Second Law of Thermodynamics
From EvoWiki
A simple statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, where entropy is understood to represent a measure of the disorder of a system, is: In any closed system, the entropy will either increase or remain the same. In other words, order does not increase in a closed system.
Unsophisticated Creationists use this as an argument against Evolution: how could larger and more complex life forms evolve when disorder should be increasing? On a technical level, the key to recognizing why this is a fallacious argument is the term "closed system". Earth isn't one. The planet is constantly receiving both energy, primarily in the form of sunlight, and radiating much of it away as heat. On a smaller scale, matter arrives via comets and meteors, and leaves via gas escaping the atmosphere. As such, earth is an open system, and part of a larger system, one which includes the sun. The entropy of the sun is increasing as it provides the light that powers life and its evolution on this planet, so the system as a whole has increasing entropy. The much smaller decrease in entropy caused by evolution isn't enough to change the increasing disorder of the system as a whole.
In non-technical terms, you can view it this way: it's easy to increase the order in a system by expending some energy. A box of cereal is in a high entropy state when it's scattered all over your kitchen floor. You can re-establish some order by expending energy with a broom or vacuum cleaner, which can return all the cereal to a single location (although this technically doesn't change the entropy, as the temperature remains the same). In a similar way, by burning energy in the form of hydrogen, the sun powers any increase in order that may be associated with evolution. To circumvent this, the CreationWiki makes the claim that energy applied in a fashion more "ordered" than the system in question will increase order and in a more "disordered" way will do the opposite. However, they essentially claim it is an extension of the Second Law while in reality, they simply made it up, as it has no mathematical evidence. Furthermore, there is no such thing as applying energy in an "ordered" or "disordered" way; energy is energy.
As such, all creationist claims based on the Second Law are simply wrong, and so obviously wrong that even Answers in Genesis includes them in their list of claims creationists should not use.
See also Thermodynamics
