Yes, but God would still have to intervene in the natural processes to create an eternal home for us, because under natural processes those laws about energy continue to apply. Suns *will* run down under either view, unless God does something about it.

I guess I'm finding this whole discussion ironic: creationists introduced the 2nd Law because they claimed it disallowed evolution... but we've somehow wandered off into how dismal and depressing the 2nd Law is... seems like trying to have the cake and eat it too. And all, it seems to me, based on some fairly fundamental misunderstandings of thermodynamics. Among other things, we can't just abstract Newton's Second Law of motion from the First and Third laws... they're inextricably linked as a way of describing motion (and the need to divide them into three laws is a human convenience, not a feature of the universe). The same applies to the laws of thermodynamics... what's needed is an understanding of energy and how it moves and changes, not the isolated discussion of one law.

And, while I'm talking myself into trouble... Darkness and decay in tens of billions of years is of very little worry to us or our decendants. If we believe in evolution, there'll likely be nothing recognisable as human in even a million years, let alone a billion or ten billion. If we believe in God's intervention, then there's not a problem. The heat death of the universe is the least of our worries... unless we decide that humans will continue in their present form forever, regardless of changes to the environment.

I'm sorry I didn't make my meaning clearer. I was asking what examples can be given to show that there is a net increase in order in the universe, or a net decrease in entropy. That is, what examples are there that show the universe is not running down?

You give my growth as an example of the natural increase of order in the universe. However, while it is true that people can cause an increase in order, such as growth or in the construction of buildings, yet those sorts of increases do not result in the net increase in order. In other words, they result in a net decrease in order when we consider the larger picture. That is why the building of things and the growth of human beings, and all the other processes you mentioned here, will not keep our solar system, and the universe itself, from finally running completely downhill to the point at which it will become a "white dwarf."

"Living organisms are an exception to the tendency toward disorganization. In living oranisms, entropy decreases. But the order in life forms is maintained by increasing entropy elsewhere: life forms plus their waste products have a net increase in entropy. Energy must be transformed into the living system to support life. When it isn't, the organism soon dies and tends toward disorder." (Conceptual Physics, Hewitt, Paul G., p. 265.)

The bottom line is that none of those examples you give shows a net increase in order, or the addition of work input so that the universe can be said not to be running downhill. My growth or the formation of clouds or waves or even cell reproduction are not decreasing the entropy in the universe, nor are they signs that the universe is running uphill.

Correct.

The Second Law was introduced in order to show that the universe is not eternal and that it had a beginning, which is what some evolutionists deny. It also shows what will happen unless God exists and sustains the universe as the Bible says He does. You're right that it is dismal and depressing, but that dismal and depressing end is all that you can ever get with the theory of atheistic evolutionists. That was the point I made in bringing up the Second Law.




I may be mistaken but it seems you are saying it is a matter of indifference as to what we believe about these matters. If that's what is being said, I don't agree. If I believed that this is how all human history will finally end, it would make a big difference in my total view of things. As you point out, if God does not intervene in the universe's processes, there is a huge problem because it means only endless darkness and decay. The Bible, of course, completely contradicts that view since the theory of organic evolution does not allow for the Biblical picture of God's sudden breaking into human history either with a universal flood or with a resurrection or the Second Coming and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. If it does, I'd like to hear a clear exposition of that relationship.

I don't know of very many atheists who say the universe didn't have a beginning: almost all of them believe in the Big Bang. That leaves the causes of the Big Bang still to be discussed, but that theory is the one they accept, and it does explain all of our observations. Of course, so does a miraculous creation.

So you're not at all using the Second Law to argue against the possibility of evolution? If that's the case, I've been confused, because David K and Shane clearly are using it for that purpose. If you're not using it for that purpose, then we're basically agreed in outline... that, absent divine intervention, the universe will (most likely) eventually undergo 'heat death' with all energy reduced to heat energy.



Not at all am I saying it's a matter of indifference which of these we believe - which we belive is crucial. What I'm saying is there is no real distinction in terms of what happens in a few billion years: without divine intervention, the universe undergoes heat death. With divine intervention... literally anything can happen. I believe in divine intervention...

I did make the associated point that none of us will be around to be effected in a few billion years... absent divine intervention.

Correct - I was giving examples of local increases in order at the expense of a global total decrease.

As Bravus points out - the 2nd Law seems to be accepted by christian recent-creationists, christian evolutionists, and atheists - and it says to all that the universe will wind down unless something out of the ordinary happens.

However the Second Law does not argue against evolution, for the simple reason that all the basic processes needed by evolution happen in the world around us today - small molecules can combine into bigger ones and self-replicating/mutating systems exist. If the Second Law prohibited such things, they could not happen in the world around us today.

Summary: Short-age creationists should remove Second Law arguments from their quiver of anti-evolution arguments.

/Bevin

Well, not really. Your examples are all of either guided process, chemical reactions or of existing organisms which grow. Those mechanisms would not violate the 2nd Law. Nor would they be helpful to cite as examples in support of organic evolution. To do so would be attempting to use the thing to prove itself, IOW circular reasoning. I am reminded that at one time, Bevin, you used the example of water turning to ice under temperature conditions, as a sort of proof that organic evolution could take place. But autocatalysts don't fill the bill.