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To: jbloedow
As this writer recognizes, the increase in information in the genome involved in evolution is precisely that difference. Even if it can be explained, at least in a non-quantitative manner, your original assertion would appear to be falsified.

Is the author trying to say then that a given DNA molecule can't have a lower entropy than a DNA molecule in its parent, due to thermodynamic grounds? Um, ok.

Good Lord, I've heard some wacky creationist arguments before, but the argument this author promulgates is way off the deep end. Maybe this mathematics professor should take a physics class or two before writing a book about it.

1,377 posted on 01/05/2006 8:37:55 PM PST by Quark2005 (Divination is NOT science.)
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To: Quark2005
Is the author trying to say then that a given DNA molecule can't have a lower entropy than a DNA molecule in its parent, due to thermodynamic grounds? Um, ok.

I'm not sure which author you are referring to. The segment you quoted from me was an author who is anything but a creationist; but he did recognize that the fundamental laws of thermodynamics, in this case informational entropy as developed by Shannon, required that you have to account for a spontaneous increase in information, in this case the genome.

I'm sorry if you find the fundamental, inviolable laws of the physical world to be "wacky".

The second part of your comment appears to refer to the Dr. Sewell, who is a professor of mathematics. All the laws of physics he cited are universally accepted, as I understand it, though there is ongoing debate about the exact relationship between concepts of order, which is not formally defined, and entropy, which is more formally defined. Many physicists, you will find, are quite comfortable equating the two for most practical work.

I don't know what field of study you are from, but I find it quite humorous to urge a mathemetician to take a course in physics. Physics, for all intents and purposes, is applied mathematics. That's almost as funny as the person who chided a biochemist for not being equipped to comment on biology.

If you have a specific, concrete point to raise, feel free to go ahead and do it. I will email it to Dr. Sewell myself. And I'll email Wiley to find out how their physicist editors missed it.

1,379 posted on 01/05/2006 11:33:33 PM PST by jbloedow
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