Many people on both sides assume that the 2LoT forbids any decrease in entropy. That is wrong, it permits local decreases, provided that they are balanced by increases elsewhere. Thus it is necessary to take into account the energy coming into the system (which represents an increase in entropy at it's source).
I was specifically referring to two kinds of entropy, not two different second laws of thermodynamics.
Berra's argument is, in fact, not bad. The mere fact that energy is coming in - and the fact that we know that life can and does use this energy - is sufficient to rebut any naive claim that evoltuion violates the 2LoT.
I don't believe that 2LoT refutes evolution, per say. I'm saying very simply that things never organize themselves. I've heard it argued that such processes like crystals are formed by an unguided process, and for face value, I would agree. However, just saying that and leaving it alone misses a much greater point, especially if someone wants to use this as an analogy to a biological system. Configurations are ordered, not disordered, for the sole reason the mechanisms necessary for that configuration is already present. And its this simple understanding that makes IC so attractive, like it or not. The formation of crystals (or snowflakes, as I've heard it argued at times) is a simple chemical reaction in accordance to physical laws that do not in any sense, evolve and certainly could not be compared to genetics.
As for Berra's supply of heat making all things possible, its only partly true. If I turn on my stove and place a pot full of water, what am I going to find after I introduce energy? When entropy increases, there might be a few micro-organisms that didn't die. But simply supplying energy isn't the magic formula. Like I said, its pointless unless there is a designed mechanism in place, beforehand, to convert that energy into something useful. As an example, I would offer photosynthesis as process that harnesses energy.
Secondly, the bike didn't design itself. It took people not only to design the bike, but to manufacture it, and to ship it. It then was required for somebody to assemble based on the schematics provided by another intelligent mind. The bike in no way organized itself, which Berra clearly wants us to believe about natural systems.
And I woudl add that any claim that Berra needs to provide more detail needs to consider the context in which the remark was made and the audience it was addressed to. Would, for instance a detailed description of metabolism be worth providing under those circumstances
Metabolism is a great example. But metabolisms are an orderly mechanism, not some series of happenstances. That would best described as a converter.
If you want something really bad you have to go to the creationist side. The creationists often equivocate between the 2LoT and the supposed need for mechanisms while being really vague about what the supposed violation of the 2LoT is in the first place.
I would never say that evolution "violates" 2LoT, because nothing does. However, if creationists say that anything using energy must need some sort of converter, I obviously would agree that.
"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. -Micah 6:8
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