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 ...
Uh-oh...
"Workplace distractions cost billions, says study"
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060109/office_distractions_060109/20060109?hub=TopStories
Yes, thanks for the cogent explanation.
Too bad you aren't able to do this with biology.
Let's ask a simple question: When an animal (or you) learns something, is it gaining information? Does this process violate thermodynamics? Are there magic or supernatural forces involved?
Now, when a population learns something due to selection, exactly what supernatural force is required? Be specific. Exactly what biological process violates thermodynamics? Name the process.
The Second Law applies to thermodynamic entropy. Shannon created informational entropy by analogy with thermodynamic entropy, but it's simply an analogy. The Second Law does not apply to informational entropy. How could it? There are no spontaneous or reversible processes to consider. So they pull the ol' bait and switch; they use entropy in the Shannon sense in the context of the DNA code, and then claim the fact that the thermodynamic entropy of DNA as a chemical substance means DNA could not have evolved.
The analogy may not apply in the physical sense, but it's still useful to understand where the "information" comes from. It comes from selection.
Personally, regardless of one's understanding of thermodynamics, I think it's foolish to bet against something that's already happened. It's like rewinding the tape and betting on the team that just lost.
Agreed. I wasn't really addressing your point; more the general issue of the second law and evolution. You were just a vehicle. :-)
That selection acting on random chance can create information should be clear to anyone who's played Yahtzee (or draw poker).
BTTT
Speaking in my professional capacity as a professor of chemistry, this is utter gibberish. Crytallization usually causes a substantial decrease in the entropy of the crystallizing molecule over that in solution; in no sense is 'the order... in the molecule.'
I thought you'd like to know, so you can get a refund on your tuition.
I can. The author says that the Second Law applies to each component of the total entropy separately, That is false, and since it amounts to a misinterpretation of a fundamental equation expressing a full differential in terms of partial differentials, it's a hilarious and embarrassing mistake for a math professor to make.
BTW, just about every criticism posted here vs. Sewell's article is a repetition of criticisms posted and answered here (though in this case it is done with professional and academic respect and decency, oddly enough): http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-6-t-000216.html
So if you just like the sound of your own "voices", don't bother to click there, but if you wonder if maybe Dr. Sewell has heard your criticism before and might have had something to say about it, feel free to check there.
(Again, sorry js1138, this is not primarily directed @ you... you're just a vehicle! ;-) )
Otherwise I'm afraid I'm somewhat distracted right now by work and the prospect that in less than 2 weeks, in my home country of Canada, the Liberal Party might get thrown out of office and replaced by Harper's Conservatives. If that happens, you won't hear a peep out of me for a while!!!
So I read a good part of your link, and it is obvious from the give and take on the thread that Sewell is clueless.
Again, explain how the processes involved in evolution are physically different from metabolism, growth, learning. What physical laws are violated, speciffically by variation and selection.
No shell games. Just tell me where the pea is.
When, in your opinion, and ordinary schlub comments on an issue in the CREVO debate ... you tell him he knows nothing about real science.
Now, when a mathematician (who probably already has learned and forgotten more that the sum of knowledge that you will acquire in your entire lifetime) lays out the underlying equations for critical aspects of the debate ... you tell him he cant interpret the equations.
Go back to sleep ...
I'm having a bad case of deja-vu... (that's a little French for those of you not from Canada or the Bayou). I think you asked that question before and I think I answered, and pointed you to some writers and books who have laid out this argument in far more detail than I can here.
You can come to whatever conclusions you want; it's not my goal to convince anyone of any position here. The science is precise and involved, and too easily misunderstood, caricatured, or plain misrepresented to lend itself to much elucidation in this forum. Science is done best when it is pursued objectively, rationally, without emotional agendas and partisan nastiness. The drive-by potshots taken here by "some" may make the poster's feel smart, but many times it turns out that isn't the final story (to say the least).
If I find a chunk of time I'll read everything that's been published on this topic and reformulate the arguments in such a way that all the knee-jerk evolutionist half-rebuttals about snowflaks and anything-being-possible-as-long-as-you-have-the-sun are addressed and post it here. That is if I can understand it!!! (insert neanderthalic saracastic grunt here)
By the way, good job on clicking on that link and reading some of it. Don't tell everyone though: the RWP's of this world believe that even acknowledging that "the enemies of science" should be given the time of day by reading their stuff is going to bring about the end of all progress. Oops, I guess there's no such thing as progress in strictly evolutionary terms. Never mind. Whatever you people call it when things get better. Hmm, better won't work either. How about less chaotic?
That may or may not be. It's always a shame when the fact that someone has a science PhD from a respectable institution, is a tenured professor, has published peer-reviewed articles and books doesn't mean you should accept everything he has to say, eh?
Just for the sake of completeness, I wonder if you could post just one or two examples to back up your claim that he is clueless. I always prefer it when claims are backed up with evidence. Just a creationist quirk of mine.
I already gave you examples. Tell me which physical process involved in evolution violates thermodynamics. Which physical process involved in evolution is significntly different, from the standpoint of thermodynamics, from those in metabolism, learning, respiration, reproduction, etc.?
Apparently we are both convinced we have answered the others questions, while we are each respectively convinced the other has not. Goodness, if such well meaning people can get confused about something as straightforward as this, no wonder there is confusion over the role of the SLoT in Information Theory and the "spontaneous generation" of genomic information.
There's no confusion among physists.
Please provide evidence that no physicists are confused about this matter. Has there been a survey perhaps?
The author of the paper is a scientist, mathemetician and professor at Univ of Texas. he is not confused either. He tells you how the 2nd LoT was violated.
I will tell you as well, even more succinctly on a subsequent post (after my meetings).
He does. He's wrong.
It's up to you to find a working, published physicist who believes the 2nd law is violated by evolution. If you think it is, tell me exactly what process involved in evolution violates thermodynamics. Point to the specific chemical process that violates the 2nd law.
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