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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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To: jbloedow
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.

Yes, I have three specific questions:

1) Exactly what supposed step in evolution breaks the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? No sweeping generalizations here, how about a specific description or example of where the entropy of a chemical/biological system must have had increased beyond the limits of what is allowed by the influx of sunlight & geothermal energy in order for the evolutionary model to work, and the specific process(es) that violate thermodynamic laws?

2) How is it that evolution broke the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics in the distant past, yet we observe evolution occurring today, just as it always has?

3) Such 'discoveries' as evolutionary steps surely amount to a revolution in thermodynamic physics. What refereed physics journals (Phys. Rev. Lett., etc.) has Sewell submitted his amazing discoveries to? Surely such a great breakthrough in physics is worthy of being published in an esteemed journal, not just consumption by the general populace, unless he's just trying to rake in a quick buck at the expense of scientific literacy.

Sorry, but the tendency of intermediate thermodynamic systems to come to order when the flow of heat or other energy passes through them from a source to a sink is a commonly observed phenomenon in physics. It occurs in systems as simple as groups of identical protons under the right circumstances. The notion that a series of stochastic processes in such a relatively minute part of the earth-sun system somehow violates a fundamental law of physics is completely ridiculous. You can't hand-wave thermodynamics, you need known boundary conditions on the physical system being evaluated. I would expect a mathematician to know that.

1,380 posted on 01/06/2006 7:44:44 AM PST by Quark2005 (Divination is NOT science.)
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