My particular field is Computer Science.
Same here. When viewed from a statistical probability standpoint, things come into greater focus, don't they?
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 ...
You wrote: "Ichneumon, I feel sorry for you. People are not persuaded by insults, sarcasm or bitterness. It turns everybody off, even those disposed to be on your side. And ironically, it tends to discredit your factual arguments. Lighten up."
Reply: Ichneumon has been brilliant in providing factual information, from multiple sources with sound references, which anyone can verify.
I do not see "insults or bitterness" in any of his posts. Perhaps exasperation. He shows clearly that modern humans derive from earlier humanoids, that we Homo sapiens of today came from an earlier species, and we evolved in the general stream of other primate animals. Humans are certainly different mentally, but our circulatory system is identical to that of apes.
Ichneumon and I share one value, I think: We love how evolution, physics, geology, astronomy, biology, biochemistry, paleontology, archeology, and other sciences come together to support evolution.
If you are "feeling sorry" because Ichnenumon has a different world outlook than you, then it is you we should feel sorry for. It is sad that you see the world as needing magical godly interventions to make it 'understandable' to you.
You left out mathematics. Game theory supports the principle of natural selection.
I've never understood the "Thermodynamic" argument. Life is just a slow oxidation reaction, or to put it another way, in the end we're all dead.
Same here. When viewed from a statistical probability standpoint, things come into greater focus, don't they?
You equated "Faith in God" with "Faith in Dawrin." So I brought the argument into that arena where you failed to support your position.
You are just a liar. There is no point in "engaging" you.
Except for the obvious fact that God was punishing the gays and fornicators in New Orleans.
That was editor-surveyor -- cliff630 was replying to that bizarre statement by e-s.
Reply:
Gosh. Now that you mention this, evolution is also the cause of hangnails, teens not cleaning up their rooms, lack of parking spaces, excessive menus when calling the cable company, the high price of gold, and the low price of international shipping. Not to mention the decline in moral values and parental sex.
You left out post-nasal drip and halitosis.
Oh?
Ephesians 2
1. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
2. in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
The Evo's will be jumping in here, proclaiming quite vociferously that the ToE says NOTHING about how LIFE got started!!!
We know the answer, but soon an E believer will post some kind of supposed AI or mutating program that is said to do just that.
Sadly, there is no inherent conflict between science and faith. Faith belongs to the arena of mythology and theology.
But as we can see on this thread, people have mistaken their mythology and magic for scientific pursuit. I think you and Ich and I and a few others see the damage this has and will cause.
See! I TOLD you!
You quote mythology to support your mythological argument?
Katrina was a 100% natural phenomenon. No divine intervention of any kind.
Note that he didn't start with his own dirt.....
...and a very simple machine...
And the REST???
Lets say that its not even part of why I said it to begin with. The poster infers that people believing in ID or holding a poosition that it is scientifically supported because chance could not devise what we have come to know, are foolish or ignorant. The poster inferred that simple minds "believe" in such things. My point is that there are are a lot of educated people holding the ID position and to simply be dismissive of them by calling them stupid, foolish or anything in between suggest arrogance in the least.
Tell 'em NO!
You're the adult!
Has anyone mentioned "The Universal Will to Exist"? Or is that from back in the time of the big brains?
"If - you - haven't any teeth,
Up above or beneath,
you can gum it with yer gummy-gum gums!"
PUFFED GRASS!
Stan Freeberg
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