Entropy can decrease locally

Entropy can decrease locally
this is an oft quoted claim by atheists to explain the natural emergence of order,
structure and information from chaos in the universe.
There are usually 2 approaches to this, both are false.
We can observe that order emerges from chaotic systems,
therefore the order in our universe simply emerges from chaos.
The misunderstanding here is based in the fact that chaotic systems (dynamic systems
that appear to behave randomly) are in fact not random at all, but deterministic. It’s
usually the case that a chaotic system is driven by multiple variables and is sensitive in
some way, so that behaviour can appear very unpredictable. A good example of this is
a perturbed recirculation flow, whereby a fluid is set into a circular flow (e.g a closed
eddy caused by the separation of a boundary layer). The perturbation causes the flow
to appear to break up near the edges into random mixing, in actual fact the

perturbation magnifies dynamic instabilities near the boundary, and the patterns in
these flows can be observed if particles in the flow are observed over a long period of
time.
The order was actually already there in the flow, the perturbation hides the structure
and observing it certain ways, or tweaking the variables makes it easy to see the
complexity beneath.
It would be extremely naïve to presume that all of the complexity in our current
universe was somehow already present a nano-second after the beginning of the
universe, when there was simply a point source of highly concentrated energy and
nothing else.
The earth is an open system, so according to the 2nd law of
thermodynamics; complexity can arise locally as the sun increases
in entropy whilst burning.
this is a terrible misunderstanding of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The 2nd law
states
the total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time.
An easy way to understand it is as follows:

This principle has been applied to many kinds of entropy, and generalised in terms of
complexity or order, so that we can state:
“in a system that is isolated, any natural process in that system progresses in the
direction of increasing disorder, or entropy, of the system”
The misunderstanding now gets applied by materialist to attempt to explain disparate
local decreases in entropy. They state the 2nd law claims that in a closed system the
overall entropy must increase, but in an open system (ie a sub-domain of the closed
system) the entropy could decrease provided the overall entropy increases in the host
system. This is partly true, but only because something crosses the boundary of the
open system to lower its entropy.
Let’s take a simple metal rod, if we apply heat to the right hand end of the rod and then
remove the heat, we can treat the rod as a closed system (ie heat is not lost into the
room that contains the rod). Let’s draw a line down the middle of the rod. The left hand
side we can treat as a sub system; an “open” system inside the closed system of the
rod. The left hand side currently is at one fixed temperature throughout, but the right
hand side is heated at one end, and therefore has lower entropy.

As we observe, the heat will diffuse through the rod, eventually crossing the boundary
of the left hand side and causing the entropy to drop, eventually as the heat continues
to diffuse the entropy on the left hand side will increase again until the heat has totally
diffused to equilibrium throughout the rod.
So entropy can only decrease in the open system by complexity or order crossing the
boundary. You would not expect to get an effect where the increase in entropy on the
right hand side caused the left hand end of the rod to heat up in compensation by any
other means than diffusion. Nor would you expect a different kind of order to emerge
on the left hand side such as the rod changing into an ordered shape, unless what
crossed the boundary enforced that physical effect.
Many materialists seek to explain the emergence of the complexity of life on earth and
origin of life’s information-rich molecules (DNA), by twisting this application of the 2nd
law, and propose that order and complexity can simply emerge on earth in
compensation to the increase in entropy of the sun as it burns. It is ludicrous to suggest
that heat diffusion could allow a different kind of order (such as information) to
suddenly appear on earth.
Energy can be converted to different kinds of order using machines, this is in fact what
happens in photosynthesis, where energy from the sun is physically converted by
extremely complex molecular machines in a sequence of chemical and kinematic
processes in order to create the organic energy molecule ATP (Adenosine
Triphosphate).
The question is then raised, so where does the complexity in the machines come
from? ... if the answer is “evolution”, it needs to be explained how natural selection (a
very simple filter) can guide a random process to decrease entropy in many orders of
magnitude. This does not seem remotely credible.
side note: whilst on the point of entropy decreasing, gases don’t coalesce; they diffuse.
So the idea that an initial cloud of Hydrogen would clump together and form planets
and galaxies from the Big Bang is not just absurd, but impossible from a 2nd law POV.