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Q&A: Does Evolution Create Order?

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

Does Evolution Create Order?

Question

At the Davidson Institute they argue that it does not.
Evolution does not contradict the second law of thermodynamics.
This argument combines a misunderstanding of the evolutionary mechanism with a distortion of a basic premise of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy (a kind of measure of disorder — not really precise either) in an isolated system will always increase over time. There are people who argue that since the process of evolution creates order, it inherently contradicts the second law of thermodynamics.
As a first step, it is worth discussing whether evolution really does create order. This is a philosophical discussion, and it is fairly easy to explain why it does not.
(There is a continuation that is not relevant to the question: but this argument can be rejected much more sharply and decisively: the second law of thermodynamics deals with the total sum of entropy, so there can be islands of order within an ocean of chaos so long as the overall entropy continues to rise over time.)

Answer

This is the standard explanation given by atheists, and it may also be scientifically correct (it is a mere hypothesis which, as far as I know, nobody knows how to confirm with an actual calculation). The question is what its theological-philosophical implications are. At the foundation of the second law lies a simple probabilistic consideration: a complex thing does not come into being on its own. Now go and consider whether the spontaneous formation of life, even at the cost of increasing disorder elsewhere, seems plausible to you.
Calculations of fairly simple bounds show that the probability of the spontaneous formation of life, given the amount of time and the number of attempts that could have occurred, is negligible. In my book I brought such a calculation by de Duve (= a Nobel Prize laureate in biology).
All this is a consideration within the laws. But beyond that, as I explained in the article as well, the more precise physico-theological proof is based on an argument outside the laws: within the laws (=the laws of nature of our world), accidental formation may perhaps be possible, but the important question is who is responsible for these being the laws of the world.
Think about a collection of television parts (screws, wires, and the like) scattered around a room. After ten billion years you return to the room and see a working television. Would you accept that this was a spontaneous formation? And if someone now came and told you that there are laws in that room that assemble televisions from their parts, would that solve the problem? After all, you would immediately ask who legislated those laws. Moreover, even within the laws, would you accept that this happened by chance just because a greater mess was created around it, so that the total amount of order in the room was preserved? Does that sound plausible to you?

Discussion on Answer

R. (2017-07-25)

Sorry, Rabbi, but I meant this sentence: “As a first step, it is worth discussing whether evolution really does create order. This is a philosophical discussion, and it is fairly easy to explain why it does not.”
That is why I put the second claim (the one you addressed) in parentheses.

Michi (2017-07-25)

I answered that too. It definitely does create order. Life is something with very low entropy. The claim is that the surrounding disorder offsets it, and I addressed that.

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