To The Editor:
Rabbi Dovid Kornreich's excellent article ("Evolution: Do
Not Overrate Its Significance," 12 July '06) exposes many of
the problems inherent in the theory of evolution. He omitted
one of its most fatal flaws: that it contradicts the well
established Second Law of Thermodynamics which underlies
many technological advances made in the last 150 years.
Though it is a complicated technical law, it states, in
essence, that in the absence of external manipulation,
physical systems become more disordered as time progresses.
It underlies the well-known phenomenon that time only goes
forward and nobody has been able to return to earlier
epochs.
The theory of evolution claims that by purely random
processes, more complex organisms have evolved from simpler
ones, implying an increase in organization and, thereby, a
decrease in disorder. As Rabbi Kornreich points out, this
has not actually ever been observed in nature (his step 5),
only in selective breeding programs which are the very
product of external manipulation and, in any case, do not
produce new species but merely slightly modified versions of
pre-existent ones (micro-evolution as opposed to macro-
evolution).
It is this contradiction that should make unbiased
scientists very wary of the Darwinian explanation of the
diversity of life forms in the world today. Only those who
wish to exclude any supernatural influences can hold to such
a belief, which makes it a religion in its own right, not a
scientific theory.
Yours faithfully
Martin D. Stern
Manchester
The writer is Emeritus Senior Lecturer in Mathematics,
Manchester Metropolitan University.
