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Hi Mike

Thanks for writing. You wrote,

>>Hello, I may be picking up on a debate that has already past, but I just felt compelled to offer a few comments in regards to evolution.  In particular, the invocation of the Second law of thermodynamics and the supposed lack transitional species in the fossill record.  On the first point, the second law of thermodynamics can not be used as a foil for evolution because it applies only to closed systems - something the earth most certainly is not. The sun continually inputs energy into the earth, thus rendering the second law inapplicable.<<

Yes this point is often made. It's true the Second Law has to be formally defined in terms of an idealized closed system, but it's always tested on open systems, because there is no such thing in nature as a truly closed system. The entropy law applies to open and closed systems.

That "input energy" from "the sun" is nothing more than a bull in  a china shop - it performs work, but it can neither create nor maintain organization. There are no specifications to follow, no information on how to proceed. The results are destructive - the same sort of results brought about by a bull wandering through a china shop. Simply to say that all that is required to create complex organizations is an open system and an adequate energy supply is a totally inadequate explanation - it explains nothing of how things could go uphill.

The Second Law explains why no machine or process is 100% efficient and why perpetual motion machines are impossible. This is why everything eventually wears out, runs down and dies. Even those systems which seem to show increasing order for a time eventually lose out to the principle of decay.

So while simple elements may combine naturally to form complex compounds, or molecules may grow into crystals, a baby may grow, animals may multiply, man's knowledge may accumulate, yet these all are open systems and their increased organization is derived from a source outside themselves.

The crystal finally disintegrates, the adult finally dies, the species becomes extinct, even great civilizations perish as the result of outside conquest or famine etc. Yet every apparent increase of order and complexity is, at best, only local and temporary, and at the cost of greater disorder to the environment from which it extracts its ephemeral ordering energy.

Evolution demands a universal change "upward" but the real processes of nature involve a universal change "downward."  Wherever and whenever the entropy principle has been subjected to scientific test; it has always worked, with no exception.  Universal evolution, on the other hand, requires that the degree of order of at least most portions of the universe must be increasing but no scientific experiments confirm this at all.

>>As for transitional species, the most famous example is that of the whale; a mammal which returned to an aquatic lifestyle after evolving on land. While Darwin was unable to account for the transition from land mammal to whale (he is often derided for his speculations about the increasing proficiency of a group of bears in swimming after fish), the fossil record has fully acounted for this transition in the past 30 years. An abundance of primitive whales, suited for amphibious life have been found in Pakistan. If you would like any of the numerous paleontological sources on this, I would be happy to provide them on request.  Otherwise, thanks for your time. Mike V.<<

Yes, but no attachments please. The lack of transitional forms in the fossil record is a big problem for the evolution theory. Every fossil species that has been found appears suddenly in the fossil record. None are preceded by a species directly ancestral to it. Cows are always cows and whales always whales. We might find an extinct creature but never that half in half. The 'lowest' whale fossil in the record show they were completely aquatic from the first time they appeared.

The book 'Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science' mentions the "Prozeuglodon, Rodhocetus, Ambulocetus and Mesonychid". There's many problems with each of these and recognized even by evolutionary whale experts like E.J. Slijper, - "We do not possess a single fossil of the transitional forms between the aforementioned land animals (ie. Carnivores and ungulates) and the whales" (pg.17 Dolphins and Whales. E.Slijper. A.Arbor MI Univs. of Michigan Press 1962).

There are billions of fossil fish, untold millions of fossil-bearing amphibians, reptiles and mammals locked into fossil-bearing strata yet no transitional forms. What the evolutionist does is present nice stories and art works based on the imagination. The actual bones found (so few and obscure) don't tell the same story.

The burning question about 'transition fossils' is, if we think we have some examples, then where's the rest? The ones that prove evolution have occurred. From primitive to modern plants, single cells to invertebrates, invertebrates to fish, fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles to mammals, non-flying mammals to bats, apes to humans? Millions of fossils have been discovered and identified but those 'missing links' have not turned up.

Thanks for your time.

Regards,
Mark