and based on unproven (and questionable) assumptions. Dating methods that use radioactive decay to determine age assume that radioactive decay rates have always been constant. Yet, research has shown that decay rates can change according to the chemical environment of the material being tested. In fact, decay rates have been increased in the laboratory by a factor of a billion. All such dating methods also assume a closed system—that no isotopes were gained or lost by the rock since it formed. It's common knowledge that hydrothermal waters, at temperatures of only a few hundred degrees Centigrade, can create an open system where chemicals move easily from one rock system to another. In fact, this process is one of the excuses used by evolutionists to reject dates that don't fit their expectations. What's not commonly known is that the majority of dates are not even consistent for the same rock. Furthermore, 20th century lava flows often register dates in the millions to billions of years. There are many different ways of dating the earth, and many of them point to an earth much too young for evolution to have had a chance. All age-dating methods rely on unprovable assumptions.


    Uses continue to be found for supposedly "leftover" body structures. Evolutionists point to useless and vestigial (leftover) body structures as evidence of evolution. However, it's impossible to prove that an organ is useless, because there's always the possibility that a use may be discovered in the future. That's been the case for over 100 supposedly useless organs which are now known to be essential. Scientists continue to discover uses for such organs. It's worth noting that even if an organ were no longer needed (e.g., eyes of blind creatures in caves), it would prove devolution not evolution. The evolutionary hypothesis needs to find examples of developing organs—those that are increasing in complexity.


    Evolution is said to have begun by spontaneous generation—a concept ridiculed by biology. When I was a sophomore in high school, and a brand new Christian, my biology class spent the first semester discussing how ignorant people used to believe that garbage gave rise to rats, and raw meat produced maggots. This now disproven concept was called "spontaneous generation." Louis Pasteur proved that life only comes from life—this is the law of biogenesis. The next semester we studied evolution, where we learned that the first living cell came from a freak combination of nonliving material (where that nonliving material came from we were not told). "Chemical Evolution" is just another way of saying "spontaneous generation"—life comes from nonlife. Evolution is therefore built on a fallacy science long ago proved to be impossible.


    Evolutionists admit that the chances of evolutionary progress are extremely low. Yet, they believe that given enough time, the apparently impossible becomes possible. If I flip a coin, I have a 50/50 chance of getting heads. To get five "heads" in a row is unlikely but possible. If I flipped the coin long enough, I would eventually get five in a row. If I flipped it for years nonstop, I might get 50 or even 100 in a row. But this is only because getting heads is an inherent possibility. What are the chances of me flipping a coin, and then seeing it sprout arms and legs, and go sit in a corner and read a magazine? No chance. Given billions of years, the chances would never increase. Great periods of time make the possible likely but never make the impossible possible. No matter how long it's given, non-life will not become alive.


    The scientific method can only test existing data—it cannot draw conclusions about origins. Micro-evolution, changes within a species on a small scale, is observable. But evidence for macro-evolution, changes transcending species, is conspicuous by its absence. To prove the possibility of anything, science must be able to reproduce exact original conditions. Even when it proves something is possible, it doesn't mean it therefore happened. Since no man was there to record or even witness the beginning, conclusions must be made only on the basis of interpreting presently available information. If I put on rose-colored glasses, I will always see red. I accept the Bible's teaching on creation, and see the evidence as being consistently supportive of that belief. When dealing with origins, everyone who believes anything does so by faith, whether faith in God, the Bible, himself, modern science, or the dependability of his own subjective interpretations of existing data. I would rather put my faith in God's revealed Word.

    by Randy Alcorn, Eternal Perspective Ministries, 2229 E. Burnside #23, Gresham, OR

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  18. Sobre a teoria da evolução e a termodinâmica.


    Thermodynamics and the Origin of Life (Part I) (#57)
    by Henry Morris, Ph.D.

    Abstract
    Evolutionists are embarrassed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Dr. V.F. Weisskoff, President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has recently pointed up the problem in the following words:
    The evolutionary history of the world from the 'big bang' to the present universe is a series of gradual steps from the simple to the complicated, from the unordered to the organized, from the formless gas of elementary particles to the morphic atoms and molecules and further to the still more structured liquids and solids, and finally to the sophisticated living organisms. There is an obvious tendency of nature from disorder to order and organization. Is this tendency in contradiction to the famous second law of thermodynamics, which says that disorder must increase in nature? The law says that entropy, the measure of disorder, must grow in any natural system.1
    The "obvious tendency of nature from disorder to order and organization" is, of course, only an assumption of evolutionists. The real tendency in the natural world, as expressed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, is from order and organization to disorder. This very obvious problem is commonly bypassed by evolutionists with the naive statement that the earth is a system open to the energy of the sun and that this fact resolves the problem! Creationists in turn have reminded them that while an open system and available energy constitute necessary conditions before a growth in order (or information) can take place, they are not sufficient conditions. In addition, there must be a pre-coded program containing the necessary information to direct the growth of the system and one or more conversion mechanisms to convert the external energy into the highly specific work of internal growth. Since the vast system of the hypothetically evolving biosphere as a space-time continuum seems to lack both a program and mechanism, it is clearly precluded by the Second Law.2

    It has been especially difficult to imagine ways to get life started in the first place. How can unordered non-living chemical elements be combined naturalistically into the extremely sophisticated ordered information in a replicating system? The common belief that this problem has been practically solved by modern biochemists is premature, to say the least. Freeman Dyson says:

    We are still at the very beginning of the quest for understanding of the origin of life. We do not yet have even a rough picture of the nature of the obstacles that prebiotic evolution has had to overcome. We do not have a well-defined set of criteria by which to judge whether any given theory of the origin of life is adequate.3
    The nature of the problem in trying to account for the origin of a replicating system has been well expressed by Angrist and Hepler:

    Life, the temporary reversal of a universal trend toward maximum disorder, was brought about by the production of information mechanisms. In order for such mechanisms to first arise it was necessary to have matter capable of forming itself into a self-reproducing structure that could extract energy from the environment for its first self-assembly. Directions for the reproduction of plans, for the extraction of energy and chemicals from the environment, for the growth of sequence and the mechanism for translating instructions into growth all had to be simultaneously present at that moment. This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely happenstance and often divine intervention is prescribed as the only way it could have come about.4
    Small wonder! In the real world, every effect must have an adequate cause, but the usual laws of science do not seem to intimidate evolutionists. In the strange land of evolutionary credulity, wonderful things may happen — plans draw themselves, mechanisms design themselves, order generates itself from chaos, and life creates itself! Yet evolutionists call creationists unscientific because they postulate an adequate Cause (divine intervention) to account for the marvelous Effect called life.

    In creation/evolution debates, creationists commonly place great emphasis on the Second Law of Thermodynamics as an overwhelming evidence against evolution. Although there have been approximately a hundred such debates held within the past four years, with leading evolutionist professors on major college and university campuses, the latter have never yet been able to come up with an answer of any consequence to this problem. Even more amazingly, most of them do not even seem to understand the problem, either dismissing it as irrelevant or else making some vacuous reference to ice crystals or open systems!

    There are apparently only a few evolutionists who realize the magnitude of the problem and have been trying to find a solution. Some of these attempts have been discussed in previous Impact articles.5,6

    By far the most important of these efforts, however, has been the suggestion of a Belgian scientist named Ilya Prigogine. Dr. Prigogine is a widely-known chemist and thermodynamicist, with faculty appointments both at the University Libre de Bruxelles and at the University of Texas at Austin. An indication of the strategic significance of Prigogine's ideas, is that they have recently won for him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Judging from the popular announcements, the main reason for this award was the ray of hope Prigogine has given evolutionists in their battle with entropy!

    According to Newsweek, for example, the significance of Prigogine's work is as follows:

    Scientists who have sought to explain the origin of life as the result of chemical interactions have been confounded by the second law of thermodynamics: energy tends to dissipate and organized systems drift inevitably toward entropy, or chaos.... Prigogine's insights will give biologists new grounds for learning how the first random molecules organized themselves into life forms.... Prigogine thinks the Nobel committee recognized that his work is building a bridge between the physical and human sciences.7
    According to an interview in a professional chemical journal, Prigogine himself was "really surprised" at the decision of the Nobel committee. He also said: "The fact that the Nobel committee has chosen this one subject is a great encouragement."8

    If, indeed, Prigogine had shown that the tremendous amount of information necessary for molecular self-replication can be produced naturalistically despite the entropy law, his achievement would be well worth the Nobel Prize. It would be all the more remarkable in view of the fact that Prigogine himself has "not actually worked in a chemistry lab for decades."9 At best, however, he has only offered a theoretical speculation, not an experimental demonstration. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that the Nobel award in this case was due less to the scientific value of Prigogine's achievement than to the urgent need of the evolutionary establishment for some kind of answer, no matter how superficial, to the entropy problem.

    Just how has Dr. Prigogine proposed to harmonize molecular evolution with the Second Law? Here it is, in his own words:

    In all these phenomena, a new ordering mechanism…appears. For reasons to be explained later, we shall refer to this principle as order through fluctuations. The structures are created by the continuous flow of energy and matter from the outside world; their maintenance requires a critical distance from equilibrium, that is, a minimum level of dissipation. For all these reasons we have called them dissipative structures.10
    These "dissipative structures" are supposed to exhibit a higher degree of structure, or order, than they possessed before being subjected to a large influx of outside energy, while at the same time their generation is accompanied by a large dissipation of energy in the form of heat. The main example cited by Prigogine is the formation of convection currents and vortices in a fluid subjected to a temperature gradient.

    Under such conditions, vortices (or other fluctuations or instabilities) may be generated and maintained. These, supposedly, manifest higher "order" than the system possessed previously, even though such order has been produced at the cost of excessive over-all energy dissipation. This phenomenon has long been familiar to hydrodynamicists but Prigogine suggested that it may also apply in certain chemical and biological reactions which are proceeding under non-equilibrium conditions.

    That such vortices or any other analogous "dissipative structures" could actually be called a device for naturalistic generation of higher order, and then that such a description could be awarded a Nobel Prize is almost unbelievable! This writer's own Ph.D. dissertation over a quarter of a century ago described in quantitative and analytical form the generation of turbulent vortices in fluid flow over rough surfaces.11 These, indeed, are dissipative structures, requiring the dissipation of much flow energy in the form of heat for their generation. Their own rotational energies in turn are soon dissipated by breaking up into smaller vortices, so that no permanent increase in order is produced, even if such vortices are assumed (very questionably) to possess a higher degree of order than the energy gradient which generated them. "Big whirls make little whirls that feed on their velocity; little whirls make tiny whirls, and so on to viscosity!"

    In any case dissipative structures could hardly serve as a substrate for still higher order, since they themselves require an abnormally large input of energy just to maintain their own structures. Prigogine himself says that, as far as chemical or biological reactions are concerned, the generation of dissipative structures is apparently limited to "auto-catalytic" processes. But catalytic processes, like fluid vortices, do not generate higher order — they merely speed up reactions which themselves are already going downhill thermodynamically in the first place. And any imaginary "auto-catalytic" processes would certainly require already-living systems for their own generation, so they can hardly explain the generation of living systems!

    Although Prigogine wistfully expresses the hope that his speculations may someday lead to an understanding of how life may have evolved from non-life, he is at least more cautious than those of his fellow evolutionists who are currently exhuberating over it. He warns:

    It would be too simple to say that the concepts of life and dissipative structures are intermingled.... But it is not just one instability that makes it possible to cross the threshold between life and non-life; it is, rather, a succession of instabilities of which we are only now beginning to identify certain stages.12
    In a later section, he again suggests caution:

    But let us have no illusions. If today we look into the situation where the analogy with the life sciences is the most striking — even if we discovered within biological systems some operations distant from the state of equilibrium — our research would still leave us quite unable to grasp the extreme complexity of the simplest of organisms.13
    One thing is clear. Whatever of scientific value may be deduced from Prigogine's analysis, he has not solved the problem of harmonizing entropy with evolution and he has certainly not shown that life can evolve from non-living chemicals. His dissipative structures do not constitute either the required program or the required mechanism to enable any kind of permanently increased order to be produced in an open system. However, he should perhaps be commended for trying. Maybe next he can work on a perpetual motion machine!

    The problem of the origin of life can really only be resolved by recognition of the omnipotent Creator. The only alternative to belief in special creation is credulous faith in impotent Chance.

    We are faced with the idea that genesis was a statistically unlikely event. We are also faced with the certainty that it occurred. Was there a temporary repeal of the second law that permitted a "fortuitous concourse of atoms"? If so, study of the Repealer and Genesis is a subject properly left to theologians. Or we may hold with the more traditional scientific attitude that the origin of life is beclouded merely because we don't know enough about the composition of the atmosphere and other conditions on the earth many eons ago.14

    Yes, not knowing how life could be formed would indeed becloud the understanding of the origin of life! The problem is why this should be called the scientific attitude when all the scientific evidence continues to support special creation.

    References
    1 Victor F. Weisskopf, "The Frontiers and Limits of Science," American Scientist, Vol 65, July-August 1977, p. 409.
    2 Henry M. Morris, The Scientific Case for Creation (San Diego: Creation-Life, 1977) pp.
    3 Freeman Dyson, "Honoring Dirac," Science, Vol. 185, Sept. 27, 1974, p. 1161. Dyson is at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study.
    4 Stanley W. Angrist and Loren G. Hepler, Order and Chaos (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1967), pp. 203-204.
    5 Henry M. Morris, "Entropy and Open Systems" (ICR Impact Series No. 40) Acts and Facts, October 1976.
    6 Jerry R. Bergman, "Albert Szent-Gyorgyi's Theory of Syntropy and Creationism" (ICR Impact Series No. 54), Acts and Facts, December, 1977.
    7 "Chemistry: The Flow of Life" (Newsweek; October 24, 1977) October 17, 1977, p. 87.
    8 Chemical and Engineering News; October 17, 1977, p. 4.
    9 Newsweek , Ibid.
    10 Ilya Prigogine, Gregoire Nicolis and Agnes Babloyants, "Thermodynamics of Evolution," Physics Today (Vol. 25, November 1972), p. 25.
    11 Henry M. Morris, A New Concept of Flow in Rough Conduits (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, 1951, 157 pp.)
    12 Ilya Prigogine, "Can Thermodynamics Explain Biological Order" Impact of Science on Society, Vol. XXIII, No. 3, 1973, p. 169.
    13 Ibid, p. 178.
    14 Angrist and Hepler, op. cit, p. 205.

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  19. Continuação (os artigos podem ser vistos em www.icr.org)

    Thermodynamics and the Origin of Life (Part II) (#58)
    by Duane Gish, Ph.D.
    Abstract
    Prigogine's speculative model is enshrouded with a considerable amount of complex mathematics that is difficult if not impossible to understand by nonmathematicians. This immediately renders it incomprehensible to most scientists, certainly to most biologists. Nevertheless, Prigogine's model sounds deliciously scientific and it has been eagerly welcomed by evolutionists who are looking for a way to overcome the insuperable barrier the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses against an evolutionary origin of life.
    Prigogine's speculative model is enshrouded with a considerable amount of complex mathematics that is difficult if not impossible to understand by nonmathematicians. This immediately renders it incomprehensible to most scientists, certainly to most biologists. Nevertheless, Prigogine's model sounds deliciously scientific and it has been eagerly welcomed by evolutionists who are looking for a way to overcome the insuperable barrier the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses against an evolutionary origin of life. When Prigogine moves his mathematical model off of paper and out into the real world, however, it then becomes possible for a nonmathematician to examine the chemical and biological assumptions which serve as the basis of his model. An examination of these assumptions reveals that they are totally devoid of any foundation. His model offers no solution whatsoever.

    In Prigogine's "evolution model",1 a system open to the flow of two monomer species a and b (which may correspond to two kinds of nucleotides, for example, adenylic acid and thymidylic acid) is assumed. Although he doesn't say much about it, a steady in-flow of energy in the form of energy-rich organic chemical molecules must also somehow be provided, and a way must exist to link this in-flow of energy to the synthetic process assumed in the model. Right at this preliminary stage, even before the more serious difficulties of his model are encountered, the model loses all plausibility.

    In the absence of living organisms, it would be impossible to supply a sufficient quantity of either the nucleotides or the energy-rich organic molecules to provide the required concentration of these molecules. Under any plausible primitive earth conditions, the rate of destruction of these compounds would so far exceed their rate of formation that no detectable quantities of either could ever accumulate.2,3

    Even if the ocean were swarming with these molecules, however, Prigogine's model could not explain how life could have evolved. From monomer a, which for the purpose of illustration Prigogine takes to be the nucleotide, adenylic acid (A), Prigogine assumes that the homopolymer, poly-adenylic acid (poly-A) is formed. Poly-A codes for (provides the template for) poly-thymidylic acid (poly-T), so in the presence of poly-A and a supply of thymidylic acid, Prigogine assumes that poly-T will form. Since poly-A not only codes for poly-T, but poly-T codes for poly-A, Prigogine asserts that when this stage is reached, an autocatalytic cycle is switched on. Let us pause here to examine assumptions made at this stage of the model.

    First of all, Prigogine assumes that the monomers (the nucleotides) will combine to form polymers in huge quantities (many billions of tons of each polymer must form in order to produce a significant concentration in an ocean containing 350 million cubic miles of water). Actually, for all practical purposes, no polymer at all could form. To form the bonds linking the monomers to form the polymer requires an input of energy. As a consequence this process is energetically highly unfavorable. Rupture of the bonds linking the nucleotides in the polymer, or rupture of the bonds within each nucleotide sub-unit (such as the sugarpurine bond), on the other hand, releases energy and is thus energetically favorable. Furthermore, to form a polymer of, say 100 nucleotides, requires the formation of 100 inter-nucleotide bonds, the formation of each bond being energetically highly unfavorable. The destruction of the polymer, however, requires the rupture of only a single bond, the rupture of which releases energy and is thus energetically favorable. As a consequence, formation of polymer of even just a few nucleotides would be incredibly slow, but if any polymer did exist, it would break down at a relatively rapid rate. The rate of destruction would enormously exceed the rate of formation, and thus no significant concentration of polymer, even of a di-nucleotide, could form under any plausible primitive earth conditions.

    Secondly, even if formation of polymer occurred at a significant rate to produce a significant overall amount of polymer, with two monomers present, such as adenylic acid (A) and thymidylic acid (T), it would still be impossible for a significant amount of a particular polymer to form. How in the world would formation of polymers be restricted to poly-A (A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A----A) and poly-T (T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T ----- T)? Every possible sequence of A and T would form. For example, the polymer T-A-A-T-A-T-T-T-A-T-A-A-A-T-T, or any other sequence of A and T, would be just as likely to form as a polymer containing 15 A's or 15 T’s exclusively. If polymers of 100 nucleotides were formed under assumed primitive earth conditions from only two monomers, 2100 (1030, or a million billion billion) different combinations would be produced. This would completely eliminate the possibility of producing a significant quantity of any one particular polymer.

    Thirdly, to claim that the presence of two polymers, such as poly-A and poly-T, would establish an autocatalytic cycle is sheer nonsense. Such a system could not be autocatalytic, since neither poly-A nor poly-T (or any other polynucleotide) is catalytic. Neither has the ability to speed up any chemical reaction, in this case the rate at which the bonds linking the nucleotides are formed. Thus neither can be called a catalyst. Prigogine nevertheless calls the assumed cycle autocatalytic, since poly-A codes (provides a template) for poly-T, which in turn codes for poly-A. Thus, he asserts, the rate of production of poly-A would at least be proportional to its concentration. But what Prigogine neglects to mention is that the rate of destruction of poly-A (or poly-T) would also, be proportional to its concentration. Since both the rate of production and the rate of destruction would tend to increase as the concentration tended to increase, no net effect on the overall concentration would result.

    But now, going on with further assumptions in Prigogine's model (in spite of the impossibilities encountered so far), Prigogine assumes that in the formation of poly-A under the coding action of poly-T, errors occur, and as a result a new polymer is formed (let us call it polymer-X). Polymer-X, Prigogine assumes, may now direct the synthesis of a new substance E. He further assumes that E might possibly be a "primitive" protein enzyme which catalyzes the production of polymer-X, as well as its own production. The appearance of this catalyst, it is assumed, produces polymer-X at a much more rapid rate than either poly-A or poly-T is being produced, so the system rapidly shifts far from equilibrium until a new equilibrium is established. Now let us pause once again to see what is wrong with Prigogine's assumptions.

    Firstly, no polynucleotide can direct the synthesis of a protein. All enzymes are proteins, and consist of long chains of amino acids. In living organisms the gene (a polynucleotide consisting of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA) for each protein provides only the code for the sequence in which the amino acids occur in the protein, and that is all it does. The translation of this information, and the actual synthesis of the protein, requires much, much more.

    DNA is only one of many different kinds of molecules required for the synthesis of a protein. To assert that a DNA molecule could direct the synthesis of a protein in the absence of the entire complex apparatus required for this task is simply absurd.

    Furthermore, to say that the process was much simpler in the first step toward a living thing is totally contradicted by the evidence. For example, amino acids cannot align themselves along either a DNA or an RNA molecule. There is no "lock-and-key" fit, or any other kind of fit, between any amino acid and any nucleotide. It is chemically and physically impossible, for this reason alone, then, for a DNA or RNA molecule to "direct" the synthesis of a protein. In fact, the chemistry that would naturally occur would wreak havoc on any evolving life.

    Secondly, no enzyme is capable of catalyzing both the synthesis of a polynucleotide, such as DNA or RNA, and itself. Thus, there is no enzyme known that catalyzes the formation of chemical bonds between nucleotides to form polynucleotides, and which also catalyzes the formation of chemical bonds between amino acids to form proteins. The chemistry involved in the formation of inter-nucleotide bonds is just too different from the chemistry involved in the formation of chemical bonds between amino acids for that to be possible.

    Thirdly, as mentioned above, Prigogine assumes that the "primitive enzyme" catalyzes the production of polymer-X, which codes for his "primitive enzyme." The action of an enzyme cannot be restricted to the formation of any particular polynucleotide, however. There is a single DNA-polymerase in a cell which catalyzes the formation of all DNA molecules. Thus, if Prigogine's hypothetical primitive enzyme did arise, it would not only catalyze the formation of polymer-X, but it would also catalyze the formation of every other polynucleotide that could possibly exist. Thus it would catalyze the formation of the original polymers, poly-A and poly-T, just as readily as it would catalyze the formation of polymer-X. Polymer-X, since it arose originally in a very small amount by error, would remain in very small quantity, relative to the original polymers.

    Fourthly, the possibility that just by chance an error in the synthesis of poly-A would produce a new polymer (polymer-X) that is capable of directing the synthesis of a primitive enzyme defies the laws of probability, even if a polynucleotide could indeed direct the synthesis of a protein. No one knows just how an enzyme is capable of catalyzing a particular chemical reaction, but we do know that for the catalysis of a particular chemical reaction only one, or a very few, of the almost infinite possible arrangements of the amino acids in the protein enzyme will work. Each particular chemical task establishes rigid limits on what particular molecules can act as catalysts.

    Most present day enzymes consist of protein molecules containing several hundred amino acids (there are 20 different kinds of amino acids in these proteins). Thus, even a "primitive" enzyme would probably require at least a hundred amino acids. No one really knows, of course, for we have no "primitive" enzymes to study today. Usually the removal of just a few amino acids from either end of present day enzymes completely destroys their activity, leaving nothing that possesses "primitive" enzyme activity. If we assume, however, that the "primitive" enzyme consists or 100 of the 200 different amino acids that now exist in proteins and that a hundred billion (1011) different possible arrangements of these 100 amino acids, rather than only one or a very few, precise arrangements (as is true in present day living things) might be able to function as the primitive enzyme, the possibility by chance of getting even a single molecule, let alone billions of tons, of any one of these hundred billion primitive enzymes would essentially be nil.

    One hundred amino acids of 20 different kinds can be arranged in 20100 (10130) different ways. If 1011 of these could function as the primitive enzyme, and if a billion trillion (1021) of the various protein molecules of 100 amino acids formed each second for five billion years (approximately 1017 seconds) the chance of getting a single molecule of one of the required sequences is 10130/1021 x 1017 x 1011, or only one chance out of 1081. This is, for all practical purposes, equal to zero probability, since on a cosmic scale the value of negligible probabilities may be set at 1/1050.4

    Summarizing, in Prigogine's model he assumes:

    A steady net production of enormous quantities of nucleotides and amino acids on the hypothetical primitive earth by the simple interaction of raw energy and simple gases.
    A steady net production of enormous quantities of energy-rich organic molecules to supply the required energy.
    The combination, in enormous quantities, of the nucleotides to form polymers (DNA).
    The selective formation of homopolymers (such as poly-A and poly-T) rather than the formation of mixed polymers of random sequences.
    The establishment of an autocatalytic cycle.
    Errors in the formation of the polymers producing a new polymer which directs the synthesis of a primitive protein enzyme.
    The primitive protein enzyme catalyzes the formation of both itself and the nucleotide polymer (DNA).
    The above molecules somehow manage to spontaneously separate themselves from the rest of the world and concentrate into condensed systems coordinated in time and in space.
    Not a single one of the above assumptions has any shred of probability under any plausible primitive earth conditions. Improbability piled on improbability equals impossibility.

    A mathematical model of almost any imagined process can be made to work on paper as certain assumptions are made. When the model is moved off the paper and out into the real world of chemistry and physics and the assumptions of the model are translated into processes which can actually be tested, it then becomes possible to determine whether the model has any validity. As can be seen from the above discussion, Prigogine's model has no validity whatsoever.

    References
    1 I. Prigogine, G. Nicolis, and A. Babloyantz, Physics Today, Dec. 1972, p. 42.
    2 D.T. Gish, Speculations and Laboratory Experiments Related to Theories on the Origin of Life: A Critique, Creation-Life Publishers, San Diego, 1972.
    3 D.T. Gish, "Origin of Life: Critique of Early Stage Chemical Evolution Theories" (ICR Impact Series No. 31) Acts and Facts, January 1976.
    4 Emil Borel, Probabilities and Life, Dover Pub. Co., New York, 1962, p. 28.
    * Part 1, by Henry M. Morris, appeared in the March, 1978 Acts and Facts as Impact No. 57. These articles are in response to suggestions that Dr. Ilya Prigogine, a 1977 Nobel Prize winner in physics, has solved the problem the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics poses for an evolutionary origin of life.

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  20. Mais um artigo interessante sobre a relação entra a entropia, os sistemas abertos e o evolucionismo.

    Entropy and Open Systems (#40)
    by Henry Morris, Ph.D.
    Abstract

    The most devastating and conclusive argument against evolution is the entropy principle. This principle (also known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics) implies that, in the present order of things, evolution in the "vertical" sense (that is, from one degree of order and complexity to a higher degree of order and complexity) is completely impossible.
    The most devastating and conclusive argument against evolution is the entropy principle. This principle (also known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics) implies that, in the present order of things, evolution in the "vertical" sense (that is, from one degree of order and complexity to a higher degree of order and complexity) is completely impossible.

    The evolutionary model of origins and development requires some universal principle which increases order, causing random particles eventually to organize themselves into complex chemicals, non-living systems to become living cells, and populations of worms to evolve into human societies. However the only naturalistic scientific principle which is known to effect real changes in order is the Second Law, which describes a situation of universally deteriorating order.

    "This law states that all natural processes generate entropy, a measure of disorder"1
    "Entropy, in short, is the measurement of molecular disorder. The law of the irreversible increase in entropy is a law of progressive disorganization, of the complete disappearance of the initial conditions."2
    It can hardly be questioned that evolution is at least superficially contradicted by entropy. The obvious prediction from the evolution model of a universal principle that increases order is confronted by the scientific fact of a universal principle that decreases order. Nevertheless evolutionists retain faith that, somehow, evolution and entropy can co-exist, even though they don’t know how.

    "In the complex course of its evolution, life exhibits a remarkable contrast to the tendency expressed in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Where the Second Law expresses an irreversible progression toward increased entropy and disorder, life evolves continually higher levels of order. The still more remarkable fact is that this evolutionary drive to greater and greater order also is irreversible. Evolution does not go backward."3
    "Back of the spontaneous generation of life under other conditions than now obtain upon this planet, there occurred a spontaneous generation of elements of the kind that still goes on in the stars; and back of that I suppose a spontaneous generation of elementary particles under circumstances still to be fathomed, that ended in giving them the properties that alone make possible the universe we know."4
    "Life might be described as an unexpected force that somehow organizes inanimate matter into a living system that perceives, reacts to, and evolves to cope with changes to the physical environment that threatens to destroy its organization."5
    When confronted directly with this problem (e.g., in creation/evolution debates), evolutionists often will completely ignore it. Some will honestly admit they do not know how to resolve the problem but will simply express confidence that there must be a way, since otherwise one would have to believe in supernatural creation. As Wald says:

    "In this strange paper I have ventured to suggest that natural selection of a sort has extended even beyond the elements, to determine the properties of protons and electrons. Curious as that seems, it is a possibility worth weighing against the only alternative I can imagine, Eddington's suggestion that God is a mathematical physicist."6
    Some evolutionists try to solve the problem by suggesting that the entropy law is only statistical and that exceptions can occur, which would allow occasional accidental increases in order. Whether this is so, however, is entirely a matter of faith. No one has ever seen such an exception, and science is based upon observation!

    "There is thus no justification for the view, often glibly repeated, that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is only statistically true, in the sense that microscopic violations repeatedly occur, but never violations of any serious magnitude. On the contrary, no evidence has ever been presented that the Second Law breaks down under any circumstances."7
    By far the majority of evolutionists, however, attempt to deal with this Second Law argument by retreating to the "open system" refuge. They maintain that, since the Second Law applies only to isolated systems (from which external sources of information and order are excluded), the argument is irrelevant. The earth and its biosphere are open systems, with an ample supply of energy coming in from the sun to do the work of building up the complexity of these systems. Furthermore, they cite specific examples of systems in which the order increases, (such as the growth of a crystal out of solution, the growth of a seed or embryo into an adult plant or animal, or the growth of a small Stone Age population into a large complex technological culture) as proof that the Second Law does not inhibit the growth of more highly-ordered systems.

    Arguments and examples such as these, however, are specious arguments. It is like arguing that, since NASA was able to put men on the moon, therefore it is reasonable to believe cows can jump over the moon! Creationists have for over a decade been emphasizing that the Second Law really applies only to open systems, since there is no such thing as a truly isolated system. The great French scientist and mathematician, Emil Borel, has proved this fact mathematically, as acknowledged by Layzer:

    "Borel showed that no finite physical system can be considered closed."8
    Creationists have long acknowledged ( in fact emphasized) that order can and does increase in certain special types of open systems, but this is no proof that order increases in every open system! The statement that "the earth is an open system" is a vacuous statement containing no specific information, since all systems are open systems.

    The Second Law of Thermodynamics could well be stated as follows: "In any ordered system, open or closed, there exists a tendency for that system to decay to a state of disorder, which tendency can only be suspended or reversed by an external source of ordering energy directed by an informational program and transformed through an ingestion-storage-converter mechanism into the specific work required to build up the complex structure of that system."

    If either the information program or the converter mechanism is not available to that "open" system, it will not increase in order, no matter how much external energy surrounds it. The system will proceed to decay in accordance with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.


    Criteria for Increasing Order CRITERIA S Y S T E M
    GROWING PLANT BUILDING CONSTRUCTION
    1. Open System
    2. Available Energy
    3. Directing Program
    4. Conversion Mechanism Seed
    Sun
    Genetic Code
    Photosynthesis Materials
    Sun
    Blueprint
    Workmen

    To cite special cases (such as the seed, for which the genetic code and the conversion mechanism of photosynthesis are available) is futile, as far as "evolution" is concerned, since there is neither a directing program nor a conversion apparatus available to produce an imaginary evolutionary growth in complexity of the earth and its biosphere.

    It is even more futile to refer to inorganic processes such as crystallization as evidence of evolution. Even Prigogine recognizes this:

    "The point is that in a non-isolated system there exists a possibility for formation of ordered, low-entropy structures at sufficiently low temperatures. This ordering principle is responsible for the appearance of ordered structures such as crystals as well as for the phenomena of phase transitions. Unfortunately this principle cannot explain the formation of biological structures. The probability that at ordinary temperatures a macroscopic number of molecules is assembled to give rise to the highly-ordered structures and to the coordinated functions characterizing living organisms is vanishingly small. The idea of spontaneous genesis of life in its present form is therefore highly improbable, even on the scale of the billions of years during which prebiotic evolution occurred."9
    Thus the highly specialized conditions that enable crystals to form and plants and animals to grow have nothing whatever to do with evolution. These special conditions themselves (that is, the marvelous process of photosynthesis, the complex information programs in the living cell, even the electrochemical properties of the molecules in the crystal, etc.) could never arise by chance — their own complexity could never have been produced within the constraints imposed by the Second Law. But without these, the crystal would not form, and the seed would never grow.

    But what is the information code that tells primeval random particles how to organize themselves into stars and planets, and what is the conversion mechanism that transforms amoebas into men? These are questions that are not answered by a specious reference to the earth as an open system! And until they are answered, the Second Law makes evolution appear quite impossible.

    To their credit, there are a few evolutionists (though apparently very few) who recognize the critical nature of this problem and are trying to solve it. Prigogine has proposed an involved theory of "order through fluctuations" and "dissipative structures."10
    But his examples are from inorganic systems and he acknowledges that there is a long way to go to explain how these become living systems by his theory.

    "But let us have no illusions, our research would still leave us quite unable to grasp the extreme complexity of the simplest of organisms."11
    Another recent writer who has partially recognized the seriousness of this problem is Charles J. Smith.

    "The thermodynamicist immediately clarifies the latter question by pointing out that the Second Law classically refers to isolated systems which exchange neither energy nor matter with the environment; biological systems are open and exchange both energy and matter. This explanation, however, is not completely satisfying, because it still leaves open the problem of how or why the ordering process has arisen (an apparent lowering of the entropy), and a number of scientists have wrestled with this issue. Bertalanffy (1968) called the relation between irreversible thermodynamics and information theory one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in biology. I would go further and include the problem of meaning and value."12

    Absence of Ordering Criteria in Evolution CRITERIA TO
    BE SATISFIED S Y S T E M
    FIRST LIVING MOLECULE POPULATION OF COMPLEX ORGANISMS
    1. Open System
    2. Available Energy
    3. Directing Program
    4. Conversion Mechanism Complex Inorganic Molecule
    Sun
    None
    None Population of Simple Organisms
    Sun
    None (Natural Selection?)
    None (Natural Selection?)

    Whether rank-and-file evolutionists know it or not, this problem they have with entropy is thus "one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in biology." It is more than a problem, in fact, it is a devastating denial of the evolution model itself. It will continue to be so until evolutionists can demonstrate that the vast imagined evolutionary continuum in space and time has both a program to guide it and an energy converter to empower it. Otherwise, the Second Law precludes it.

    It is conceivable, though extremely unlikely that evolutionists may eventually formulate a plausible code and mechanism to explain how both entropy and evolution could co-exist. Even if they do, however, the evolution model will still not be as good as the creation model. At the most, such a suggestion would constitute a secondary modification of the basic evolution model. The latter could certainly never predict the Second Law.

    The evolution model cannot yet even explain the Second Law, but the creation model predicts it! The creationist is not embarrassed or perplexed by entropy, since it is exactly what he expects. The creation model postulates a perfect creation of all things completed during the period of special creation in the beginning. From this model, the creationist naturally predicts limited horizontal changes within the created entities (e.g., variations within biologic kinds, enabling them to adapt to environmental changes). If "vertical" changes occur, however, from one level of order to another, they would have to go in the downward direction, toward lower order. The Creator, both omniscient and omnipotent, made all things perfect in the beginning. No process of evolutionary change could improve them, but deteriorative changes could disorder them.

    Not only does the creation model predict the entropy principle, but the entropy principle directly points to creation. That is, if all things are now running down to disorder, they must originally have been in a state of high order. Since there is no naturalistic process which could produce such an initial condition, its cause must have been supernatural. The only adequate cause of the initial order and complexity of the universe must have been an omniscient Pro-grammer, and the cause of its boundless power an omnipotent Energizer. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, with its principle of increasing entropy, both repudiates the evolution model and strongly confirms the creation model.

    REFERENCES
    l David Layzer, "The Arrow of Time," Scientific American (Vol. 223, December 1975), p. 56. Dr. Layzer is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard.
    2 Ilya Prigogine, "Can Thermodynamics Explain Biological Order?" Impact of Science on Society, Vol. XXIII, No. 3., 1973) p. 162. Dr. Prigogine is Professor in the Faculty of Sciences at the University Libre de Belgique and is one of the world's leading thermodynamicists.
    3 J.H. Rush, The Dawn of Life (New York, Signet 1962) p. 35.
    4 George Wald, "Fitness in the Universe," Origins of Life (Vol. 5, 1974) p. 26.
    5 Mars and Earth, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Washington, U.S. Govt. Printing Office, NF-61, August 1975) p.5.
    6 George Wald, op cit., p. 26. Wald is a famous humanistic biologist at Harvard.
    7 A.B. Pippard, Elements of Chemical Thermodynamics for Advanced Students of Physics (Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press, 1966), p. 100. Pippard was Professor of Physics at Cambridge.
    8 Layzer, op cit., p. 65.
    9 Ilya Prigogine, Gregoire Nicolis & Agnes Babloyants, "Thermodynamics of Evolution," Physics Today, (Vol. 25, November 1972) p. 23.
    10Ibid, pp. 23-28.
    11 Ilya Prigogine, "Can Thermodynamics Explain Biological Order?" p. 178.
    12 Charles J. Smith, "Problems with Entropy in Biology," Biosystems (Vol. 1, 1975), p. 259.

    *Dr. Morris is Founder and President Emeritus of ICR.

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  21. O Ludwig devia saber que não basta existir uma fonte de energia. É necessário existir um maquinismo pré-estruturado de conversão de energia. Será que basta a luz solar seria suficiente para fazer crescer um pedaço de madeira ou um animal morto?

    Para os evolucionistas, a receita parece ser simples. Basta acrescentar energia. Só alguém que compara o DNA a um ovo cozido é que pode ser tão simplista.

    Aqui vai um artigo interessante, publicado em www.answersingenesis.org sobre o criacionismo e a energia.

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  22. Just add energy …
    by Andy McIntosh, Professor of thermodynamics in the UK

    February 12, 2007

    Professor McIntosh is a co-director of Truth in Science, a committee of scientists and concerned laypeople, who, in September 2006, distributed packets to 5,600 secondary schools in the UK containing DVDs supporting the design argument. In late 2006 and early 2007, this action sparked headlines and hot debate in the British media, as well as in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. He is, in particular, responding to Richard Dawkins’ claim (commonly heard among evolutionists) that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is no problem for evolution because the earth is an “open system” and is receiving energy from the sun. McIntosh argues that the sunlight flooding the earth is no help at all unless machines are present which can harness the energy. Enjoy the discussion!


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The reason of course why this subject of origins will not go away is that there is a scientific case, whether Oxford professor Richard Dawkins likes it or not, which is a challenge to the neo-Darwinian attempts to explain life in terms of common descent.

    It is a straightforward case of testable science versus the modern evolutionary “just-so” story telling.

    Scientists like me who believe design implies intelligence have no problem with natural selection. It is simply the natural equivalent of artificial selection. But natural selection has no power to create new functional structures. It does not increase information and does not build new types of machines (either as sub machines or in embryonic form).

    The principles of thermodynamics, even in open systems, do not allow a new functional biological structure to be achieved without new machinery already being in place.

    Let’s put a bit more detail in here. The laws of thermodynamics have one law in particular—the Second Law of Thermodynamics—which says that in a closed system the amount of energy that is no longer available for useful work is increasing. This is energy “lost” to the system per unit degree of temperature, and it is called the entropy of the system. The principle of energy loss for useful work still applies in an open system, since there is no benefit unless there is a machine to use the energy added. Boeing 777s cannot be made in a car factory by adding loads of sunlight or electricity unless the machinery is available to use that energy to build Boeing 777s. Similarly the human brain cannot be formed from simpler machines just by adding energy if there is no machinery available to do this. Spontaneously forming of such machinery will not happen.

    What is a machine? A machine is a device for using energy to do work of some kind. Energy without machines just dissipates (the sun’s energy would be typical). But a machine harnesses energy to advantage: a solar cell turns the suns rays into electricity; a Rolls Royce Trent gas turbine turns chemical energy into thrust to power aircraft; the chlorophyll reaction in a plant leaf uses sunlight to enable the plant to grow and absorb carbon dioxide while emitting oxygen; the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) motor in living organisms transfers energy from food and respiration into useable energy to drive the cell machinery of DNA, ribosomes, amino acids and protein building, etc. In this sense all machines are entropy-lowering devices. But, unlike macro machines, chemical machinery at the molecular level involves setting up proteins of hundreds and usually thousands of polypeptide bonds linking a string of amino acids. And each of these bonds is in a raised energy state such that, left to itself, it would break down and not stay in that state. To suggest, as some are saying, that the raised energy state would be maintained while natural selection favored, over many generations, single random mutations, one by one, to finally bring together the full complement of necessary amino acids is, frankly, thermodynamically absurd. This is never observed and is contrary to all thermodynamic principles of energy transfer.

    New machines are not made by simply adding energy to existing machines. Intelligence is needed. And this thesis is falsifiable. If anyone was to take an existing chemical machine and produce a different chemical machine which was not there before (either as a sub-part or latently coded for in the DNA template), then this argument would have been falsified. No one has ever achieved this.

    In the excellent book by Wilder-Smith called The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, on page 146, he summarizes the argument from Thermodynamics:

    Today it is simply unscientific to claim that the fantastically reduced entropy of the human brain, of the dolphin's sound lens, and of the eye of a fossilised trilobite simply ‘happened’, for experimental experience has shown that such miracles just do not ‘happen’.

    My position is to side with experimental science and not with “just-so” attempts to get around the clear evidence of design in nature. At the very least these matters should be critically considered in science teaching today.

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  23. Penso que discutir este tema só pode ser útil se aceitarmos que teologia e ciência (dita exacta) não existem para se contradizerem. Se a teologia ou se quizerem a religião (embora este termo não seja rigoroso) assume que não pretende provar a existência de Deus, porque razão os cientistas (alguns) insistem em pedir á religião para provar o que diz?

    Por outro lado, não percebo: porque é que a teoria Criacionista não aceita a evolução das espécies? Se eu admitir que a teoria da Evolução é verdade, não posso admitir também que essa teoria era a intenção de alguém sem entrar em contradição?

    Eu não posso idealizar um sistema evolutivo onde a fórmula da evolução (o alogoritmo, por assim dizer) é a adaptação das espécies?

    Outra questão que me faz alguma comichão cerebral, é o levantar das questóes bíblicas... Atenção que a bíblia nao pode ser entendida literalmente! Se falarem com qualquer teólogo, vão perceber que para entender o que lá está escrito tem de ser á luz da época. Não esqueçamos que a bíblia tb é um documento histórico. Se ao falarmos de Newton, Pascal, etc... os posicionamos sempre no seu tempo para os compreendermos porque razão não fazemos o mesmo qdo se fala da bíblia?

    Além de tudo isto, penso que quando se fala da origem das coisas se começa a cair um pouco na história do ovo e da galinha (peço desculpa pelo exemplo tão batido). Não percebo mto bem como é que nós vamos conseguir criar algo a partir do nada... para o conseguirmos teriamos de ir para outro universo onde o nada realmente exista, e então criar algo! mas se formos para lá, já lá estamos, por isso já passou a existir algo... Isto não será um paradoxo? o que quer que seja que nós criamos, é sempre feito a partir de algo. Não há hipótese. Por outro lado, sempre que penso nisto chego á conclusão que talvez o nosso sistema de conhecimento não seja suficiente para demonstrar isto. Reparem: toda a ciência (e até a teologia) foi construída com base num universo que já existe. Não conseguimos sair deste ponto. O que quer que façamos para demonstrar o que quer que seja, será sempre o resultado da nossa acção sobre algo. E isso condicionou invariavelmente a forma como desenvolvemos o nosso sistema de conhecimento. Para exemplificar, é como se eu tentasse levitar puxando as minhas pernas para cima! não funciona.
    Existe uma história que se chama "o quadro na terra plana". Era um quadrado que vivia num mundo bi-dimensional (num plano, para simplificar). E esse mundo condicionou o modo como o quadrado via as coisas. Tudo o que ele via era a 2 dimensões e isso explicava tudo para ele. Um dia esse plano foi intersectado por uma esfera. Dessa intersecção resultou um círculo (figura bi-dimensional). E o quadrado disse! Olha um circulo! que giro! Mal ele sabia que estava a olhar para parte de um mundo tri-dimensional, mas o facto de ele ter desenvolvido um conhecimento acente apenas nas 2 dimensões impediu-o de perceber que havia mais uma dimensão...
    Permitam-me exagerar um pouco... Imaginem que no plano onde vivia o quadrado havia outros quadrados (crentes em Deus) que acreditavam numa entidade com 3 dimensões... e outros que diziam: "então prova lá isso!" (cientistas). Qdo se deu a intersecção, os cientistas diziam: "isto não tem nada de mais! é um circulo. É uma figura perfeitamente normal, delimitada por uma circunferência que se rege pela regra de todos os pontos distarem o mesmo valor de outro ponto (centro) e cujo perímetro é 2PiR e a área é 2PiR2... Não tem nada de 'extra-planar' (conceito de extra-terreste aplicado ao plano :) )" E os crentes por mais que insistissem diziam naõ eram compreendidos: "Não. Nós acreditamos que é parte de outra entidade. Não o podemos provar, porque apenas nos baseamos na nossa Fé."

    O que pretendo dizer com isto é que talvez o nosso sistema de conhecimento peque por não se conseguir justificar a ele próprio...

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