Questions and Views
Age of the Universe
Methods of Creation
Two Books of God
| ORIGINS EVIDENCE
Design of the Universe
Age of the Universe
Evaluation of Evolutions
Design in Science
| ORIGINS EDUCATION
Public School Education
Christian Education (in
church, school, home)
An overview for Evaluations of Evolutions is in the homepage for Origins Evidence.
This page will focus on
• scientific questions about natural evolutions: astronomical, geological, chemical, and biological.
Other aspects of evaluations are in other pages:
• theological questions, about reasons to think that God did or did not design the universe to be naturally self-assembling, are in METHODS OF CREATION;
• philosophical questions about a big tent, methodological naturalism, scientific methods (in what situations can design be detected?) and more, are in INTELLIGENT DESIGN IN SCIENCE.
however, there will be mutually interactive
influences between science, theology, and philosophy, even when the focus
is on one of these.
• Henry Morris declares (in 1973) that because "evolution and entropy are opposing and mutually exclusive concepts,... evolution must be impossible" and (in 1976) that "the most devastating and conclusive argument against evolution [of any type, whether astronomical, chemical, or biological] is the entropy principle,... also known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics,... which describes a situation of universally deteriorating order." Henry makes similar claims in 1985 and his son (John Morris, 1992) carries on the legacy: "the universal Second Law of Thermodynamics shows that things become more disordered through time, not more complex, as evolution insists."
• Christian Answers Network has a new repetition of the same old argument, using everyday analogies (faded clothing, aging bodies,...) even though the Second Law is about the probabilities of energy distribution — it is not about what we psychologically perceive as "disorder" — so these oversimplistic analogies are not scientifically relevant.
• Jonathan Sarfati makes claims that are more scientifically credible, in answers to three questions — 1 & 2 are mainly about an origin of life by chemical evolution (not a further development of life during biological evolution), and in 3 he (along with Answers in Genesis) rejects a claim, made by Henry Morris, that The Second Law of Thermodynamics began with The Fall.
• An Introduction to Entropy and Evolution explains "why things happen" in two evolutions — astronomical (due to the simple operation of attractive forces) and biological (by mutation and natural selection, plus crossovers and drift,...) — and why these evolutions do not violate thermodynamics because each step is allowed by the Second Law. by Craig Rusbult (31 k + 7k)
• The Second Law of Thermodynamics in the Context of the Christian Faith is a good overview, combining sound theology with solid science information (non-technical and technical) about what entropy is and isn't, and how thermo is and isn't relevant for evolution. by Allan Harvey (26 k)
I.O.U. — There will be more web-resource links about "thermo and evolution" soon, probably before mid-October 2010.
Appeals to entropy (by young-earth creationists) and information (as
in some arguments for intelligent design) differ in important
ways, and information
analysis is generally more scientifically credible when we're thinking about origins. Claims
that in some situations "information indicates design"
are worthy of scientific attention, so the arguments for and against these
claims will be examined below in the Chemical Evolution and Biological
• INFORMATION for readers is in a brief page about our Goal (a quick education for you), Quality (because we've made choices) and Variety (you'll see multiple positions, hence the disclaimer below), Exploring with Freedom (you can use sections and page-links in any order), Size (what does "20 k + 5k" mean?), and Links (that open in a new window)
In this page you'll find links to resource-pages expressing a wide range of views, which don't necessarily represent the views of the American Scientific Affiliation. Therefore, linking to a page does not imply an endorsement by the ASA. We encourage you to use your own critical thinking to evaluate everything you read.
This website for Whole-Person Education has TWO KINDS OF LINKS:
an ITALICIZED LINK keeps you inside a page, moving you to another part of it, and
a NON-ITALICIZED LINK opens another page. Both keep everything inside this window,
so your browser's BACK-button will always take you back to where you were.
This page, written by Craig Rusbult (editor of ASA Science
and was revised August 16, 2010.
all links were checked-and-fixed on July 3, 2006