The LOTR "Gap" Theory.

[Muffinly]

The Second Law of Thermodynamics
and Evolution

QUESTION: I haven't had a chance to read what you've written yet, but I'd just like to say that the THEORY of evolution goes against the 2nd LAW of thermodynamics (out of order, chaos will be created) A theory is weaker than a law. God is a God of order.

RESPONSE: Response: The second law of thermodynamics has to do with heat transfer explicitly. It is perhaps safer to refer to a more generalized tendency toward entropy which is far more inclusive of other phenomena. The tendency from order to disorder, from complexity to simplicity, from life to death, is something we all see and can both define and measure.
I have seen two responses from evolutionists regarding this tendency toward entropy in the universe (aside from "You're kidding!") The first is in regard to chemical changes which go from simple to complex, and the second to biological changes that go from simple to complex.
An example of the first is a snowflake -- or any crystallization. Crystallization, however, happens to specific elements at specific times under specific conditions. It is a phenomena that is intrinsic to the atomic structure of the element or compound being considered. It is not a random ordering of a material from a non-ordered state, but rather the result of a specific design involved in the material and can be counted on to happen every time under the prescribed conditions. What is interesting, however, about this particular thing, is that there is a heat transfer involved in crystallization and the second law of thermodynamics is not violated therein. Heat is diffused.
Biological increase in complexity is exemplified by a seed becoming a bush or flower or tree, or a fertilized egg becoming a person. However, the design is already present in these beginnings of life. The DNA is there from the beginning, along with whatever might be "sparking" it, and the rest is simply a matter of following instructions. It is, again, not a random ordering from a non-ordered condition. It is a design being executed. As in the case of crystallization, the execution of the biological design requires specific environmental requirements or it cannot proceed. Perhaps it should also be mentioned that evolution as inferred from the fossil record is not even a theory. Theories are testable and, ideally, falsifiable. Evolution is neither. It is, therefore, simply an idea. For some a belief, perhaps, but it cannot be rightly called either fact or theory when it refers to the "bacteria to bears" progression.




from http://www.carm.org/evolution.htm

 

[Muffinly]

And more on the Gap theory from the same site


What is the Gap Theory?

QUESTION: Please explain the "gap" therory Of Genesis 1:1 and 1:2

RESPONSE: The gap theory postulates that between Gen. 1:1 and 1:2 there was an entirely different creation which, some claim, was wiped out by a "Satan's Flood," and after which the earth was re-formed and the six days of Genesis creation commenced. The gap is said to have involved great eons of time. This gap theory was formed in response to the uniformitarian idea of long ages first applied by geologists in the nineteenth century. The gap theory is contradicted by the Bible itself on a number of counts.
1. Genesis 1:2 gives us a list of three qualities: the earth was formless and empty; darkness covered it; and the Holy Spirit was hovering, or vibrating (same word in the Hebrew) over the waters. No Hebrew historical narrative starts with a list of qualities. The explanation ALWAYS follows the general statement of where the history starts or is headed. Thus, Genesis 1:2 would be rightly seen as an explanation of the earliest moments following the creation of the time/space/mass continuum in Genesis 1:1.
2. 2 Peter 3:5 states clearly that the earth was formed out of water and by water. No reference is made to land preceding that, which is what the gap theory proposes.
3. Ezekiel 28:12-17 is generally considered a "double" passage containing a parenthetic pertaining to Satan as well as an address to the king of Tyre. In it, the being referred to was in Eden as a blameless guardian cherub. If you cross reference this passage to the passage that is clearly regarding Satan in Isaiah 14:12-15, you will see a parallel structure which really cannot be denied. There are a series of "I will's" in Isaiah answered by the corresponding actions of the Lord in return in Ezekiel. This being the case, Satan, or Lucifer as he was originally, could not have been in rebellion before Eden was formed and therefore there was no "Satan's Flood' which could have destroyed a world he had corrupted in some sort of gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.
4. In the Fourth Commandment, Exodus 20:11, it is clearly stated that the heavens, the earth, the seas, and all that is in them were created in six days.
So the gap theory does not hold where the rest of the Bible is concerned. Geologically and archaeologically this would not be valid, either, for the world destroyed in the "Satan's Flood" would NOT be the fossilized world the gap theorists often postulate. The fossil strata we know would have been utterly destroyed by NOAH's flood had they been from an earlier time.

 

[Confusticated]

Originally posted by Muffinly
An example of the first is a snowflake -- or any crystallization. Crystallization, however, happens to specific elements at specific times under specific conditions. It is a phenomena that is intrinsic to the atomic structure of the element or compound being considered. It is not a random ordering of a material from a non-ordered state, but rather the result of a specific design involved in the material and can be counted on to happen every time under the prescribed conditions. What is interesting, however, about this particular thing, is that there is a heat transfer involved in crystallization and the second law of thermodynamics is not violated therein. Heat is diffused.
Biological increase in complexity is exemplified by a seed becoming a bush or flower or tree, or a fertilized egg becoming a person. However, the design is already present in these beginnings of life. The DNA is there from the beginning, along with whatever might be "sparking" it, and the rest is simply a matter of following instructions. It is, again, not a random ordering from a non-ordered condition. It is a design being executed. As in the case of crystallization, the execution of the biological design requires specific environmental requirements or it cannot proceed. Perhaps it should also be mentioned that evolution as inferred from the fossil record is not even a theory. Theories are testable and, ideally, falsifiable. Evolution is neither. It is, therefore, simply an idea. For some a belief, perhaps, but it cannot be rightly called either fact or theory when it refers to the "bacteria to bears" progression.

First let me make clear that I have never studied thermodynamics. I do not know the source of what you posted but going on the assumption that what is said therein is true, I will say this:
"It is, again, not a random ordering from a non-ordered condition. It is a design being executed." Okay..how does this disprove evolution? I don't see why evolution could not be entropic.
What is said about the snowflake crystalization can be applied to the forming of DNA and simple organisms becoming complex ones...The condition was right for it.
Now that snowflake can rest on the ground for a given amount of time before it melts down again. Peraps life on earth is doing this: melting down. Areas of the snowflake react to their surroundings...a mm area of the snowflake's surface could be set against something just warm enough to melt it, while another portion of that snow flake does not yet change, then we have even yet another portion of that snowflake freezing against another one.

bacteria to bear?..I not heard that one, and while I have not witnessed bacteria turning into a bear through millions of generations, I have saw bears that look like they are in the process of turning into sea mammals such as walrus, sea lions...and so forth. That would be the Polar Bear. Marsupials are interesting as well...they seem to be in the middle of reptilian reproduction and mammalian reproduction. Perhaps one day kangaroos will lay eggs, or maybe they did once before. Maybe I'll look into this, I'm sure there are ideas out there. I will agree that for someone of my limited scientific knowledge that I can not rightly claim that evolution is more than an idea. For some people with alot more knowledge it may be more than an idea. I beleive in evolution all the same though. Bacteria to bear? No. Bacteria to stronger bracteria? Yes. because microbs reproduce so quickly and are so short lived we can watch them evolve. You could watch this with insects too. I think if one could live long enough...Far longer than The amount of time...say Cirdan or Celeborn spent in middle-earth...it could be witnessed happening among large mammals. Over a long enough amount of time spent in surroundings that require adaptation, the mammal would cease to have the charactoristics which once made it what it was. It would now be a different species...

that's all for now...

 

[Mindy_O_Lluin]

I can’t resist getting in my two cents:

The system of life existing on earth is a closed system with constant input of energy from the sun. If the sun were not in it’s exact proximity to us, we would not be here.

And as for proof of the theory of evolution, whatever happened over the last 3.5 billion years to get us from there to here, fueled by that solar energy, is absolute. Just because we weren’t there to record the historical progression of it, nor are we able to wrap our little minds around it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Evolution will ALWAYS remain a theory, because it is too big and wide for us to prove completely, but we can observe clues and interpret them based of deductive reasoning. Personally, I think it is way more reasonable than Creationist theory.

 

[Muffinly]

Originally posted by Mindy_O_Lluin
I can’t resist getting in my two cents:

The system of life existing on earth is a closed system with constant input of energy from the sun. If the sun were not in it’s exact proximity to us, we would not be here.

And as for proof of the theory of evolution, whatever happened over the last 3.5 billion years to get us from there to here, fueled by that solar energy, is absolute. Just because we weren’t there to record the historical progression of it, nor are we able to wrap our little minds around it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Evolution will ALWAYS remain a theory, because it is too big and wide for us to prove completely, but we can observe clues and interpret them based of deductive reasoning. Personally, I think it is way more reasonable than Creationist theory.

If the system of life on Earth is a closed system, than the 2nd law of Thermodynamics would take effect and everything would be moving from order to disorder, which would rule out adaptation by macro-evolution.



Also, there are many bits of evidence pointing to the Earth and the universe to be young, thousands, not millions of years. For instance the Sun is shrinking at a rate of about .1% per 100 years. Billions of years ago, the sun would have been far too large for life to exist at all on the Earth.


This is from http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/v23n1_earth_how_old.asp




Summarizing just some of the evidence that is consistent with a young age for the world:

1) The continents are eroding too quickly.
If the continents were billions of years old, they would have eroded by wind and water many times over. Mountain uplift and other ‘recycling’ processes are nowhere near capable of compensating for this.1

2) There is not enough helium in the atmosphere.

Helium, a light gas, is formed during radioactive alpha-decay in rock minerals. It rapidly escapes and enters the atmosphere much faster than it can escape Earth’s gravity.2 Even if God had created the world with no helium to begin with, the small amount in the atmosphere would have taken at most around two million years to accumulate. This is far less than the assumed 3,000-million-year age of the atmosphere.

3) Many fossils indicate that they must have formed quickly, and could not have taken long time-spans.
a) Common fossils.
There are billions of fossil fish in rock layers around the world which are incredibly well-preserved. They frequently show intact fins and often scales, indicating that they were buried rapidly and the rock hardened quickly. In the real world, dead fish are scavenged within 24 hours. Even in some idealized cold, sterile, predator-free and oxygen-free water, they will become soggy and fall apart within weeks.3 A fish buried quickly in sediment that does not harden within a few weeks at the most will still be subject to decay by oxygen and bacteria, such that the delicate features like fins, scales, etc. would not preserve their form. Rapid burial in the many underwater landslides (turbidity currents) and other sedimentary processes accompanying Noah’s Flood would explain not only their excellent preservation, but their existence in huge deposits, often covering thousands of square kilometres.

b) Special examples.
We’ve often featured in this magazine instances which are particularly spectacular, like the mother ichthyosaur apparently ‘freeze-framed’ in the process of giving birth. Then there are the fossil fish which are found either in the process of swallowing other fish or with undigested fish intact in their stomachs (see Creation magazine for photos—we had only one-off permission for some of them).

4) Many processes, which we have been told take millions of years, do not need such time-spans at all.
a) Coal formation.
Argonne National Laboratories have shown that heating wood (lignin, its major component), water and acidic clay at 150°C (rather cool geologically) for 4 to 36 weeks, in a sealed quartz tube with no added pressure, forms high-grade black coal.4

b) Stalactites and stalagmites.
Many examples in Creation magazine have shown that cave decorations form quickly, given the right conditions. The photo (in Creation magazine) is of a mining tunnel in Mt Isa, Queensland, Australia. The tunnel was only 50 years old when the photo was taken.

c) Opals.

Despite the common teaching that it takes millions of years to form opal, Australian researcher Len Cram has long been growing opal in his backyard laboratory. His opal (photo right, by Dr Cram) is indistinguishable, under the electron microscope, from that mined in the field. He was awarded an honorary doctorate (by a secular university) for this research. All he does is mix together the right common chemicals — no heat, no pressure, and definitely no millions of years.

d) Rock and fossil formation.


Scientists have long known that petrifaction can happen quickly. The ‘petrified’ bowler hat (above right, by Renton Maclachlan) is on display in a mining museum in New Zealand. The photo (above left) shows a roll of no. 8 fencing wire which, in only 20 years, became encased in solid sandstone, containing hundreds of fossil shells. Petrified wood can also form quickly under the right conditions—one process has even been patented.5

The famous multiple levels of ‘fossil forests’ in America’s Yellowstone National Park (photo right, by Clyde Webster) have now been shown to have formed in one volcanic event.6 Successive mudflows transported upright trees (minus most of their roots and branches) whose tree-ring signatures confirm that they grew at the one time.

5) The oceans are nowhere near salty enough.
Each year, the world’s rivers and underground streams add millions of tonnes of salt to the sea, and only a fraction of this goes back onto the land. Using the most favourable possible assumptions for long-agers, the absolute maximum age of the oceans is only a tiny fraction of their assumed billions-of-years age.7

Despite some inevitable unsolved problems in such a complex issue (see below for why radiometric dating is not infallible), it is thus not hard to establish:

i) The reasonableness of believing what the Creator of the world says in His Word, the Bible, about the world being thousands, not millions or billions, of years old.

ii) The fact that the earth neither ‘looks old’ nor ‘looks young’ as such—it all depends on the ‘glasses’ through which the evidence is interpreted. We all need to be aware of how much we have been conditioned by our culture to ‘see’ geological things as ‘looking old’.

 

[Muffinly]

And more on that topic from the same site.


1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast
The Earth is Not Millions of Years Old
Evidence For a Young World
Dr. D Russel Humphreys


The stars of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, rotate about the galactic center with different speeds, the inner ones rotating faster than the outer ones. The observed rotation speeds are so fast that if our galaxy were more than a few hundred million years old, it would be a featureless disc of stars instead of its present spiral shape.

Yet our galaxy is supposed to be at least 10 billion years old. Evolutionists call this ‘the winding-up dilemma’, which they have known about for fifty years. They have devised many theories to try to explain it, each one failing after a brief period of popularity. The same ‘winding-up’ dilemma also applies to other galaxies.

For the last few decades the favored attempt to resolve the dilemma has been a complex theory called ‘density waves’. The theory has conceptual problems, has to be arbitrarily and very finely tuned, and lately has been called into serious question by the Hubble Space Telescope’s discovery of very detailed spiral structure in the central hub of the ‘Whirlpool’ galaxy, M51.

2. Comets disintegrate too quickly
According to evolutionary theory, comets are supposed to be the same age as the solar system, about 5 billion years. Yet each time a comet orbits close to the sun, it loses so much of its material that it could not survive much longer than about 100,000 years. Many comets have typical ages of 10,000 years.

Evolutionists explain this discrepancy by assuming that (a) comets come from an unobserved spherical ‘Oort cloud’ well beyond the orbit of Pluto, (b) improbable gravitational interactions with infrequently passing stars often knock comets into the solar system, and (c) other improbable interactions with planets slow down the incoming comets often enough to account for the hundreds of comets observed. So far, none of these assumptions has been substantiated either by observations or realistic calculations.

Lately, there has been much talk of the ‘Kuiper Belt’, a disc of supposed comet sources lying in the plane of the solar system just outside the orbit of Pluto. Even if some bodies of ice exist in that location, they would not really solve the evolutionists’ problem, since according to evolutionary theory the Kuiper Belt would quickly become exhausted if there were no Oort cloud to supply it. [For more information, see the detailed technical article Comets and the Age of the Solar System.]

3. Not enough mud on the sea floor
Each year, water and winds erode about 25 billion tons of dirt and rock from the continents and deposit it in the ocean. This material accumulates as loose sediment (i.e., mud) on the hard basaltic (lava-formed) rock of the ocean floor. The average depth of all the mud in the whole ocean, including the continental shelves, is less than 400 meters.6

The main way known to remove the mud from the ocean floor is by plate tectonic subduction. That is, sea floor slides slowly (a few cm/year) beneath the continents, taking some sediment with it. According to secular scientific literature, that process presently removes only 1 billion tons per year. As far as anyone knows, the other 24 billion tons per year simply accumulate. At that rate, erosion would deposit the present amount of sediment in less than 12 million years.

Yet according to evolutionary theory, erosion and plate subduction have been going on as long as the oceans have existed, an alleged 3 billion years. If that were so, the rates above imply that the oceans would be massively choked with mud dozens of kilometers deep. An alternative (creationist) explanation is that erosion from the waters of the Genesis flood running off the continents deposited the present amount of mud within a short time about 5000 years ago.

4. Not enough sodium in the sea
Every year, river and other sources dump over 450 million tons of sodium into the ocean. Only 27% of this sodium manages to get back out of the sea each year. As far as anyone knows, the remainder simply accumulates in the ocean. If the sea had no sodium to start with, it would have accumulated its present amount in less than 42 million years at today’s input and output rates. This is much less than the evolutionary age of the ocean, 3 billion years. The usual reply to this discrepancy is that past sodium inputs must have been less and outputs greater. However, calculations which are as generous as possible to evolutionary scenarios still give a maximum age of only 62 million years. Calculations for many other sea water elements give much younger ages for the ocean.

5. The Earth’s magnetic field is decaying too fast
The total energy stored in the Earth’s magnetic field has steadily decreased by a factor of 2.7 over the past 1000 years. Evolutionary theories explaining this rapid decrease, as well as how the Earth could have maintained its magnetic field for billions of years, are very complex and inadequate.

A much better creationist theory exists. It is straightforward, based on sound physics, and explains many features of the field: its creation, rapid reversals during the Genesis flood, surface intensity decreases and increases until the time of Christ, and a steady decay since then. This theory matches paleomagnetic, historic, and present data. The main result is that the field’s total energy (not surface intensity) has always decayed at least as fast as now. At that rate the field could not be more than 10,000 years old.
6. Many strata are too tightly bent
In many mountainous areas, strata thousands of feet thick are bent and folded into hairpin shapes. The conventional geologic time scale says these formations were deeply buried and solidified for hundreds of millions of years before they were bent. Yet the folding occurred without cracking, with radii so small that the entire formation had to be still wet and unsolidified when the bending occurred. This implies that the folding occurred less than thousands of years after deposition.
7. Injected sandstone shortens geologic ‘ages’
Strong geologic evidence16 exists that the Cambrian Sawatch sandstone — formed an alleged 500 million years ago — of the Ute Pass fault west of Colorado Springs was still unsolidified when it was extruded up to the surface during the uplift of the Rocky Mountains, allegedly 70 million years ago. It is very unlikely that the sandstone would not solidify during the supposed 430 million years it was underground. Instead, it is likely that the two geologic events were less than hundreds of years apart, thus greatly shortening the geologic time scale.

8. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic ‘ages’ to a few years
Radiohalos are rings of color formed around microscopic bits of radioactive minerals in rock crystals. They are fossil evidence of radioactive decay. ‘Squashed’ Polonium-210 radiohalos indicate that Jurassic, Triassic, and Eocene formations in the Colorado plateau were deposited within months of one another, not hundreds of millions of years apart as required by the conventional time scale. ‘Orphan’ Polonium-218 radiohalos, having no evidence of their mother elements, imply either instant creation or drastic changes in radioactivity decay rates.
9. Helium in the wrong places
All naturally-occurring families of radioactive elements generate helium as they decay. If such decay took place for billions of years, as alleged by evolutionists, much helium should have found its way into the Earth’s atmosphere. The rate of loss of helium from the atmosphere into space is calculable and small. Taking that loss into account, the atmosphere today has only 0.05% of the amount of helium it would have accumulated in 5 billion years. This means the atmosphere is much younger than the alleged evolutionary age. A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that helium produced by radioactive decay in deep, hot rocks has not had time to escape. Though the rocks are supposed to be over one billion years old, their large helium retention suggests an age of only thousands of years.
10. Not enough stone age skeletons
Evolutionary anthropologists say that the stone age lasted for at least 100,000 years, during which time the world population of Neanderthal and Cro-magnon men was roughly constant, between 1 and 10 million. All that time they were burying their dead with artefacts. By this scenario, they would have buried at least 4 billion bodies. If the evolutionary time scale is correct, buried bones should be able to last for much longer than 100,000 years, so many of the supposed 4 billion stone age skeletons should still be around (and certainly the buried artefacts). Yet only a few thousand have been found. This implies that the stone age was much shorter than evolutionists think, a few hundred years in many areas.

 

[Muffinly]

11. Agriculture is too recent
The usual evolutionary picture has men existing as hunters and gatherers for 100,000 years during the stone age before discovering agriculture less than 10,000 years ago.23 Yet the archaeological evidence shows that stone age men were as intelligent as we are. It is very improbable that none of the 4 billion people mentioned in item 10 should discover that plants grow from seeds. It is more likely that men were without agriculture less than a few hundred years after the flood, if at all.
12. History is too short
According to evolutionists, stone age man existed for 100,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4000 to 5000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases. Why would he wait a thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The Biblical time scale is much more likely.

 

[Dr. Ransom]

Man... One little harmless idea, and look what happends! I've got some reading cut out for me now from all of you. And since I'm enduring Soccer practice "hell week," I'll be a little behind on keeping up with this thread, but I guess you'll all have fun without me.

 

[Muffinly]

It's probably my fault the whole debate was started.