Creation Question: Snowflakes
Snowflakes show beautiful design patterns, which appear highly ordered, and which arise by themselves under simple freezing conditions. Does this support evolution of complex life from simpler life?
Chilling Facts
Snow covers about 23 per cent of the Earth's surface—permanently or temporarily.
The lowest air temperature ever recorded was at Vostok II in Antarctica, 3,420 metres (11,218 feet) above sea level. The temperature dropped to -88.3 degrees Celsius (-127 degrees Fahrenheit).
The size and shape of snow crystals depend mainly on the temperature of their formation and the amount of water vapour available at deposition. At temperatures between 0 and 3 degrees Celsius, thin hexagonal plates form. Between -3 and -5 degrees, needles form. At -25 to -30 degrees, the crystal shape is hollow prism.
In fact, there is no parallel between the two issues at all. To put it simply, water forming snowflakes is 'doing what comes naturally', given the properties of the system. There is no need for any external information or programming to be added to the system—the existing properties of the water molecule and the atmospheric conditions are enough to give rise inevitably to snowflake-type patterns.
However, there is no tendency for simple organic molecules to form themselves into the precise sequences needed to form the long-chain information-bearing molecules found in living systems. That is because the properties of the 'finished product' are not programmed in the components of the system. It takes the addition of some extra information—either by an intelligent mind at work or a programmed machine. What would be analogous is if you saw a doily crocheted into the pattern of a snowflake. There is no natural, spontaneous tendency for the components of the system (for example, wool or cotton fibres) to assume that shape. The pattern has to be imposed by external information—either by the operation of mind or a programmed machine.
So whenever you see a snowflake doily, you instinctively recognize this fact and see it as the result of creation, as you should when you contemplate a section of a chromosome—the raw ingredients are not sufficient without a source of information. In living things, that information has come from the parent organism (a programmed mechanism) which arose from its parent which arose.... You might find that the doily has been crocheted by a programmed machine in a factory, which might itself have been built by another machine—but eventually that information had to arise in a mind. A snowflake pattern as water freezes may appear beautiful, but it is not the same thing at all, because no external programming or information has to be applied.
A similar issue (sometimes raised by evolutionists who should know better) is that of salt crystal formation as a warm saturated solution cools down. Not only is the chemical tendency already present in the sodium and chloride ions (making the end result inevitable, unlike the imagined evolutionary process), but the type of 'order' which arises is quite unlike the complexity of living things in kind, not just degree. A simple example will show the two types of order in alphabet letters:
1. ABCABCABCABCABCABCABC
2. A CAT SAT ON THE MAT
Both are 'ordered', but only type 2 resembles the ordering in, say, a protein molecule. Chop the first sequence in half, and the two halves are essentially the same. Break a crystal of salt in two, and you see the same effect. Chop a protein (for example haemoglobin) molecule in half and you no longer have haemoglobin—the two halves don't resemble one another. That is because the ordering is like that in the type 2 example above—chop that sentence in half and it loses all its meaning.
To put it another way, as a salt crystal grows and grows, it is like continuing the type 1 sequence above. The sequence gets longer, the crystal gets bigger (simply more of the same), but not more complex. For simple organisms to become more complex (or simple chemicals to become a living thing) would be like the type 2 sentence becoming a whole story about cats, for example.
Conclusion
To compare snowflake or salt crystal formation to any assumed evolutionary growth in complexity is like comparing chalk with cheese. Examining the two simply highlights the need for external information before biological order will arise—which is a strong argument for creation.
Beauty in a Snowflake
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"Great things doeth He [God], which we cannot comprehend. For He saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth..." Job 37:5-6
People in warm climates are often thankful they do not have to experience winter. But one lovely thing they miss out on is the beauty of a snow-covered landscape when much of the grime and unattractiveness of the earth is covered over with the beauty of a soft white blanket of snow.
Millions of tons of snow fall over large areas each year. We are filled with wonder when we stop to realize that all of the snow is entirely made up of delicate, beautifully designed snowflakes, so small that one would scarcely cover your little fingernail. And such beautiful designs! People who study and photograph them continually prove, to their amazement, that no two snowflakes are alike.
With few exceptions, snowflakes are always six-sided. Sometimes the six sides are flat and straight, but more often they have six beautifully designed arms coming out from a circle, forming a common center which has its own design. Each spear-like arm matches the others on the same flake, but, as mentioned above, no two flakes have been found that are exactly alike. A scientist who made photographs of more than 400,000 snowflakes verified in his pictures that this was truly so. Isn't that amazing! No one but the Lord God could create so many different designs.
Snowflakes form in the clouds. They begin as tiny specks of dust surrounded by little droplets of water that change into flakes as freezing air blows on them. As they fall, many collide, changing the shapes from which they started and landing on earth with sometimes less than six sides, or becoming long and narrow. But each snowflake has its part in forming the snowy landscapes that attract skiers, tobogganers and photographers.
Even more important, the snow on mountains, that becomes deeper with each snowfall, is held in the cold temperatures of these high altitudes until hot summer months. Then a gradual melting releases snow in the form of water into streams and rivers to supply necessary moisture to forests, meadows and farms in the lower areas — wise planning by the Creator of all things.
In the Bible there is a lovely verse which says, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" (Isaiah 1:18). By "reasoning together" we understand that the Lord Jesus died on the cross to wash away our sins, and any who will confess to God that they are sinners and accept His offer to be their Saviour are saved.
If He is not your personal Saviour now, He invites you to come to Him right now and He will accept you as one of His own, making your sins "as white as snow" in His sight!
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