Design Arguments from the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

A common design argument relates to the concept that abiogenesis and evolution violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. (Often unfortunately lost in the discussion is the distiction between abiogenesis and evolution by natural selection, however.)

An excellent example of the arguments for and against this concept are found here:

Argument for: Evolution's Thermodynamic Failure, By Granville Sewell (PhD, Mathematics)
Argument against: Sewell's Thermodynamic Failure, By Mark Perakh (PhD, Physics)

If you have an 30-60 mins, both articles are worth your time. My take:

Sewell’s claim can be reduced for the general reader. Consider the following, where he quotes himself in the article:

...order can increase in an open system, not because the laws of probability are suspended when the door is open, but simply because order may walk in through the door…. If we found evidence that DNA, auto parts, computer chips, and books entered through the Earth’s atmosphere at some time in the past, then perhaps the appearance of humans, cars, computers, and encyclopedias on a previously barren planet could be explained without postulating a violation of the second law here (it would have been violated somewhere else!). But if all we see entering is radiation and meteorite fragments, it seems clear that what is entering through the boundary cannot explain the increase in order observed here.

His issue is with the fact that the “order” added to the earth — “radiation and meteorite fragments” — does not appear to him to be the kind of order that could generate “humans, cars, computers, and encyclopedias.” He simply does not believe in a process that can change the kind of order added into the kind of order produced. The root of his claim is that any process that could make this change violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

Therefore, the point of his article can be reduced to: There is no process that can decrease the entropy of an undeveloped earth in such a way that would result in the biological order around us without violating the second law of thermodynamics.

I think it helps to summarize his hypothesis in this way. Previous criticisms of this hypothesis apply; for the general reader, the criticisms should be similarly summarized.

(Sewell has more articles posted on his son's website.)