No. 162 

EVOLUTION AND THE SNOWFLAKE

by Larry Vardiman, Ph.D.

Johannes Kepler, the yet-to-be famous astronomer, presented a

unique New Year's gift to his patron in the winter of 1611. The

scientist gave his benefactor a witty, reasoned discussion on why

snowflakes (more exactly, ice crystals) have six corners. Since

microscopes and diffraction instruments had not yet been invented,

no one really knew why crystals took the shapes they did. Kepler

(1) argued for the development of external shapes in crystals and

other natural structures by the fill-

Figure 1. A plane dendritic ice crystal

approximately 5inm in diameter.

ing of three-dimensional space with atoms in various packing

arrangements. He used analogies such as stacked cannon balls, bee

hives, and packing of geometric shapes. Since he was unable to

convince himself that the internal structure produced the external

shapes, Kepler erroneously concluded that there is a "formative

principle" which maintains six-cornered shapes. However, for his

efforts to understand the cause of crystal shapes and his

arguments which almost resulted in the correct explanation, he has

been called by some "the father of crystallography."

Ice crystals are still being studied today. It is not

completely clear, even now, why crystals grow into some of the

beautiful shapes like that shown in Figure 1. Since the growth of

ice crystals seems to result in greater order, or decrease in

entropy, some have attempted to justify the theory of evolution by

an analogy to crystal growth. We will discuss the current

research on ice crystal growth and why it does not support the

theory of evolution.

Larry Vardiman, Ph.D. is Acting Head of the Astro/Geophysics

Department at ICR as well as Head of Physical Sciences at

Christian Heritage College.

The hexagonal symmetry of an ice crystal is an outward

manifestation of an internal arrangement of the atoms in the ice.

Each ice molecule is V-shaped with an angle of 109 degrees between

the legs. Ice molecules are bound together in an open lattice and

form puckered layers with hexagonal symmetry. Each molecule is

surrounded by four nearest neighbors, so that each group has one

molecule at the center and the other four at the corners of a

tetrahedron, all at the same distance away. The molecules are

held in place mainly by electrostatic attraction between the

positive charge of the hydrogen atom and the negative electrons of

the neighboring oxygen atom. This is called a hydrogen bond.

Ice crystals grow as thin hexagonal plates or long hexagonal

columns, depending on temperature. Two faces can be defined for

ice crystals -the basal face and the prism face. The basal face

is typically the sur face which shows hexagonal symmetry. For

example, the basal face in Figure I is the surface facing the

reader. Both the upper and lower surfaces are basal faces. The

prism face is perpendicular to the basal face. It faces outward

from an arm or portion of an arm. This face does not exhibit

hexagonal symmetry. For some temperatures, the basal face grows

faster than the prism face, resulting in long hexagonal columns or

needles. At other temperatures, the prism face grows faster,

resulting in thin hexagonal plates, fern-like stellar crystals,

and dendrites like that shown in Figure 1. The fern-like dendritic

nature of crystals is caused by the humidity. The greater the

humidity, the more feathery the crystals will appear.

Hallet and Mason (2) have explored the reasons the basal and

prism faces grow at different rates as a function of temperature.

They have discovered that vapor molecules collect on the surfaces

and migrate across the surfaces to their final lattice positions.,

The rate at which the molecules migrate across the surface varies

with temperature, and is different for the basal and prism faces.

For some temperature ranges there is a net surface migration from

the basal to the prism faces, resulting in a plate-like shape or

habit. For other temperature ranges the situation is reversed,

resulting in a net flux of molecules from the prism to the basal

faces and the formation of columns or needles.

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of

the entire universe always increases. The change in entropy can

be defined in terms of heat flow, volume change, pressure change,

energy available to do work, or order and disorder. Since we are

talking about ordered arrangements of molecules in a crystal, we

will discuss the concept of entropy primarily in terms of order

and disorder. Entropy can be calculated by taking the logarithm

of the number of different ways that a quantity of molecules can

be arranged so that the arrangement looks the same to an observer.

For example, suppose we have a box with a barrier in the middle.

On one side are black molecules and on the other side white

molecules. Now we take out the barrier and let them mix. How

has the entropy changed? Feynman (3) in discussing this example

asks,

 

"How many ways cou'id the molecules be distributed so that the

white molecules are on one side of the box and the black molecules

are on the other? On the other hand, how many ways could we

distribute them with no restriction on which goes where? Clearly

there are many more ways they could be distributed in the latter

case." Feynman concludes that the entropy is greater when the

molecules can be distributed. It is also evident that a box

originally containing all black molecules on one end and white

molecules on the other will become mixed with time such that the

black and the white molecules eventually will be evenly dis-

tributed throughout the box. The probability is so low that an

original mixture of black and white molecules will separate with

time into all black molecules at one end and white molecules at

the other, that one never observes such an event.

With this understanding of entropy, then, we can better state

the second law of thermodynamics. First, entropy measures

disorder. Second, the universe always goes from order to

disorder; the entropy of the universe always increases. Now, one

of the first questions is whether entropy in an "open" local

system can ever decrease. The second law only requires that the

entropy for the entire universe always increases. If a local

system undergoes a decrease in entropy, the surroundings must

undergo an increase in entropy. Thus, either an increase or a

decrease of entropy can occur in a local system. The issue is not

whether a decrease in entropy can occur, but rather, what is

occurring in the surroundings to cause the decrease in entropy?

For ice crystals to form, producing more order, heat must be

extracted from the local system and added to the surroundings, or

the surroundings must be made more disordered in some way. The

agent for causing this ordering of a local system and disordering

of the surroundings is the immediate or secondary result of an

action by an agent separate from the system. This agent must do

work to remove heat or add order to a system, if entropy is to

decrease. The increase in apparent order in the crystal is

actually caused by the loss of heat energy and the precoded

structure of the water molecules and their associated hydrogen

bonds.

Whenever the ordering of a local system results in beauty,

symmetry, or function, this requires a predesigned code, and does

not happen by chance. Each physical agent operating at a higher

level must function with greater order and power than the effect

it produces. The ultimate cause which controls all secondary

processes must have infinite power and organizing intelligence.

Such a first cause is called God. Thus God either directly or by

secondary processes produces order.

 

The growth of crystals has been used as an analogy to support

the theory of evolution. The argument is made that since the

orderly growth of crystals is a natural process, the evolution of

life proceeding from simple to more complex is also a natural

process. However, we have shown that ice crystals only grow when

an outside agent is driving the process against the natural decay

process described by the second law of thermodynamics.

The theory of evolution suggests that increased organization

has developed simply by random processes. Prigogine (4), for

example, in attempting to make this argument, has stated ". . in a

non-isolated system there exists a possibility for formation of

ordered, low-entropy structures at sufficiently low temperatures."

However, random processes in the physical world always move in the

direction of greater total disorder, according to the second law

of thermodynamics. If simple physical processes like the mixing

of gases always becomes more disorderly, why should complex

biological processes naturally become more orderly? Prigogine (4),

after attempting to demonstrate self-organization in non-

equilibrium systems by random processes states, "Unfortunately,

this (self-organization) principle cannot explain the formation of

biological structures. The probability that at ordinary

temperatures a macroscopic number of molecules is assembled to

give rise to the highly ordered structures and to the coordinated

functions characterizing living organisms is vanishingly small."

Furthermore, crystal order results from the withdrawal of heat

energy, whereas evolutionists argue that evolution s)ustains

itself by the addition of heat energy from the sun. The two are

not analagous at all. Still further, evolution is supposed to be

openended, continuing indefinitely its growth in order, whereas a

crystal, once formed deterministically by the precoded system

which produced it, is at a dead end, and can go no further toward

higher order.

Biblical Christianity, on the other hand, is in perfect

agreement with the observation of order in the universe and its

decay with time. Nowhere is there any evidence in the Bible, or

elsewhere, that order slowly increases over long periods of time

by the process of biological evolution, or any other chance

phenomenon.

The growth of ice crystals does not provide evidence to

support the theory of evolution. Ice crystal growth is consistent

with the second law of thermodynamics, and both are evidences for

God's oversight and care for His creation. God is a God of beauty

and order, and wishes for us to study His creation to learn more

about Him. He asks us to consider these questions further, when

He says, "Have you entered into the treasures of the snow?" (Job

38:22).

 

(1) Kepler, Johannes, The Six cornered Snowflake, edited by Coliii

Hardie, Oxford Press, 1966, 74 pp.

(2) Hallett, J. and B.J. Mason, "-Ffte influence of temperature

and supersaturation on the

habit of ice crystals grown froni the vapour," Proc. Royal Soc.

A247, 1958, p. 440.

(3) Feynman, R.P., R.B. Leighton, and M. Sancis, The Feynmori

Lectures on Physics,

Addison Wesley, 1963, Chapter 46, pp. 1 9.

(4) Prigogine, Nicolis, and Babloyants, "Thermodynamics of

Evolution," Physics Today,

Vol. 25, No. 11, 1972, pp. 23 28.