Page 190 - The Evolution Impasse 2

188 The Second Law of Thermodynamics (The Law of Entropy)

If you aban don a car to nat u ral con di tions, it will age, rust and de cay. In the same way,
in the ab sence of a con scious or der, all sys tems in the uni verse tend to wards cha os.
This is an in es cap a ble law of na ture.

Einstein, de scribed it as the first law in ter ven tion. There is ev i dent or der
of all the sci en ces. In his book in the uni verse, al though the uni -
Entropy: A World View, the American verse's own laws should work to
sci en tist Jeremy Rifkin says: cor rupt that or der. From this, two
The Entropy Law will pre side as the con clu sions emerge:
rul ing par a digm over the next pe ri od 1) The uni verse has not, as ma te -
of his to ry. Albert Einstein said that it ri al ists sug gest, ex ist ed for all time.
is the pre mier law of all sci ence: Sir Were that the case, the Second Law
Arthur Eddington re ferred to it as the of Thermodynamics would long ago
su preme met a phys i cal law of the en tire have done its work, and the uni verse
uni verse. 210
would have be come a ho mo ge ne ous
The Law of Entropy de fin i tive ly col lec tion of mat ter with no or der to
in val i dates the ma te ri al ist view that it at all.
the uni verse is an as sem bly of mat ter 2) The claim that aft er the Big
closed to all forms of su per nat u ral Bang, the uni verse took shape with

The Evolution Impasse II