Posted on 04/07/2006 4:16:49 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Even as the evolution wars rage, on school boards and in courtrooms, biologists continue to accumulate empirical data supporting Darwinian theory. Two extraordinary discoveries announced this week should go a long way to providing even more of the evidence that critics of evolution say is lacking.
One study produced what biblical literalists have been demanding ever since Darwin -- the iconic "missing links." If species evolve, they ask, with one segueing into another, where are the transition fossils, those man-ape or reptile-mammal creatures that evolution posits?
In yesterday's issue of Nature, paleontologists unveiled an answer: well-preserved fossils of a previously unknown fish that was on its way to evolving into a four-limbed land-dweller. It had a jaw, fins and scales like a fish, but a skull, neck, ribs and pectoral fin like the earliest limbed animals, called tetrapods.
[big snip]
Another discovery addresses something Darwin himself recognized could doom his theory: the existence of a complex organ that couldn't have "formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications," he wrote in 1859.
The intelligent-design movement, which challenges teaching evolution, makes this the centerpiece of its attack. It insists that components of complex structures, such as the eye, are useless on their own and so couldn't have evolved independently, an idea called irreducible complexity.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
True... worse I have an agenda....
At least I do know that 100lbs of feathers weights the same as 100lbs,. of Bibles.. and could be the origin of both is the same.. after religious dogma is removed..
sound (and mechanical heat, for that matter) is nothing more or less than aggregate motion in particulate media. it is a known fact, testable, demonstrable, that intersecting sound waves of the same frequency and phase will amplify each other in a harmonic at the point of intersection, whereas intersecting sound waves of the same frequency but opposite phase will cancel each other. I believe something similar is true of radiant energy (light, infrared heat, radio, etc... but that is outside of my competence)
In a large enough set, of high enough density, with a finite range of possible energy signatures, it is inevitable that random sources will produce harmonics and cancellations, which will in turn cause organization in what was previously a uniform distribution.
If you perceive 'a spot of disgust' in my replies (in my replies? or in my questions?) then you need to lay off the hallucinogenic mushrooms, because you're seeing something that isn't there. Generally, it is to be expected that answers will have some bearing on the questions asked, so it should come as no suprise that a question will, to some degree, influence an answer. In this forum, great unbrage is oft taken if the reply fails to have some relationship to the question, said umbrage indicating considerable emotional anguish aroused by disappointed anticipation (known otherwise as an insistence of not 'sticking to the subject').
In the establishment media, 'sticking to the subject' is a rarely seen phenomenon, as various talking heads on both sides of the interview desk vie to promote their agenda and to blunt or obscure that belonging to the other fellow. But pay no attention to those folks. This is but one mark of their abnormality. There are many.
"We are discussing Him and Nature."
I thought so. Just the same, I sense in you a growing disenchantment with my questions.
"Be careful who speaks for Nature."
Aquinas speaks of God and Nature. It appears to me Aquinas asserted that God's Truth in any matter could not be contrary to the facts of the Nature He created (contrary to 'natural knowledge'). This assumes the requisite level of both knowledge and sincerity, which can be a big assumption, both virtues being of short supply among members of the human race. Still, that seems to be the choice of Aquinas, and I choose to follow his lead in that respect. As to the issue of who speaks for Nature: I'm not aware that anyone does with any great authority. Why? Does Nature require representation?
"Some of them think the Earth is alive and Trees should be hugged."
I am not numbered among them. To be sure, Earth may be alive in some philosophical sense, but hardly sentient, and, on a magnitude beyond our present abilities to express in any meaningful terms, Al Gore does not in any way approach the level of Aquinas .
"This is no joke."
Who's laughing?
"Excuse me the people are not joking."
About what?
"Their Theory requires more than a leap of faith."
Who is 'they'? And, to what theory do you refer?
You already have enough evidence of God's existence to be held accountable by Him for your rejection of Him, and it is implicit in your own words. While expressly denying God you tacitly presuppose reason, standards and values that are only coherent, grounded and justified if God exists. Why, for example, would an accidental Darwinian conglomeration of atoms have something against brazenness? Why would such a bipedal unit expect that the universe or anything in it, including other bipedal units, should be "fair"? How do you account for and justify your expectations of absolute, obligatory standards of reciprocity regarding reason and ethics from other bipedal units?
Cordially,
wait
I am truly sorry and appologize for causing such anguish in you or others.
I meant only to make comments coming from me that are related to comments coming from you.
My purpose ti to give good honest reason why it is to my benefit and your benefit as human beings to be acquainted with the Creator in such a way as to leave Him out of nothing that occurs.
It is also my considered opinion that it is of the Highest Disrespect to speak of and analyze a painting and make no attempt to indicate that we could even recognize the Painter.
This is probably not dealing with the Subject.
I am probably out of my depth in subjects. I will 'trip' on down the yellow brick road to speak to another Wizard.
Hi RWP! That's really interesting. Yet the two definitions really seem identical in the end. For it seems that if a system does not exchange matter with its surroundings, then it can't exchange energy with it either; for matter and energy transform. And how is a living system to maintain itself over time if all it's got to go on is itself (i.e., its own internal resources exclusively)? This point seems analogous to natural selection; Darwin recognized the "surroundings," the natural environment, as a main driver of biological evolution.
So, somebody please give me an example of a closed system in nature???
The analogy between Shannon entropy and thermodynamic entropy seems "isomorphic." Both sort of seem refer to "negative quantities."
Jeepers, Professor, don't be so hard on Klyce! You don't have to be an enthusiast of panspermia theory to appreciate a thoughtful, well-written essay on a most difficult topic, entropy. I know that for you this term has a very precise and well-defined meaning. But it is the scientific community itself that is propagating all these new "species" of entropy. I just read and try to take it all in.
Thank you so much for writing, Professor!
Much better to reject the divine origin of the texts outright.
1998 Physics Nobel Prize winner Robert B. Laughlin, no friend to creationists, has said it well: "Evolution by natural selection . . . has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong."
But what does a mere physics professor, even a Nobel Prize winner, know about biology? More than fundamentalist Darwinists are loathe to admit.
Any large enough random system will contain all possible patterns.
Indeed, that seems to be the jist of H. H. Pattee's citation of the late Harvard evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (in The Physics of Symbols: Bridging the Epistemic Cut), which I gather he thinks speaks to the cultural difference between scientific and metaphysical materialist approaches to questions of evidence and truth:
Many biologists consider physical laws, artificial life, robotics, and even theoretical biology as largely irrelevant for their research. In the 1970s, a prominent molecular geneticist asked me, “Why do we need theory when we have all the facts?” At the time I dismissed the question as silly, as most physicists would. However, it is not as silly as the converse question, Why do we need facts when we have all the theories? These are actually interesting philosophical questions that show why trying to relate biology to physics is seldom of interest to biologists, even though it is of great interest to physicists. Questioning the importance of theory sounds eccentric to physicists for whom general theories [are] what physics is all about. Consequently, physicists … are concerned when they learn facts of life that their theories do not appear capable of addressing. On the other hand, biologists, when they have the facts, need not worry about physical theories that neither address nor alter their facts. Ernst Mayr (1997) believes this difference is severe enough to separate physical and biological models: “Yes, biology is, like physics and chemistry, a science. But biology is not a science like physics and chemistry; it is rather an autonomous science on a par with the equally autonomous physical sciences.”Seems to me that Mayr may have thought and believed that biology ought to be "autonomous" from the rest of science. But this is nutz to me. Biological organisms have a physical basis -- so how could they be entirely beyond the reach of the laws of physics and chemistry?
And yet they are so much more than just their physics and chemistry.
Thank you so much for the insight JCEccles, and for writing!
You have nothing about which to apologize. Not to me anyway. And you've certainly not caused the least anguish for me in any fashion.
I get it about recognizing the painter when appreciating the painting. I got it from the get-go. I thought that's what I was doing when discussing the thoughts of Thomas Aquinas. But, maybe not.
I think you were 'dealing with the subject' well enough. I'm just not sure either one of us was relating to what the other was saying despite the similarities of our points. So, maybe I am the one who owes the apology.
Too bad this is in the backroom. If it were on the main forum, thousands would see - back here, a hundred tops (IMHO of course).
The subject matter is dear to my heart: the observer problem, what is a closed system, whether biology is/ought to be an autonomous science, Shannon entropy v thermodynamic entropy and so on.
But I'm too tired to sum up a post - and I'm not sure how much to invest in the backroom. But I'll be sleeping on it. LOL!
Oh! I'd definitely be up for that, dear friend!
Try Googling the lyrics to the song "Northern Lights" by Bruce Cockburn...
Cheers!
And that YHAOS seems to be why (FWIW) there isn't a whole heck of a lot of daylight between your two positions. Or so it seems to me. YHAOS, I suspect you really don't find anything wrong with Slingshot's witness, on either logical or principal grounds.
So why are the two of you arguing [in public]?
Sigh. It's late and I have to go to bed. God bless you both and all the rest of us: May the love and light and peace and grace of Our Lord be with you always. Good night dear friends!
The usual substance-free rant from JCEccles, attempting to substitute for an absense of logical argument.
1998 Physics Nobel Prize winner Robert B. Laughlin, no friend to creationists, has said it well: "Evolution by natural selection . . . has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong."
So a condensed matter physicist is now an authority on biology? Has Laughlin ever published a single paper even remotely connected with biology?
But what does a mere physics professor, even a Nobel Prize winner, know about biology? More than fundamentalist Darwinists are loathe to admit.
Laughlin appears to know very little. But probably more than you.
Matter and energy are interchangeable only at energies large compared with those of chemical processes. In chemical thermodynamic processes, matter is not converted to energy or vice versa. So unless you think nuclear reactions have some role in evolution, this is a nonissue.
So, somebody please give me an example of a closed system in nature???
Closed in what sense? Matter, or both matter and energy?
You don't have to be an enthusiast of panspermia theory to appreciate a thoughtful, well-written essay on a most difficult topic, entropy. I know that for you this term has a very precise and well-defined meaning. But it is the scientific community itself that is propagating all these new "species" of entropy.
Entropy is not a particularly difficult topic. It only seems difficult when one starts handwaving. Klyce seems to be handwaving mightily.
Relying on people like Klyce for information on chemical thermodynamics is like relying on the daVinci code as a sourcebook for biblical criticism.
Indeed, Alamo-Girl! Though these subjects are near and dear to my heart (as they are for you), it is unfortunate they are being ventilated here. I know where I'd like to take this next, but maybe this isn't the place for it.
Oh, well.... Thanks so much for your kind remarks!
BTW A-G, the observer problem might make for a great sequel to "T." Niels Bohr would figure big time in this, I imagine!
K....
Since this is in the backroom, I'll make a few comments but try to keep them brief:
On the "what is a closed system" issue it should be remembered that space and time (including real or absolute time) are not boundaryless and therefore there is no truly open system in physical reality. Other conceptualizations of “open” systems make the contrary presupposition but are actually, physically closed (geometrically speaking because of space/time).
On the transformation of energy and matter, the very definition of matter v mass v energy causes confusion because each use the other in their explanation.
Take relativistic mass for instance, the observed mass increases as an object approaches the speed of light. The term “energy” is often used in lieu of relativistic mass.
And E=MC2 transforms to M=E/C2.
Yet massless particles (such as light or photons) do not have a rest frame and thus are described as E=pc (p=momentum and c=speed of light). No time elapses for the null path. Conversely, for massive objects the formula is E2/c2=m2/c2+p2.
Further, when matter and anti-matter collide they are mutually annihilated, and energy is released in a burst of radiation.
And matter is also created by energy in pairs, as in the case where two or more photons interact so to create a new fermion/antifermion pair.
Consider also that the critical density of the universe is comprised of 5% ordinary matter, 25% dark matter and 70% dark energy.
After all, Einstein’s dream was to transmute the base wood of matter into the pure marble of geometry.
Geometry is at the root.
It's difficult to have any intuition about scientific things without study. A couple of courses (beyond the freshman level) in chemistry would give you a better grasp of what is meant by isolated systems. Popular writers are very poor at explaining these things (but I'll try anyway, of course.)
There are no true closed systems in the "real world" but one can come close. For example a Dewar flask (the thermos bottle, not the scotch bottle) separates its contents with both a reflective barrier (to keep out radiation) and a vacuum barrier (to keep out matter.) For short times, such a system acts as if it were a closed system (not necessarily true over long time periods; this was a source of some difficulty in the infamous cold fusion experiments.)
A system in a heat bath (like a double boiler but with the working vessel floating) can exchange energy with its surroundings but not matter (if the lid is tight.)
An open system is like a wok.
In various chemistry courses, one gets to work with such systems and develop an intuition for how they differ.
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