My concern is not with pre-biotic compounds or with primitive-earth pathways to proteins (good luck!) but with misinterpretations of the second law of thermodynamics. I’ve heard such crazy statements about the impossibility of such things as complicated molecules arising from simpler ones "without a mechanism", implying the necessity for human or divine intervention in each specific case. (Creationists certainly would agree that the second law is part of the original creation and surely they must include all the laws of chemistry.)
Unfortunately, many many people who have no knowledge of chemistry are making erroneous statements that involve the most basic principles of the subject to large audiences in speeches or on the Internet. Such misinformation gives a false basis for the hearers’ judgment. The correct foundation in chemistry is not complex and is fascinating in its many aspects
Atoms and molecules inherently attract one another. Among molecules, the attraction is usually weak. However, many kinds of atoms so strongly interact with one another that they "bond", i.e., form extremely powerful associations in very specific ways to yield molecules so stable that energy at temperatures of a thousand or two thousand degrees can’t tear them apart again. Molecules are not atoms randomly stuffed into tiny packages. When three or more atoms join to form a molecule, they are arranged in precise order, normally unchanging over time, and with a relatively fixed geometric relationship. Finally, many kinds of molecules can strike other kinds very violently and form totally new types of molecules – another mode of formation of new complex ordered structures due to the same innate nature of atoms to form strong bonds..
A simple example is the reaction of hydrogen gas with oxygen, tragically illustrated when the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg dirigible burned in 1937. Hydrogen has a great inherent tendency to bond strongly with oxygen and form water even a small energy of activation, in the form of a spark affecting only a relatively few molecules, causes the two substances to start to react, resulting in an enormous evolution of energy. This is exactly as the second law predicts: some of the chemical potential energy in hydrogen and oxygen molecules tends to be spread out when the less-energetic water molecules are formed. Yet, water is more complex than the simple elements and its atoms are arranged in an exact geometric pattern as all chemistry students know so well. (HOH is simply depicted, hydrogens in gray and oxygen, red, in the New York University link, http://www.nyu.edu/pages/mathmol/library/water/water.gif)
There are millions of possible syntheses like that of water being formed from the elements, i.e., there are millions of "intricate" compounds that have less energy in them than the elements of which they are composed. That sentence is a quiet bombshell. It takes a while for it to fizzzz before its significance explodes. It means that the second law energetically FAVORS -- yes, inexorably predicts – complex, geometrically ordered molecules can form from utterly simple atoms of elements. In such syntheses, the second law favors orderly, precisely arranged big units over the smaller, simpler parts. This is a fact, not an opinion. It negates popular statements such as "the second law says that all systems fundamentally tend toward disorder and randomness".
In the foregoing I am only pointing out the relationship of the second law to well-established and thoroughly-measured basic chemical energetics. I do NOT mean to imply that in the laboratory we can simply toss hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in a reaction vessel and come out with a batch of DNA. No way! (The practical lab processes would be enormously more complex, impossible at present.) However, looking only at the energy relations, not the detailed steps of synthesis, we can see that virtually all of the 50,000 or so substances in our bodies would be energetically following the demands of the second law if they had been formed from the elements. Each of them contains less energy than the elements of which if is composed.
To summarize this important conclusion that is known by very few who are not chemists: Energetically, the second law of thermodynamics favors the formation of the majority of all known complex and ordered chemical compounds from the simpler elements. Thus, contrary to popular opinion, the second law does not dictate the decrease of ordered structure in its predictions, it only demands a "spreading out" of energy in all processes.
Also, to repeat the caution: The foregoing only describes energetic relationships involving the second law. It does not mean that most complex substances can be readily synthesized just by mixing elements and treating them in some way.
More from the same source:
You see now that the second law of thermodynamics is a powerful tool for predicting what tends to happen in an incredible number of different kinds of events. In addition you now know the many ways it can be hindered by activation energies.
Both are keys to life, to us as living organisms. Without the directional energy flow predicted by the second law – from more intense, concentrated, or having greater internal content to diffused, spread out, or lesser internal content, we wouldn’t have the possibility of obtaining energy from food molecules, storing it in our ATP or similar substances, and using it for our chosen purposes. Without activation energies (or, technically, without the molecular mechanisms responsible for the phenomena), NO chemical substance could be stable even for microseconds.
You could go even further back -- to the formation of matter from energy after the big bang -- to be amazed at the generality of the second law and the importance of activation energies in the beginnings of matter. That's the domain of cosmologists and astrophysicists, but nevertheless that also is (or was) a domain ruled by the second law. The original incredibly concentrated energy of the universe did not stay in a small region. It tended to diffuse in space and to form lower-energy matter that further decreased the concentration of energy. That's really following the predictions of the second law big time! Also, comparable in effect to activation energies protecting chemical compounds, were what physicists call potential energy wells (PEWs) that protected fundamental particles like protons and neutrons from immediate destruction by the enormous energies present everywhere after the big bang.
Then, after protons and neutrons and other fundamental units were forced together by fusion to form elements (protected from reversion to the original particles by PEWs), we are on more familiar ground for the chemist. Fortunately, there were "mistakes" where hydrogen became compressed and resulted in suns where the fusion process didn't stop but continued to give out energy (that then followed the second law). Elsewhere, the enormous energies of the early universe (far less than shortly after the initial big bang) could cause elements to unite and form the lesser-energy solid matter that is still present in the earth and planets (e.g., the ubiquitous silicates of rocks) -- higher energy elements forming lower energy substances, just according to the second law.
Subsequently as well, the elements and simple compounds could be transformed into those that were more complex under the purview of the second law and the protection of activation energies.
That’s a remarkably powerful insight about how the world worked……and works.
I believe the author is a retired professor of Chemistry at a major University.
The lurkers will note that unlike "Sparky" and his sources, I do NOT quote out of context. I do not misrepresent (or misunderstand) what the author is saying.
There is no conflict between the 2LoT and Evolution.
Looky here, smarty-pants. My Rev. Billy-Bob comic book says otherwise. Now who am I going to believe? A good, bible-believing, snake-handling, tongue-speaking man like Rev. Billy-Bob, who had the good sense to avoid your Satanic schools ever since the 4th grade, or some eee-voooo-luuu-shunist jackass like you?
Game, set, and match. And what's the "ordering principle" that tells the atoms how to combine? Their electron orbitals. What determines those? The laws of Quantum Mechanics. And so proceed where Physicist doesn't fear to tread but I do.
