The “compensation” argument is nearly always used to avoid the conclusion that the origin and development of life and of intelligent humans through entirely natural causes seems to violate the second law of thermodynamics. In late 2010 I submitted an article to Applied Mathematics Letters (AML), showing, with a little mathematics, how silly the argument is. The article was peer-reviewed and accepted in early 2011 and typeset by the publisher, but a few days before scheduled publication it was withdrawn by the editor.
A Second Look Was Too Many
The typeset article, “A Second Look at the Second Law,” can still be viewed here. Later that year the journal published an apology which acknowledged that the article was withdrawn “not because of any errors or technical problems found by the reviewers or editors, but because the Editor-in-Chief subsequently concluded that the content was more philosophical than mathematical.”
The whole story of the incident is told in “How the Scientific Consensus Is Maintained, and How It Can Be Challenged.” I have since published three more peer-reviewed papers which critique the “compensation” argument, including a 2017 Physics Essays article.
In 2012, with help from my brother Kirk and narrated by Rick Romager, I produced a YouTube video on the story, which had received over 15,000 views by the time I unlisted it. I have recently removed the portion of the video that deals with the AML incident, and made a few minor improvements. The resulting short video, “Evolution Is a Natural Process Running Backward (With a Bit of Humor),” can be viewed here:
Too Simple for Many Scientists
Although the new video no longer mentions the 2011 AML incident, I bring it up here so that viewers will better understand the reasons behind the humor and sarcasm expressed in the two little stories in the video. I believe anyone who watches the entire eight minutes, especially the ending, will see that this debate is not really too complicated for the layman to understand, though it seems to be too simple for many scientists.
But if you prefer something that makes the same point with more scientific rigor, I recommend a 2024 Science and Culture Today article, “Life and the Underlying Principle Behind the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” or another short video, “The Burden of Proof Is on the Materialists,” based on a February 2026 Science and Culture Today article, “A Friend Asks: For Darwin Skeptics, What Does the Second Law Argument Accomplish?”