---
title: "Objections to evolution"
chunk: 11/15
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:36:58.826933+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

A recent objection of creationists to evolution is that evolutionary mechanisms such as mutation cannot generate new information. Creationists such as William A. Dembski, Werner Gitt, and Lee Spetner have attempted to use information theory to dispute evolution. Dembski has argued that life demonstrates specified complexity, and proposed a law of conservation of information that extremely improbable "complex specified information" could be conveyed by natural means but never originated without an intelligent agent.  Gitt asserted that information is an intrinsic characteristic of life and that an analysis demonstrates the mind and will of their Creator.
These claims have been widely rejected by the scientific community, which asserts that new information is regularly generated in evolution whenever a novel mutation or gene duplication arises. Dramatic examples of entirely new and unique traits arising through mutation have been observed in recent years, such as the evolution of nylon-eating bacteria which developed new enzymes to efficiently digest a material that never existed before the modern era.  There is no need to account for the creation of information when an organism is considered together with the environment it evolved in. The information in the genome forms a record of how it was possible to survive in a particular environment. The information is gathered from the environment through trial and error, as mutating organisms either reproduce or fail.
The concept of specified complexity is widely regarded as mathematically unsound and has not been the basis for further independent work in information theory, in the theory of complex systems, or in biology.

=== Violation of the second law of thermodynamics ===

Another objection is that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. The law states that "the entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium". In other words, an isolated system's entropy (a measure of the dispersal of energy in a physical system so that it is not available to do mechanical work) will tend to increase or stay the same, not decrease. Creationists argue that evolution violates this physical law by requiring an increase in order (i.e., a decrease in entropy).
The claims have been criticized for ignoring that the second law only applies to isolated systems. Organisms are open systems as they constantly exchange energy and matter with their environment: for example animals eat food and excrete waste, and radiate and absorb heat. It is argued that the Sun-Earth-space system does not violate the second law because the enormous increase in entropy due to the Sun and Earth radiating into space dwarfs the local decrease in entropy caused by the existence and evolution of self-organizing life.
Since the second law of thermodynamics has a precise mathematical definition, this argument can be analyzed quantitatively.  This was done by physicist Daniel F. Styer, who concluded: "Quantitative estimates of the entropy involved in biological evolution demonstrate that there is no conflict between evolution and the second law of thermodynamics."
In a published letter to the editor of The Mathematical Intelligencer titled "How anti-evolutionists abuse mathematics", mathematician Jason Rosenhouse stated:

The fact is that natural forces routinely lead to local decreases in entropy. Water freezes into ice and fertilised eggs turn into babies. Plants use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen, but [we do] not invoke divine intervention to explain the process ... thermodynamics offers nothing to dampen our confidence in Darwinism.

== Moral implications ==
Other common objections to evolution allege that evolution leads to objectionable results, such as eugenics and Nazi racial theory. It is argued that the teaching of evolution degrades values, undermines morals, and fosters irreligion or atheism. These may be considered appeals to consequences (a form of logical fallacy), as the potential ramifications of belief in evolutionary theory have nothing to do with its truth.

=== Humans as animals ===
In biological classification, humans are animals, a basic point which has been known for more than 2,000 years. Aristotle already described man as a political animal and Porphyry defined man as a rational animal, a definition accepted by the Scholastic philosophers in the Middle Ages. The creationist J. Rendle-Short asserted in Creation magazine that if people are taught evolution they can be expected to behave like animals. In evolutionary terms, humans are able to acquire knowledge and change their behaviour to meet social standards, so humans behave in the manner of other humans.

=== Social effects ===