Many fundamentalists want to speak/write about issues which are far from religious in nature. Usually they have no expertise in these areas, and their words do little more than encourage people to ignore them.

One area in which they repeatedly make mistakes is science. We are accustomed to errors when they try to oppose evolution and other parts of biology, but they also make many errors when writing about the physical sciences.

To give a bit of background to the following, my M.Sc. thesis at Sydney University (degree awarded 1954) was on heat convection, and involved considerable use of thermodynamics. In 1956 I joined the Royal Aircraft Establishment in England, and for the next nine years was involved in various problems in supersonic flight. Heating effects mean that a good understanding of thermodynamics is an essential prerequisite to any research in this area. In 1965 I returned to Australia to take up a position lecturing in mathematics at The University of Queensland. I retired at the beginning of 1997, and for the last 12 years (from 1984) was responsible for lecturing to fourth year honors students and postgraduate students in the subject "Thermodynamics and Compressible Flow".

A number of years ago I was reading some of the writings of Henry M. Morris, the guru of the modern creationist movement. I came across something about the Second Law of Thermodynamics which astounded me, and showed that Morris had little understanding of the many implications of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. After thinking about it for a few weeks I put together a short article criticising what Morris had written. It was published in volume 12, number 4 (1992) of "The Skeptic", under the title "Adam, Eve and Thermodynamics".

Morris had written that since the original creation by God was perfect, the usual decay forced on nature by the Second Law of Thermodynamics could not have been operating then. He claimed, based solely on his interpretation of the Bible, that the second law only came into operation after Adam and Eve sinned, by eating the forbidden fruit. A few moments thought indicated that without the second law, the garden of Eden would have been a place ruled by magic rather than law. As examples I showed that friction would have been non-existent. Not only would the couple have found walking impossible -- the ground would have been impossibly slippery -- it would have been impossible to hold and eat the fruit, it would have just slipped out of their fingers. And even if they managed to eat it, they wouldn't have been able to digest it, since without the second law it would have been impossible to break down the molecules into simpler ones as part of the digestive process. And if Adam tried to get hold of Eve for a clinch she would have just slipped out of his grasp. The proverbial eel would have had nothing like the slipperiness of Eve's skin.

Morris' argument did, however, solve one question. The Bible records that it was only after that naughty pair ate the fruit that they realisied they were naked. Of course, vision depends on being able to distinguish between different colours, and different brightness of objects. These are caused by light of different wavelengths being absorbed, and eventually being degraded into heat. But in the absence of the second law, and no differential absorbtion, all objects would look equally bright, and the same colour as the light received from the Sun. So it is only the second law which enables us to see that people we encounter in the street are wearing clothes.

Some creationist organisations have realised that a number of arguments thay initially used, in their enthusiasm to oppose any part of science which supported a universe billions of years old, and evolution in particular, were shaky, to say the least. In 2003 Answers in Genesis in Australia composed a list of "Arguments we think Creationists should not use". Following the split between the Australian and USA factions, and the change of name to Creastion Ministries International, this list, somewhat edited, can be found at http://creation.com/arguments-we-think-creationists-should-not-use

Part of this, from the 2003 version (which seems to be identical with the current version), reads

* The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics began at the Fall. This law says that the entropy (disorder) of the Universe increases over time, and some have thought that this was the result of the Curse. However, disorder isn't always harmful. An obvious example is digestion, breaking down large complex food molecules into their simple building blocks. Another is friction, which turns ordered mechanical energy into disordered heat -- otherwise Adam and Eve would have slipped as they walked with God in Eden! A less obvious example to laymen might be the sun heating the Earth -- to a physical chemist, heat transfer from a hot object to a cold one is the classic case of the Second Law in action. Also, breathing is based on another classic Second Law process, gas moving from a high pressure to low pressure. Finally, all beneficial processes in the world, including the development from embryo to adult, increase the overall disorder of the universe, showing that the Second Law is not inherently a curse. Death and suffering of `nephesh' animals before sin are contrary to the Biblical framework above, as are suffering (or `groaning in travail' (Rom. 8:20-22 )). It is more likely that God withdrew some of His sustaining power (Col. 1:15-17 ) at the Fall so that the decay effect of the Second Law was no longer countered.

The Answers in Genesis (USA) site has a much briefer account:

2. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics began at the Fall. (If so, how could Adam and Eve have eaten and digested their food that they were told to eat before the Fall?)

Now I hesitate to suggest that the original article may have been concocted (I was tempted to use the word `plagiarised' but refrained)

after reading my article in "The Skeptic", but some of the resemblances are striking.

But the most striking thing is the phrase (in the CMI version) "... some have thought ..." There is not the slightest indication that they are criticising Henry M. Morris, who they otherwise hail as almost inerrant.

But they have fixed one error, only to introduce another error. I can only attribute this to their general ignorance of science, and fixation on the two words "second law" without taking surrounding words into account.

The relevant part is :

Also, breathing is based on another classic Second Law process, gas moving from a high pressure to low pressure.

Motion of a gas or liquid is indeed governed by (among other things)

pressure differences, but this is NOT the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As any undergraduate student (and quite a number of secondary school students) would be able to tell you. It's Isaac Newton's Second Law of Motion. Thermodynamics doesn't come into it, for liquids at all, and for gases until they are moving at a speed comparable with (or higher than) the speed of sound. The crack of a stockwhip is due to the tip moving faster than the speed of sound. And the sharp crack from a nearby strike of lightning is because the pressure wave caused by the heated air is moving somewhat faster than the speed of sound. Motion of air into or out of our lungs takes place at very low speeds, and thermodynamics is not neede to describe the motion.

It will be interesting to see whether CMI correct this error in future versions of their "don't use" article

Salaam Ken Smith

July 2009