Evolution's Thermodynamic Failure

The American Spectator ^ | December 28, 2005 | Granville Sewell

[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. ...

[grey_whiskers]

For example, two atoms might not form a molecule unless a packet of energy from the sun provides some activation energy.

Depending on the electronic energy level of the atoms, their relative velocity, the presence of other atoms / molecules in the vicinity, etc., etc.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

I understand that genetic algorithms have generated useful programs, and even invented novel electronic circuit designs.

Yes, but not ab initio, the existence of the computer and the genetic code to modify the other code; the clear and consistent definition of "better"; the weeding out of unsuccessful attempts without starting from scratch; etc. etc. are all implicit.

Not quite the same thing, though it illustrates several facets of evolutionary processes quite well.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Perhaps you could tell us what DOES hold a plane up... There seems to be some controversy over this.

Lack of terrorists.

[Coyoteman]

You are 700 posts behind. Better read quicker!

[grey_whiskers]

The desire for such a comforting possibility is a strong incentive to believe that it is true, regardless of the poor evidence for it.

Ummm, yeah. Some others are so given to intellectual pride that they want to have no "Supreme Being" who renders their mighty brain irrelevant.

Or there are the pessimists who believe in religion 'cause they secretly desire hell; etc. etc. etc.

See how easy it is to play ad hominem games?

Cheers!

[jbloedow]

The problem here is you are dealing with too many laypeople who do not realize that many words in the vernacular, even when dealing roughly with the same subject, have completely different specialized meanings when used by scientists...

Except that I'm anything but a layperson. I'm not sure how you've come to that conclusion from my posts. You might want to spend a lot more time with the evidence. The problem is not with my level of understanding, though I understand why it might be appealing to try to argue that way, but that we have a scientific disagreement. If you want to point to some area where I've had trouble with the scientific subject matter on these threads, please go ahead.

[Coyoteman]

 

   Can this hoary old thread reach 1,000?

Will check back in the AM to see   

 

[dread78645]

Why are all these people home from work?

And some work from home.

[jbloedow]

Evidence, data, observations, and facts (leading to theories) which support natural phenomena, and the lack thereof for non-natural explanations.

Don't try to pretend that everything we see in the entire realm of creation (nature, if you prefer) is currently satisactorily explained by natural selection, etc. You may argue that ToE has proved satisfactory in enough areas that we are comfortable assuming it will provide a satisfactory explanation in these other areas given time, money, and research. But that's a different thing from what you've said.

Time and again, the objection of the evolutionists on this thread to possible creationist or ID or abrupt appearance explanations of a given part of creation is not that ToE explains that particular phenomenon better, but rather that non-naturalistic explanations are unscientific.

If you don't understand the distinction, I'd be happy to re-explain it as necessary.

See, it does not matter for the theory of evolution what happened prior to the start (creation, abogenesis), as evolution does not deal with that. I know religious folks have a problem with this explanation, but that's the way the theory is stated, and all your protestations cannot change that.

See, you guys have repeated this countless times, and I've indicated I don't know how many times that I understand exacatly what you are claiming, and I've provided a detailed and specific rebuttal. If you don't understand the distinction between an explanation and a protestation, that's your problem.

And don't claim you're the one who needs patience here... gimme a break.

One more time. I know "evolution" does not deal with the origin of life. But Naturalism and Gradualism do care very much about the origin of life. And Naturalism is related to the Theory of Evolution. You can argue all you want that ToE led to Naturalism, but every historical fact we have tells us that it was the opposite way around.

Again, suppose we get to a point that evolution can explain all of the biological world except one particular, important part. Suppose a non-evolutionist suggests a non-evolutionary explanation for that biological phenomenon. What's the evolutionist's response? That evolution explains it better based on "evidence, data, observations, and facts (leading to theories)"? Obviously not, since it has yet to do so. The objection would be that it is a violation of Naturalism.

[Cold Heat]

I really liked your post and the explanations therein.

Well done!

Both you and Radio Astronomer for making sense of the arguments on these Crevo threads that I have been reading occasionally since joining this forum.

I think I will copy and save it! It is the first time I have seen it all in on post, so clearly stated.

[grey_whiskers]

Also, as a software engineer I have seen relatively simple, but buggy programs create complexities that no engineer could envision.

But enough about Microsoft...

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Divine Fiat is not argumentation.

Oh, I dunno.

Haven't you ever read the classic witticism:

God is dead -- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead -- God.
Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

And oh, BTW, given the gist of this thread, the right hand side of the bottom picture probably ought to be 10,000 monkeys typing to see if they can recreate a Free Republic crevo thread.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

Once such hurdles are overcome it will be possible to simulate the expression of genes on a computer. It will be possible for example to take a known gene and randomly alter it and see if that alteration is a valid gene. Imagine doing one million different alterations and counting how many of them produce valid genes, and then being able to determine how they differ.

You'd have to parameterize the daylights out of all the individual atomic and molecular interactions within the proteins in order to solve the energetics...and that would affect your accuracy...and that would affect the predicted structures.

Not just yet, IMHO.

[jbloedow]

Creationism in biology is the same as telling pilots that a plane flies because God holds it up.

Why is it that when creationists critique evolution, evos' first reply is "You don't understand evolution"; yet you folks can get away with stuff like this which indicates you don't have the first flying clue what creationism is?

As we've discussed countless times, much of modern science was developed by creationists of some sort or other. It was classical Christianity which fostered a worldview which motivated the very pursuit of scientific investigation.

As it turns out, Daniel Bernoulli, of Bernoulli effect fame, was from a devout Reformed Christian family. Doh!

[Virginia-American]

from this thread

The teachings of Darwin on evolution, for example, are allowed everywhere but Saudi Arabia.

[jbloedow]

If you meant to say "the second law of thermodynamics", I'm afraid that your creationist sources are very confused about what it actually says.

There you go again.

Funny thing is, though, whether you go to Wikipedia, or any number of other sources that have no dog in this hunt, you'll find repeated references to how much confusion there is on this issue, including in most of the mainstream science textbooks.

How odd then that you want to slander creationists as the sole source of this supposed pseudo-science.

Once again, more slander and lies from the IchyMonster.

(I try to treat most people on FR with respect and patience, but you've really earned your stripes.)

[jbloedow]

so...lets define some terms (from a google search):
Faith: the belief in something for which there is no evidence or logical proof

A google search? Wow. Was this from a high school paper? I could spend precious seconds explaining just how juvenile a definition of faith this is, but the real issue is that you can't even be bothered to put in the effort to come up with a definition of terms that are beyond the parody level.

[grey_whiskers]

Time for this link to Dorothy Sayers which illustrates your point wonderfully.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

I cannot be held responsible for another man's lack of education. A person who does not understand (and in many cases never heard of) the key concepts required to engage in a meaningful discussion of basic technical subjects underlying the point at hand has no business throwing around random assertions about said point in a huff of righteous indignation.
seems to contradict
On the upside, he probably has enough baseline knowledge and skills to learn what he has missed out on over the last fifteen plus years if he wants to.
if they are referring to your specialty.

If (as you said in an earlier post) the developments in your field are in the last 10-15 years, they cannot be basic technical subjects underlying the point at hand (evolution), since the ToE has been around longer than that.

It is quite difficult to make up 15 years in a technical field (to the level of a practitioner) unless one is in that field, especially if you have any of the following:

a family;
a life;
an interest in Free Republic (not necessarily possible with either of the previous two...)

Cheers!