Monday, 24 January 2011

Morning Scepticism: SLoT

Creationists often make the claim that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. The claim is that entropy means that everything tends towards disorder, so how could evolution make order out of disorder? My standard response is "what does the physics of heat have to do with DNA replication?" But of course that doesn't really satisfy the underlying quandary. Nor does saying that the earth is not a closed system, because the problem isn't with thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is just a way to have the underlying incredulity at order springing from chaos sound like it's contrary to nature. The problem is with the notion of design sans designer, and it's unfortunate that the question is asked in such a way that merits a scientific answer - because the scientific answer is not the answer to the question being really asked.

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