Scenario #2: 1000 years from now,
long after America has been forgotten, a group of people stumbles across Mount
Rushmore, sees the faces carved into the rock, and exclaims, “My! What a
fantastic coincidence that wind and erosion patterns shaped this rock into the
resemblance of four different people’s faces! Aren’t the random forces of
nature amazing?!”
Explanation:
Scenario #2: In this scenario, the
group’s reaction to and conclusion about seeing the faces on Mount Rushmore is
obviously erroneous. Not simply because we know from experience that someone
sculpted Mount Rushmore, but because Mount Rushmore is so specific and complex
a pattern that it could not have arisen from random, chaotic forces. It had to
have been purposefully constructed by an intelligence with a plan in mind for
what the finished product would look like.
A system of any kind can be
described in terms of its level of complexity and specificity. Complexity
refers to a system that is intricate but has no independent pattern, while
specificity refers to a system conforming to an independent pattern. The letter “a” is specified without
being complex (i.e., it conforms to an independent pattern but is simple). The
sequence of random letters “vnskguthwpalfjtibw” is complex without being
specified (i.e., it requires a complicated instruction-set to describe but
conforms to no independent pattern). If
you were to dump a bag of Scrabble tiles on the ground, you would create a very
complex string of letters, but it would not be specified. Your pile of Scrabble letters may even
occasionally group to form small words, which are specified but not complex.
Your tiles, however, will not randomly fall into this paragraph, which is both
specified and complex.
Taking our Scrabble analogy to the
primordial Earth, it is perfectly rational and feasible to postulate that the
"primordial ooze" of the early Earth may have contained many
different kinds of amino acids (complexity), just as the Scrabble tiles contain
many different random strings of letters. It is also perfectly rational and
feasible to postulate that, in our vast sea of random amino acids, some may
have joined together to form simple molecular chains (specificity), just as occasionally
our scrabble tiles will make a short word.
However, postulating that the
randomly distributed amino acids in our primordial sea would chance to join
together into large molecular chain structures (complex) that happened to have
arranged themselves in such a way as to make themselves capable of
self-replication (specified), which would then combine together to form
single-celled living organisms (and not just one, but many different types),
which would then combine together to form multi-cellular organisms, which would
then diversify into many different types of multi-cellular organisms, which would
also begin eating one another and, through a random process of genetic
mutations and chaotic chance, would happen to lead to the development of an ecosphere
that is self-sustaining, contains all the plant and animal species that fill
every biological niche that exists today, and includes a species of animal that
is intelligent enough to ponder the meaning of its own existence, all on a
planet that, randomly driven by gravity and other physical laws, happened to
form at the exact right distance and orbit away from a sun that, by chance, is
also the exact right size and temperature to support life, is statistically impossible.
Additionally, one of the most
important laws of physics is the law of entropy (the second law of
thermodynamics), stating that closed systems tend to move from order to
disorder and not the other way around. Screws fall out, sidewalks crack, cars
break down, clothes get holes, paint peels, hot meals get cold, the yard
constantly needs edging, ice melts, it is easy to spend money and hard to earn
it, you can never find a matching pair of socks; all examples of entropy at work
in the natural world. And the only way that entropy can be overcome is by some
external force inputting large amounts of energy into the system. In other
words, once salt dissolves in water (i.e. it moves from a solid, ordered
crystalline structure to something more randomized and chaotic), it cannot
recrystallize itself again on its own, not without an external force putting
enough energy into the system to evaporate all the water.
Entropy is one of the most
important physical forces in the universe, alongside gravity, electromagnetism,
nuclear binding forces, relativity, etc., and without it the universe would not
exist. However, the entire hypothetical process of spontaneously generated
specified and complex life that was explained in the paragraphs above is that
of a disordered and chaotic system organizing itself into a more and more
highly organized and ordered system, seemingly violating the law of entropy.
An explanation for this violation
of the second law can be attempted on the small scale,
because while the universe as a whole is a closed system, the Earth is not.
Since there is an external force inputting energy into the system in the form
of the sun, scientists will say that the sun provides more than enough energy
to overcome entropy on the Earth, making life on the Earth not a violation of
the second law. But simply adding energy to a system doesn’t automatically
cause reduced entropy. Solar energy alone does not decrease entropy; in fact,
it increases entropy, speeding up the natural processes that cause breakdown,
disorder, and disorganization on earth. If this were not so, then frequent
sunburn would make you look younger and live longer.
The apparent decrease in entropy
found in biological systems on the Earth requires two additional factors
besides an open system and an available energy supply. These are: information
to direct the growth in organized complexity, and a mechanism for storing and
converting the incoming energy into something usable.
Each living organism’s DNA contains
all the code (i.e. the program information) needed to direct the process of
building the organism up from seed or cell to a fully functional, mature
specimen, complete with all the necessary instructions for maintaining and
repairing each of its complex, organized, and integrated component
systems. This process continues throughout the life of the organism,
essentially building-up and maintaining the organism’s physical structure
faster than entropy can break it down (though entropy ultimately does prevail,
as each organism eventually deteriorates and dies).
Living systems also have the second
essential component—their own built-in mechanisms for effectively converting
and storing the incoming energy. Plants use photosynthesis to convert the
sun’s energy into usable, storable forms (e.g., proteins), animals use
metabolism to further convert and use the stored energy from the plants they
eat, and other animals eat those animals to use the stored energy their
physical bodies contain.
While the “open system” argument
can explain how already existent living organisms may grow and thrive, and it
can explain the source of the energy needed to form organized protein chain
molecules from random amino acids, it does not offer any solution to the
question of how life could spontaneously begin this process in the absence of
the program directions and energy conversion mechanisms described above, nor
how a simple living organism might produce the additional new program directions and alternative
energy conversion mechanisms required in order to produce the vast spectrum of
biological variety and complexity observed on this planet.
In light of all of this, we can
clearly see that the “open system” argument fails to adequately justify the
violation of the second law that is seen in the development of specified and
complex life on the Earth, and that a system can have randomly generated
specificity, or it can have randomly generated complexity, but not both.
Therefore, the premise that living organisms with specified complexity randomly
and spontaneously developed within an entropic universe not only violates one
of the most important laws of physics, but is so astronomically improbable that
it takes more faith and feelings-based, biased, emotional conviction to justify
this belief than a belief in a world designed by an intelligent entity existing
outside of our “closed-system” universe. Therefore, the specified complexity of
the natural world compels the rational person to infer an intelligent designing
force guiding the formation of that world.
The burden of proof then falls on
the person who is so biased that he or she denies the obvious rational
conclusion in favor of the absurd improbability.
