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

[Leon Brooks]

On Saturday 22 December 2001 07:59, Chris wrote:
>> Winning is getting more work out of a system than the equivilent
>> energy put in.

> The laws of thermodynamics are all about energy and energy
> loss. But the energy into the system called earth is the
> Sun. And while the Sun is burning into space increasing
> total entropy, it is powering the earth in the process.
> A bit like I could drill for oil, burn the oil in a
> factory to produce widgets. Total entropy has increased
> because the oil is burnt up. But I have created widgets
> out of raw materials which is a reduction in entropy.

Is it? How much entropy is there in a widget compared with, say, your brain? 
Where did the widget factory (a conta-entropic structure itself) come from? 
And so on.

A similar anology for evolution is the observation that an earthquake which 
struck a quarry was able to loft a rock up one stope. This is then 
extrapolated to ``so it is possible that enough earthquakes would loft the 
rock up all of the stopes and out of the quarry.'' Well, yes, possible. But 
*extremely* unlikely. We're talking serious unlikeliness here. Very quickly, 
you run out of unvirse and time for this to happen in. Enough earthquakes to 
do that would reduce the entire area to level rubble a long time before you 
got the rock up four levels.

So the evolutionist plucks an inifinite number of universes out of thin air 
in which earthquakes can jump rocks around in quarries. No problem. Or is 
there?

Since life is the issue being addressed, let's look at it a bit closer. Given 
a universe made entirely out of suitable amino acids, a trillion years, no 
distance effects or waste products, and a stupendous interaction rate, oh, 
and by ignoring numerous structural and supply difficulties, we are able to 
get to the point where a single typical protein is ``only'' out of luck by 
well over a hundred orders of magnitude. What this tells us is that if we see 
a universe with as much as a single protein in it, we are seeing a miracle 
far more staggering than water turning to wine.

Cheers; Leon