Co-starring Duane Gish. Gish and Morris have combined to write some of the most disingenuous and downright silly stuff I've ever seen linked here. Here's on the ICR site even today is an article written by Gish from 1994 citing evolutionist Colbert in 1953 as saying that whale origins are simply a mystery:
Speaking of whales, Colbert said, "These mammals must have had an ancient origin, for no intermediate forms are apparent in the fossil record between the whales and the ancestral Cretaceous placentals. Like the bats, the whales (using the term in a general and inclusive sense) appear suddenly in early Tertiary times, fully adapted by profound modifications of the basic mammalian structure for a highly specialized mode of life. Indeed, the whales are even more isolated with relation to other mammals than the bats; they stand quite alone." [3]That looks awful, considering that Gish is even there waving away the new legged cetacean transitionals Pakicetus and Ambulocetus. Colbert's observation has been outdated for years even by 1994. It looks worse when he dismisses the "new" transitionals for having legs and thus not being whales. (But if they looked the same as modern whales they wouldn't be transitionals! Catch-22.)
When some of the ICR staff looked at the picture with the knowledge that Thewissen and fellow workers called this creature a whale, they laughed. Evolutionists may claim that this was because of ignorance of subtle distinctions of anatomy; on the other hand, associating the word "whale" with a creature with large and powerful front and hind legs does seem a bit ludicrous to skeptics.It's all like that. Charlatans trolling for suckers.
Distinct, yes; "above," no. Theories never "graduate" to become "laws" in science. "Laws" in science are nothing more than empirically establish generalizations. The minute we find and verify an observation that violates a scientific "Law," the "Law" is either modified if feasible to make consistent with both new and old empirical evidence, or abandoned out right.
Scientific "Laws" differ from scientific theories in that they lack the broad explanatory power of the latter. "Bode's Law" tells us what the planetary spacings are; but provides nothing of explanatory value about it. It describes a phenomonon, but says nothing of the mechanisms behind it.
In short, scientific "Laws" are empirically derived and are characterized as "descriptive"; theories also fit the empirical evidence, but additionally provide a framework for explaining a broad range of phenomona, and are capable of falsification. Thus, they are referred to as being "explanatory" versus a "Law," which is merely "descriptive."
I understand the laws of thermo to be absolute. Is this incorrect?
All scientific "Laws" are provisional, since they are based soley on empirical evidence. Again, in science, a "Law" is not "above" or "better" or "more refined" than a theory.
Lastly, no one is arguing that the 2nd LoT is invalid. The arguments that evolution somehow violate the 2nd LoT are invalid, as they either mischaracterize what the 2nd LoT means, or leave out critical details, such as the ability for parts of some systems to experience a DECREASE in entropy as long as the entire system (including it's surroundings) experiences a net INCREASE. Such phenomona are not violative of the the 2nd LoT.
Also, you seem to think that a theory is just a step below a law and that with enough evidence a theory may become a law. This however is a deep rooted misconception.
Theories and laws are two different critters and the one doesn't turn into the other. A scientific theory is an explanation whereas a scientific law is a mathematical description of an observed regularity.
You may find more here or here.
It doesn't matter what you understand. You have mistated the Second Law. If that's your understanding, you are merely incorrect.
No, it's wrong. A law is an observed fact or regularity: Kepler's laws, Ohm's law, the gas laws. These are explained by theories: Newtonian gravitation, the theory of conduction in metals, the kinetic theory of gases.
In fact, the laws are not "always and everywhere" true: eg: Kepler's laws make no allowance for perturbations, the gas laws break down near absolute zero, etc