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Evolution's Thermodynamic Failure
The American Spectator ^ | December 28, 2005 | Granville Sewell

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 ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: creation; crevolist; evolution; intelligentdesign; law; mathematics; physics; scientificidiocy; thermodynamics; twaddle
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To: stacytec
Great points! When I was in college - some time ago. I had a discussion with my Physics Prof about wormholes. He was a Sci-fi buff so he was open to such discussions. We got around to quantum tunneling. He predicted that by 2000 it would be proven on a subatomic level. Back then that was almost wack job stuff to the main line guys. Well here we are with repeatable lab results that it does happen. <p. Wish I could see where this goes 300 years from now.
661 posted on 12/29/2005 11:46:12 AM PST by mad_as_he$$ (Never corner anything meaner than you. NSDQ)
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To: Mark Felton
Or imagine a universe in which only hydrogen, or perhaps helium also, exists.

We'd all sound like Donald Duck??

662 posted on 12/29/2005 11:46:38 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Frank Sheed
I just want to know where the glump of cosmic goo that exploded in the Big Bang came from to begin with!
 
 

 
 
E=Mc2
 
so, likewise,
 
M=E/c2
 

 
NOW the question becomes:      "From where did the ENERGY come?"
 

663 posted on 12/29/2005 11:50:28 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Frank Sheed
If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to the garden of Eden.

I think Siegfried's buddy Roy will tell you that the garden of Eden treatment doesn't work so well with Tigers. He'll be treating them like highly evolved predators from now on.

664 posted on 12/29/2005 11:50:28 AM PST by Stultis (I don't worry about the war turning into "Vietnam" in Iraq; I worry about it doing so in Congress.)
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To: Frank Sheed

Ya.....


665 posted on 12/29/2005 11:52:16 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: freedumb2003
Whether or not scientists are Christians (as am I)

I've just got to know. Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead? If so how can you believe this scientifically, and if not why are you christian? (I'm not trying to be a smart a$$, I'm really curious).
666 posted on 12/29/2005 11:52:17 AM PST by xmission
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To: Stultis

Y2k was an expensive problem for corporations. I worked for a company that manages most of the country's mortgages. They had a team of about 50 guys working on it in 1994.

Hence the big nothing when the date rolled.


667 posted on 12/29/2005 11:56:13 AM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: Theophilus
Never let thermodynamics get in the way of spontaneous generation.

I think it's easy to argue that spontaneous generation was already on it's way out by the time the Second Law was explicitly formulated.

668 posted on 12/29/2005 11:56:52 AM PST by Stultis (I don't worry about the war turning into "Vietnam" in Iraq; I worry about it doing so in Congress.)
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To: Stultis

"Pardon me Roy,
Was that the cat that chewed your new shoes?"


(With apologies to the Chatanooga Choo-choo)

http://www.mamarocks.com/Chattanooga_Choo_Choo_MM_GM.mid


669 posted on 12/29/2005 11:57:15 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: xmission

With a number like this; how can you ask a question like this??? ;^)


670 posted on 12/29/2005 11:58:24 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: johnnyb_61820
... the idea that the four fundamental forces of physics alone could rearrange the fundamental particles of nature

More than implied, he stated. It was just easy to miss the word 'alone'.

671 posted on 12/29/2005 11:59:47 AM PST by UCANSEE2
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To: Elsie

Hope your lunch was enjoyable.


672 posted on 12/29/2005 12:03:09 PM PST by Blzbba ("Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart" - Ashe, Housewares)
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To: Blzbba

Yup - now I've goofed off for 7 hours!


673 posted on 12/29/2005 12:04:46 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Elsie

You & me both, kiddo. I thank you for helping me pass the time here today!


674 posted on 12/29/2005 12:05:46 PM PST by Blzbba ("Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart" - Ashe, Housewares)
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To: Elsie

I give. What are you talking about?


675 posted on 12/29/2005 12:07:36 PM PST by xmission
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To: Blzbba

I have GOT to SOMETHING done around the house before the wife gets home!

See you guys later....


676 posted on 12/29/2005 12:08:14 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: xmission

Nevermind (g). I get it!


677 posted on 12/29/2005 12:10:31 PM PST by xmission
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To: Frank Sheed
"If you want to treat a tiger reasonably, you must go back to the garden of Eden. For the obstinate reminder continues to recur: only the supernaturalist has taken a sane view of Nature."

Talking snakes, dirt-eating snakes, unicorns, mysterious trees of "Life" and "The Knowledge of Good and Evil," giants, dragons, leviathans, satyrs, ruminant rabbits, bird-bats, four-legged insects, melting snails, storehouses for snow and hail, and let's not forget:

". . . for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent" [Isaiah 14:29] and

". . . the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted." [Genesis 30:39]

The supernaturalist may be a source for spiritual wisdom, but I wouldn't take too far the notion that he wields a particularly "sane" view of nature.

678 posted on 12/29/2005 12:11:03 PM PST by atlaw
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To: atlaw

AFAIK continental drift can be measured over a period of years. Are you saying it cannot?

As for the existence of electrons, neutrons, protons, neutrinos, etc., we can formulate experiements to test theories about the existence of all of those. The experiments can be repeated, falsified, etc. Are you saying this is not the case?


679 posted on 12/29/2005 12:11:24 PM PST by webstersII
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To: Mark Felton
The 6 numbers Dr. Rees refers to define the very structure of the universe. The slightest variation of them would prevent atoms from forming from plasma; or they would prevent any atoms of any other type than hydrogen from forming; etc etc.

As I said, you've limited yourself to your imagination. The rest went right over your head. My assertion was not idle speculation, it is a cornerstone theorem in mathematics.

Or imagine a universe where no stars exist. Only dust, barely above the absolute freezing point.

Where did the dust come from if there are no stars? Incidentally, all you've asserted here is conditions that alter computation rates and probability distributions, but does not eliminate them. You said "impossible", not "improbable". Try again.

680 posted on 12/29/2005 12:14:10 PM PST by tortoise (All these moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.)
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