Breaking the Laws of Physics?

It’s quite common for Creotards and IDiots to argue that certain scientific theories break certain laws of physics. It’s an interesting attempt at an argument, using science to disprove science!

The two of the most common ones used against evolution are the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the Conservation of Angular Momentum.

Lets quickly have a poke and laugh at these shall we?

Second Law of Thermodynamics (SLoT)

At it’s most basic, the SLoT says that everything tends to go from order to disorder (that’s the layman’s way of saying entropy increases). The idea behind the argument being that because evolution seems to make things more complex that it must be working to decrease entropy.

OK, lets do a quick science experiment.

Grab a brand new pack of cards. Take them out the box, remove the cellophane wrapper, and take a quick peak at the deck. Chances are you’ll find it neatly stacked, all the same way up, and the cards sorted in order. Now, throw the cards on the floor, and swoosh them around a bit. Chances are that the cards are now strewn all over the place, some upside down, and definitely not in any form of suit or rank order. They are definitely disordered – i.e. the level of entropy has increased. Great!

Now, pick them all up, and put them into a pile. Now square the pile off. Hmm, what’s this, looks a lot more ordered now. Now sort that pile into two piles, one of face up and one of face down. Turn one pile over and put the two piles together. Oh dear, it’s getting more ordered. Now sort the deck back into suits arranged Ace through King…. Fek! Seems to me like you just broke the Second Law of Thermodynamics!

OK, maybe we’ll have a little bit more luck with…

Conservation of Angular Momentum (CoAM)

This law states deals with spinning things, and in layman’s terms means that the total amount of spin within a system must remain constant. The idea behind this argument is that when we look at the various heavenly bodies we find that some of them are spinning in different directions.

Quick note, yes, I know this has nothing to do with evolution, but Creotards and IDiots tend to think that things like the Big Bang are part of evolution, and it’s them I’m trying to debunk.

Now, back to the argument. CoAM says that as the gas cloud that formed our solar system coalesced it began to spin as it contracted. The amount of spin that cloud had must still be here today. As our Sun and the planets formed they took on a proportion of that spin relative to their sizes and distance to the centre of the system.

The problem (according to Creotards and IDiots) is that Neptune doesn’t spin the same way as all the other planets. How can than be?

Now, let’s do our quick science experiment. This one is easy. Stand up. Start turning around clockwise for a couple turns (try not to get dizzy and fall down, I’m not responsible for anything you do). Now, start turning in the other direction. Darn it, you just broke science again!

OK, an explanation might be in order.

Both SLoT and CoAM deal with closed systems. The problem is that most people forget what a closed system is. The room you did the two little experiments in isn’t a closed system. Neither is the building. Nor your country. Planet Earth? Nope. OK, our solar system maybe? Fat chance. Come on, the Milky Way Galaxy? Not even close. It’s the entire Universe of Space and Time. That is as close to a completely closed system as we know about.

Nothing in the SLoT says what happens to entropy locally. In one place entropy can quite happily decrease as long as somewhere else entropy increases by an equal or greater amount. Just within the confines of our solar system our sun in losing heat and thus increasing in entropy at a prodigious rate. We receive some of that heat energy her on Earth and use it do do work that leads to a localised decrease in entropy. However, overall everything balances out just as the science says it will.

CoAM works in a similar way. If some action occurs that causes one thing to spin faster, then something else must end up spinning slower (or the other way round), all in proportion to their relative masses, velocities, and distances. Interesting factoid… even though our Sun makes up the huge vast majority of the mass of our solar system (well over 95% IIRC), it doesn’t contain most of the Angular Momentum. That belongs to Jupiter by virtue of the fact it’s so big and far out. The reason Neptune is spinning wrong is (probably) because something pretty big hit it pretty hard and stole a huge amount of its angular momentum, and whatever hit it gained a huge amount of angular momentum.

In the little experiment, when you started spinning in one direction you ever so slightly changed the angular momentum of the planet – the amount being in proportion to your relative masses. When you span the other way you reversed that exchange. If you were to place a mass equal to that of the planet Earth on one of its poles, and start it rotating in the opposite direction at the same speed then the Earth would in fact stop spinning as viewed by someone sitting on the Sun for example because all of its angular momentum will have been transferred to this spinning mass.

Hopefully that’s cleared things up a bit.

As ever, my usual caveat when I talk all science. I’m not a scientist, just an interested layman. I know that I have heavily simplified the two principles I’ve discussed, but I still believe that the basic principles remain sound. If I have made any blunderingly stupid mistakes then I welcome criticism from suitably informed readers. It helps is you can explain where I went wrong in layman terms if at all possible. Thankyou.

Possibly related posts:

1. Creationism in UK education
2. Survey on UK opinions on Darwin and Evolution
3. Evolution Test
4. Science and Religion
5. Feel humble much?