Answers in Genesis and Darwin's House

John Stear
(with a little help from his friends)

AiG's latest Weekly News must be the biggest load of nonsense I've come across since I began monitoring AiG's web site several years ago.  Their latest claim concerns the house of Charles Darwin which, sadly, because of neglect, is falling into decay.  AiG's peculiar argument seems to be that until Adam and Eve sinned, the second law of thermodynamics didn't operate, so because of the "curse" as a result of that sin, everything that's left to itself tends to run down, Darwin's house included.  In other words, according to AiG, since that magical moment in the Garden of Eden when Adam ate from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" the laws of thermodynamics began to exert their quite considerable influence on the physical behaviour of everything in the Universe. As a consequence, says AiG, Charles Darwin's house is falling down and "will require a lot of  intelligence and energy to improve it". Is AiG implying that we will have to wait for God to rebuild the house, starting with a handful of dust? 

In 1992 Ken Smith wrote Adam and Eve and Thermodynamics for the Skeptic explaining what things would be like in the Garden of Eden in the absence of the second law. In reminding me of his article and its relevance to AiG's comical claim Ken had this to say:

AiG, in their offering on Darwin's house still seem to be saying that the second law of thermodynamics came into operation when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.

I mentioned in Adam and Eve and Thermodynamics that it solved the problem of why the naughty couple didn't know that they were naked until after that notorious meal. We only notice the colours and brightness of things because some of the light is absorbed and turned into heat - the second law in action - and the rest reflected. If none of the light gets absorbed then everything looks the same - so all of Adam's naughty bits would look the same as the rest of him to Eve, so she wouldn't get lascivious thoughts.

In the words of a song popular in my younger days, "When Will They Ever Learn?"

It's strange that on AiG's web site (see Arguments we think creationists should NOT use) they admonish their followers thus -

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. ... the Second Law is not inherently a curse.

This is a prime example of AiG's left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing!