26 October 2001
Hi [Name withheld],
I've delayed in commenting on the Wilder-Smith video [ Origins: How the World Came To Be ] because I needed to get copies of materials on thermodynamics and cosmology. Before you read them, please take a look at the attached comparison between Christian and New Age beliefs. All Believers would agree that New Agers distort the Bible almost beyond recognition, but few know that videos like Wilder-Smith’s distort the Big Bang Theory and thermodynamics just as grotesquely. Only by familiarizing ourselves with these subjects can we become aware of this, and thereby understand why such videos are so counterproductive to evangelizing the scientifically educated.
Many nonBelievers describe the distortions in creationism videos with colorful names such as “lying to save souls” and “lying for God”. This choice of words is an interesting counterpoint to the common Evangelical belief that scoffers have no moral sense. Actually, it's precisely their moral sense that makes many of them such difficult targets for evangelization. Just as we see sinister motives in the persecution of Tyndale, they see sinister motives in misrepresenting thermodynamics and the Big Bang. Many of them consider us fanatics who manipulate the ignorant to gain secular power. Creationism videos are considered propaganda pieces in which we slander the scientifically trained to ensure that the ignorant remain so.
Their point is strengthened by Believers with advanced degrees who are careless or untruthful when discussing scientific matters that touch upon our faith. People who've earned advanced degrees are supposed to be able to present the opposing side of a scientific controversy accurately, and it reflects poorly upon our faith when Believers either can't or won't.
All of this is destructive to approaches that might otherwise be effective in evangelizing scientifically educated nonBelievers. For example, we might point out that we accepted Christ because we believe that His statements about our nature and His purposes are true, not because Believers on the whole are necessarily happier or more moral than adherents of other faiths. Christians’ various misbehaviors (individually or as institutions) are irrelevant; each person must answer that central question: Is Christianity true? Unfortunately, videos such as Wilder-Smith’s give doubters reason to suspect that whatever may have been our grounds for choosing Christ, Truth probably wasn't among them.
These videos also undermine approaches that suggest themselves upon reading the enclosed chapters from Paul Davies’ The Mind of God. Many detractors who have some knowledge of thermodynamics and cosmology have never stopped to think how extraordinary it is that mathematics can describe natural phenomena so exactly. Moreover, as Davies points out, the very rules of logic that make mathematics and science so effective also appear to trap them within self-referential, paradoxical loops, thereby placing answers to certain questions forever beyond their reach. I was certainly impressed when this was pointed out to me as a detractor of Christianity, 9 years ago.
Thus, there is much profound, thought provoking material to bring to the attention of doubters, but they won't listen to it if it's brought to their attention by Believers who can't discuss these matters competently and honestly.
COMMENTS ON SPECIFIC STATEMENTS
[Per Professor Slusher] According to the Big Bang Theory, the primordial atom sat in space until it exploded.
Compare this statement with Davies & Gribbin, The Matter Myth, pp. 107 & 120. Although Davies shared this same misconception about the Theory when he was still a student in the 1960s (p. 107), he feels that he was foolish for having done so-that’s how inaccurate Professor Slusher’s statement would have been considered even 35 years ago. By the time this video was made (ca. 1990), Professor Slusher’s characterization of the Theory was simply wrong, and he should have known so if he'd made a serious attempt to check his facts.
[Made in a discussion of entropy and thermodynamics] Left to themselves, all chemical compounds tend to break apart into simpler materials.
This assertion is demonstrably false. A particularly telling counterexample is that of rusting, which is cited frequently as an example of the inevitable decay and “running-down” of the universe. Rusting is a process in which simpler materials combine to form chemical compounds when “left to themselves”. In other words, they do precisely the opposite of what this statement says should happen. There are so many other clear counterexamples that this statement suggests serious incompetence on the part of those who made it.
Statements like this one are typical of the mistakes made when thermodynamics is treated metaphorically rather than as the exact, mathematical science that it truly is. The common idea that entropy has to do with randomness of matter is only partly correct: entropy actually concerns the unavoidable reduction in energy available for useful work that occurs during every known process. The idea that greater entropy automatically means greater randomness of matter is flatly wrong.
If we do the math regarding breakdown of compounds, we get the right answer, which is that left to itself, a compound will come to equilibrium with the simpler materials from which it is formed. Whether it breaks down in the process of doing so, or whether yet more of the compound will form from the simpler materials already present, can be determined with precision from the applicable thermodynamic equations.
In contrast, reasoning via the “randomness” metaphor leads to wrong answers; in this case, that all compounds must break down. The “randomness” reasoning is conceptually flawed, and it gives predictions that fly in the face of observed physical reality, but creationists nonetheless persist in using it because it gives the answers that fit religious dogma. Consequently, many nonBelievers conclude that it's impossible to tell us anything: better to use their time and energy fighting us in the courts.
Matter can't organize itself without having information injected into it by an intelligent being.
This is another demonstrably false statement. A simple counterexample is that of thermal diffusion. (See Prigogine, The End of Certainty, pp. 26-27, and my two papers on nuclear fuels.) Thermal diffusion isn't a very spectacular refutation of this statement, but it is a clear one: some homogeneous materials “unmix” when a thermal gradient is imposed upon them, thereby becoming less random. No “injection of information” is involved; the homogeneous material is simply heated on one end and cooled on the other, whereupon it unmixes. Self-organization is often highly undesirable, as it is was in our nuclear fuels, and if the intelligent beings involved were causing it by injecting information, they would certainly stop it immediately.
[Summarizing Asimov’s talk] Scientists know of no exceptions to the
2nd Law of thermodynamics.
This assertion is true.
[According to Wilder-Smith] There are exceptions [to the 2nd Law] and these exceptions confuse.
This assertion is false, and it contradicts previous one. This sort of double-talk makes nonBelievers laugh us to scorn.
There are indeed no known exceptions to the Second Law. In his
discourse on the “teleonomy” present in orchids, which enables them to capture
energy from sunlight and use it to produce complex molecules, Dr. Wilder-Smith
succeeds only in refuting himself. Orchids produce complex molecules from
simpler molecules via capture of sunlight. Since no device or organism
can violate the Second Law, whether or not it possesses teleonomy, it follows
that production of complex molecules from simpler ones via capture of sunlight
doesn't violate the Second Law. Nor do any of the other processes in
which matter is observed to organize itself.
Does this mean that life can arise from inanimate matter? I don't know,
but it does mean that the possibility can't be ruled out, thus far, by any
simple thermodynamic argument.
SUMMARY
It's not easy to understand why so many of the scientifically educated resist creationism unless we know just how erroneous the creationism videos are, and how obvious their errors are to many nonBelievers. Although few have first-hand knowledge of the fossil record (I don't), many follow popular accounts of developments in cosmology closely enough to know that creationists don't make a good-faith effort to describe the Big Bang Theory honestly. A considerable number also have the background to catch the thermodynamic gaffes.
Many conclude that whatever our problem may be, we're not worth talking to because we reject any idea or evidence that doesn't fit our preconceived notions. And who can honestly blame them? After all, that's what many Believers have decided about them. Instead of evangelizing them seriously, we turn our backs on them, slandering them as “scoffers of the End Times”, and misrepresenting their work so as to hold them up to public ridicule.
It should come as no surprise that such nonBelievers fight tooth and nail against teaching creationism in public schools. They see science and reason as the only antidotes to religious dogmatism, backwardness, and sectarian violence. Therefore, when Believers use political power to teach creationism in public schools, these nonBelievers see superstition and dangerous irrationality triumphing over their only hope for a sane, happy, peaceful world. Images of witch-burning, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Dark Ages come to their minds.
While I don't share precisely this fear, I certainly do fear the consequences of resorting to falsehoods to save the souls of some people, while slandering and rejecting principled people who recognize and confront those falsehoods.
Yours in Christ,
Jim Smith