Very basic argument: If the universe tends to become disorderly on its own (entropy), then how can one explain evolution, which is supposedly a naturally occuring tendency towards order.
I didn't realize evolution required or predicted order. And by "universe", do they mean universe as in "our vast universe" (like planets, stars, etc.) or something else? And how do they define order?
> If the universe tends to become disorderly on its own (entropy), then how can one explain evolution
Easily. The universe *as* *a* *whole*, or any CLOSED SYSTEM, tends towards disorder. However, the Earth IS NOT a closed system. HAd the Sun simply disappeared from the sky of Earth 4 billion years ago, then evolution would have ground to a halt. But the sun didn't disappear; it remains an external power source. So on the very small scale of the surface of the Earth, energy is available to produce ordered systems. But when compared to the Earth-Sun system *as* *a* *whole,* it's been running down for billions of years.
Very basic argument: If the universe tends to become disorderly on its own (entropy), then how can one explain evolution, which is supposedly a naturally occuring tendency towards order.I guess one could argue that living things exhibit more order than nonliving things, but why do you assume that humans, modern cats, modern cattle, modern bacteria, etc. are more ordered than, say, the organisms from the dinosaur age?
Anyway, even assuming the total amount of order represented by today's biota is higher than ancient biota, the answer is that all living things gotta eat. As long as organisms are able to tap into the flow of energy from low-entropy forms to high-entropy forms, then life can flourish. This is true whether we end up scoring their development as "evolution" or "de-evolution".