Question: Does the evolution of life rely on anything more than just ‘sheer higgledy-piggledy luck’?
Answer: No it doesn’t and as a result evolution will never take place.
‘Sheer higgledy-piggledy luck’ achieves nothing
Even Richard Dawkins, a strident atheist and enthusiastic promoter of the theory of evolution rightly admits;
“It is grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious that if Darwinism were really a theory of chance, it couldn’t work. You don’t need to be a mathematician or physicist to calculate that an eye or a haemoglobin molecule would take from here to infinity to self-assemble by sheer higgledy-piggledy luck.” 1
‘Sheer higgledy-piggledy luck’ will not produce a living cell
Life cannot start and evolution can’t really operate if you don’t have the first living reproducing cell.
A biochemical soup + ‘sheer higgledy-piggledy luck’ will never produce a cell. All cells contain an array of complex distinct proteins.
Could a protein molecule come about by time and random processes?
Natural selection has no target and has no better chance than ‘sheer higgledy-piggledy luck’
Let’s assume we have a first cell. Will the processes of natural selection acting on mutations result in human beings being in existence after millions of years? The answer is no.
A blind and mindless process (natural selection) acting on a random, blind, mindless and unguided process (mutation) will achieve nothing! Blind, mindless processes never achieve anything!
Dawkins inadvertently shows that natural selection is useless for the evolution of life
Richard Dawkins describes natural selection as “non-random cumulative selection.”2
When Dawkins uses the word ‘non-random’ it tends to evoke the image that natural selection is the opposite to random and therefore natural selection is somehow guiding things in a particular direction. BUT natural selection is NOT the opposite of random! Natural selection has no idea where it is going. It is mindless and blind.
Richard Dawkins using his ‘Darwin monkey’ (a computer stimulation) shows that to produce a Shakespearean phase from random letters you need the program to firstly know the target phase and secondly be able to make informed decisions about how close the present phase is to the target phase.
After the demonstration using this computer stimulation, Dawkins himself admits; “There’s a lot wrong with that as a demonstration of Darwinism natural selection. For one thing it has distant target in mind which natural selection does not have.” Oops!
Dawkins inadvertently shows that natural selection which has no idea of the target and thus cannot make any informed or intelligent decisions WILL NEVER achieve anything other than allowing a population to adapt to its changing environment.
How can Richard Dawkins (an Oxford professor) be so confused?
As Richard Dawkins marvels at a human brain he says; “This is arguably the most complex thing in the universe … there are perhaps 100 billion nerves (neurons) in there and maybe 200 trillion connections between them.” (From the TV series “Brave New World with Stephen Hawking” from the episode on Health)
How can an Oxford Biologist use his brain to look at the mind boggling complexity of the human brain and conclude no outside intelligence or God was required to create the human brain?
Well, when scientists try to answer questions like “In electricity, which way do electrons flow?” there are no personal moral implications attached to the answer to the question. But when a person, whether they are an Oxford professor, a carpenter or a chef, seeks answers about the origins of life there are personal, moral implications.
If there is no supernatural Creator (God) then we can ignore God (as He does not exist). Man can decide what is right and wrong and there will be no judgement when we die. (If we are right about this)
But, if there is a God we would be very foolish to ignore Him. God (the one who created us) knows what is good for us and what is not. If there is a God who is our creator then we are accountable to him. Our actions will have significant consequences.
These implications affect the thinking of anyone (including Oxford professors like Richard Dawkins) who thinks on the origins of life.
To have a Creation you need a Creator
An eight year old child can rightly conclude that an immensely powerful intelligence (God) is needed to bring about the world we see about us.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
The theory of evolution of life has the same chance as ‘sheer higgledy-piggledy luck’ of achieving anything. That chance is zero. Mindless and blind processes never achieve anything.
Evolution will never happen.
Could a protein molecule come about by time and random processes?
To see how all this is tied into the Thermodynamics read the article Evolution, Creation and Thermodynamics
Read the article Evolution, Chance and Creation
1 Climbing Mount Improbable, Richard Dawkins, 1996, pages 67-8
2 The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins, Penguin Books, 1991
EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES CONTRADICT THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
The Second law of Thermodynamics is an impenetrable wall through which the evolutionary process cannot proceed. Evolutionists have tried to ‘chip away’ with talk of things like ‘open systems, crystals and growing trees’ but without success. The wall which is the Second Law of Thermodynamics remains.
What does the second law say?
“This law states that all natural processes generate entropy, a measure of disorder.”18
“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.”19
Henry M. Morris (Ph.D.) writes:
“The most devastating and conclusive argument against evolution is the entropy principle.”20
“The Big-Bang Theory flatly contradicts the Second Law of Thermodynamics.”21
”Not only is there no evidence that evolution has ever taken place, but there is also firm evidence that evolution that evolution could never take place. The law of increasing entropy is an impenetrable barrier no evolution mechanism yet suggested has been able to overcome. Evolution and entropy is opposing and mutually exclusive concepts. If the entropy principle is really a universal law, then evolution is impossible.” 22
Duane Gish (Ph. D.) writes “Of all the statements that have been made with respect to theories on the origin of life, the statement that the Second Law of Thermodynamics poses no problem for an evolutionary origin of life is the most absurd… The operation of natural processes on which the Second Law of Thermodynamics is based is alone sufficient, therefore, to preclude the spontaneous evolutionary origin of the immense biological order required for the origin of life.”23
Dr. A. E. Wilder-Smith (Ph.D., D.Sc., Dr.es.Sc .) writes concerning the human brain;
“Any scientist who holds the view that … the human cortex developed by chance with the aid of the laws of nature is either not familiar with the second law of thermodynamics or he is superstitious …” 24
Jeremy Walter (M.S. in mechanical engineering, Ph.D. in mechanical engineering)
“The second law of thermodynamics essentially precludes the spontaneous development of the earth’s ecosystem or life itself.”25
Larry Vardiman (B. Sc. in physics, Ph.D. in atmospheric science)
“The Second Law is undisputed by all reputable scientists and contradicts the basic premise of evolution.”26
Ker Thompson (B.A. in physics and geology, D.Sc. in geophysics)
“It should be apparent that evolution is capable of an immediate scientific test: is there available a scientifically observable process in nature which on a long-term basis is tending to carry its products upward to higher and higher levels of complexity? Evolution absolutely requires this. Evolution fails the test. The test procedure is contained within the Second Law of Thermodynamics.” 27
John Baumgardner (Ph.D. in geophysics and space physics)
“Is there anything in the laws of physics that suggests how such structures might arise in a spontaneous fashion? The honest answer is simple. What we presently understand from thermodynamics and information theory argues persuasively that they do not and cannot!” 28
Carl Wieland (M.B., B.Sc.)
“The Second Law applied to the whole universe is the death-knell for any proposed evolutionary scheme.”29
“Things left by themselves without intelligent programing and a plan … will tend to go … from order to disorder.”30
British astronomer Arthur Eddington said; “If your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.” 31
Highly recommended information
Dr. Carl Wieland on Thermodynamics (5 part series on YouTube)
Second Law of Thermodynamics – Does this basic law of nature prevent Evolution?
Entropy and Open Systems by Dr. Henry Morris
Acknowledgements
18 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.
19 Henry Morris, Entropy and open Systems, http://www.icr.org/article/86/
20 H.M. Morris and G. E. Parker, What Is Creation Science?, Master Books, El Cajon, 1987, p. 260
21 Henry Morris, Evolution, Thermodynamics and Entropy, http://www.icr.org/article/51/247/
22 Duane Gish, “A Consistent Christian-Scientific View of the Origin of Life”, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 4, Indiana, March 1979, pp. 199, 186
23 Arthur E. Wilder-Smith, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution, Santee, California: Master Books, 1981, p. 154
24 http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/isd/jeremy-walter
25 http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/isd/larry-vardiman
26 http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/isd/ker-thomson
27 http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/isd/john-baumgardner
28 Quoted at http://creation.com/evolution-creation-thermodynamics-part-2
29 Carl Weiland (Ph. D.) speaks on the implications of Thermodynamics on the theory of evolution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Di_projVs (Quote found 8:30 to 8:45 on part 1 of 5)
30 Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, Macmillan, New York, 1930, p. 74
31 Denton, Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Bethesda, Maryland: Adler and Adler Publishers, p. 338
