Posted on 12/28/2005 3:01:53 PM PST by johnnyb_61820
... the idea that the four fundamental forces of physics alone could rearrange the fundamental particles of nature into spaceships, nuclear power plants, and computers, connected to laser printers, CRTs, keyboards and the Internet, appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics in a spectacular way.
Anyone who has made such an argument is familiar with the standard reply: the Earth is an open system, it receives energy from the sun, and order can increase in an open system, as long as it is "compensated" somehow by a comparable or greater decrease outside the system. S. Angrist and L. Hepler, for example, in "Order and Chaos", write, "In a certain sense the development of civilization may appear contradictory to the second law.... Even though society can effect local reductions in entropy, the general and universal trend of entropy increase easily swamps the anomalous but important efforts of civilized man. Each localized, man-made or machine-made entropy decrease is accompanied by a greater increase in entropy of the surroundings, thereby maintaining the required increase in total entropy."
According to this reasoning, then, the second law does not prevent scrap metal from reorganizing itself into a computer in one room, as long as two computers in the next room are rusting into scrap metal -- and the door is open. In Appendix D of my new book, The Numerical Solution of Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations, second edition, I take a closer look at the equation for entropy change, which applies not only to thermal entropy but also to the entropy associated with anything else that diffuses, and show that it does not simply say that order cannot increase in a closed system. It also says that in an open system, order cannot increase faster than it is imported through the boundary. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Most of the article is in fact a standard rehash of ID arguments. The only part that relates specifically to Sewell's Second Law argument is
I take a closer look at the equation for entropy change, which applies not only to thermal entropy but also to the entropy associated with anything else that diffuses, and show that it does not simply say that order cannot increase in a closed system. It also says that in an open system, order cannot increase faster than it is imported through the boundary. According to this equation, the thermal order in an open system can decrease in two different ways -- it can be converted to disorder, or it can be exported through the boundary. It can increase in only one way: by importation through the boundary. Similarly, the increase in "carbon order" in an open system cannot be greater than the carbon order imported through the boundary, and the increase in "chromium order" cannot be greater than the chromium order imported through the boundary, and so on.
Sewell appears to be making a fundamental and astonishingly simple error here (for a math. professor at UTEP). The second law states merely that the total entropy must increase in a spontaneous process. If you break the total entropy into component parts - 'carbon entropy', 'chromium entropy', 'thermal entropy', etc., it is simply false to say that the increase in "carbon order" in an open system cannot be greater than the carbon order imported through the boundary
The 'carbon order' can most definitely increase as long as the total order decreases, if a microscopic process exists that couples carbon entropy to some other type of entropy. So, for example, if we supercool some water to -5 C, and then isolate the system, part of the water can freeze, liberating heat, which will raise the temperature of the system to 0 C, increasing the thermal entropy, but decreasing the 'water entropy'. The water molecules become more ordered, even though the total order of the system has decreased.
While I'm often unpleasantly surprised by how little science pure mathematicians know, I am genuinely astonished Sewell would not run this by a physicist or physical chemist before embarrassing himself in this very basic way.
Not bad (if this bears out) but like your other examples this doesn't increase the quantity of underlying variation available for expression in the genome. It only effects how a particular gene is expressed. The genes and their alleles (variants) remain the same.
It doesn't explain what happened to Jimmy Hoffa, certainly.
Or teach the truth, and that is the theory of evolution is a theory that does not answer all the questions.
There are no other scientific theories.
Sir, you extrapolate too far.
Way cool. It does the basics like Julian/Gregorian, Muslim, Hebrew, etc calendars; 'puter stuff like Excel serial day number, ISO dates, etc; and esoterica like the French Republican and Mayan calanders.
You just enter a date into any calender on the page, click "calculate," and all the other calendars on the page update to the same date. For instance today, 2 January 2006, is 20 December '05 on the Julian Calendar, the 2nd of Teveth 5766 on the Jewish calendar, the 2nd of Dhu l-Hijja 1426 on the Islamic Calendar, 2.19.12.16.15 in the Mayan Long Count, 1136160000 in Unix time function, Excel serial day number 38719.
RWP, if Sewell weren't within the UT system, but at Amherst, Berkeley, or some other moonbat dominated system, I'd guess that he was importing "gender-politics" into thermodynamics. You know, instead of sexism, he would be protecting against "element-ism" : from each according to his entropy, to each according to his partition function.
The 'carbon order' can most definitely increase as long as the total order decreases, if a microscopic process exists that couples carbon entropy to some other type of entropy. So, for example, if we supercool some water to -5 C, and then isolate the system, part of the water can freeze, liberating heat, which will raise the temperature of the system to 0 C, increasing the thermal entropy, but decreasing the 'water entropy'. The water molecules become more ordered, even though the total order of the system has decreased.
While I'm often unpleasantly surprised by how little science pure mathematicians know, I am genuinely astonished Sewell would not run this by a physicist or physical chemist before embarrassing himself in this very basic way.
Couldn't have put it better myself!
Cheers!
...oh, and Happy New Year.
On average, each human's genome will have 6 or 7 mutations, the vast majority of which will be neutral given our current environment or due to the type of mutation. Most mutations, whether neutral, beneficial, or detrimental will not be outwardly visible because there are many more areas that can be affected internally than externally.
LOL!
And why is the partition function given the designation Q, eh? Clearly, there are LGBT* issues here.
Happy New Year to you too, GW, and to your namesake cat.
I don't doubt it. But if I were a math. professor, that appendix alone would cause me to adopt another textbook. Thanks for the link, BTW. I think I'll blog the more detailed criticism later in the week, assuming somebody else on line hasn't shredded it already.
Thanks!
Does it have the GPS rollover date?
Picard's old nemesis?
"but like your other examples this doesn't increase the quantity of underlying variation available for expression in the genome."
Actually, my other examples did in fact increase the underlying variation available. You should read Shapiro's and Sternbergs work on transposons, genome architecture, and natural genetic engineering.
I looked up John de Lancie's bio on line, and it appears he's straight. I was sure he played for the other team.
it's a queer old world out there. :-)
Funny world. First someone said I will be assimilated, and now we're talking about the bringer of the borg....
Transposable elements only move material around within the DNA. Viruses at most can only drag DNA from one invidual to another. Neither of these increase the total genetic diversity within a population. Mutation is the only way that happens.
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