[sword-devel] OT: can you be a Christian evolutionist?

[Jerry Kreps]

On Thursday 20 December 2001 12:21, David Burry wrote:
> At 09:13 AM 12/20/2001 -0800, John Gardner wrote:
> >No matter how often or how long or violently
> >you shake a bucket of bolts you'll NEVER get a car!
>
> In fact, the longer you shake them the _less_ chance you have of
> ever getting a car, because they will grind themselves to powder if
> they don't become a car relatively quickly.  More time does not
> mean a greater chance it means less chance, since the more time you
> give it the more it evens out, more entropy.  Therefore it can be
> "proved" that instantaneous creation (or at least an evolution that
> has one or more very quick spurts) is far more likely than a slow
> drawn out evolution over eons.  That's why you can't find lots of
> missing links.  Note: "proved" is in quotes because scientific
> principles never really prove anything, only disprove things, we
> just have to assume that what's left must be right (but it still
> might not be, some future experiment may disprove anything at any
> time).  There is no such thing as certainty in science!  ;o)
>
> Dave


The arugment is even stronger than that....  The energy put into 
shaking has to come from the surroundings.  The increase in entropy 
of the surroundings is greater than the decrease in entropy any 
possible shaking might produce in the system.  The result is that all 
the effort just decreased the time needed to reach heat death, 
limiting further any chance if 'evolution'..  Spontaneous decreases 
cannot occur naturally UNLESS there is a correspondingly greater 
increase in entropy in the surroundings, creating a net increase in 
entropy of the universe.    Nothing has been found that violates this 
bedrock scientific prinicple.
Jerry (the older)