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Why We Are Still Arguing About Darwin
TCS Daily ^ | 10 Jan 2008 | Lee Harris

Posted on 01/17/2008 10:27:05 AM PST by neverdem

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To: bvw
Flora and fauna are designed chemical machines. Therefore they create order because of their design.

I'm not arguing about the origin of living things. I'm merely pointing out that evolution is a process like metabolism. It is not magic and does not violate thermodynamics.

481 posted on 01/23/2008 1:39:05 PM PST by js1138
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To: js1138

It doesn’t violate thermodynamics? Lol- it violates it at every step of the process. I guess you refuse to read the link provided and will stubbornly stand by your assertion\ without providing ANY information as to how Macroevolution doesn’t violate the law. Whatever,- just don’t accuse us of ‘misunderstanding the law’ when it is you who refuse to understand it apparently.


482 posted on 01/23/2008 1:44:44 PM PST by CottShop
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To: js1138
Metabolism is design. Right -- it's not magic! No more than a good cat-cracker.

Two designed systems: a cat-cracker and a cat:

483 posted on 01/23/2008 1:46:16 PM PST by bvw
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To: bvw

You are misreading me. I am not arguing the issue of design. I’m merely stating what would be obvious to any chemist or physicist — that evolution is a physical process like metabolism that can increase order in the presence of an energy gradient.

Your images, however, do point out some obvious differences between things known to be designed by human-like agencies, and things designed by evolutionary agencies.


484 posted on 01/23/2008 1:52:24 PM PST by js1138
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To: js1138

Yup- no law violations goign on with Macroevolution whatsoever:

“We have repeatedly emphasized the fundamental problems posed for the biologist by the fact of life’s complex organization. We have seen that organization requires work for its maintenance and that the universal quest for food is in part to provide the energy needed for this work. But the simple expenditure of energy is not sufficient to develop and maintain order. A bull in a china shop performs work but he neither creates nor maintains organization. The work needed is particular work; it must follow specifications; it requires information on how to proceed.”
[G.G. Simpson and W.S. Beck, Life: An Introduction to Biology, Harcourt, Brace, and World, New York, 1965, p. 465]

“The thermodynamicist immediately clarifies the latter question by pointing out that ... biological systems are open, and exchange both energy and matter. The explanation, however, is not completely satisfying, because it still leaves open the problem of how or why the ordering process has arisen (an apparent lowering of the entropy), and a number of scientists have wrestled with this issue. Bertalanffy (1968) called the relation between irreversible thermodynamics and information theory one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in biology.”
[C. J. Smith, Biosystems 1:259 (1975)]

Not “Apparent lowering of entropy” but a “Positively necessary lowering of entropy MUSt have happened” IF Macroevolution is true.

“As ice forms, energy (80 calories/gm) is liberated to the surroundings... The entropy change is negative because the thermal configuration entropy (or disorder) of water is greater than that of ice, which is a highly ordered crystal... It has often been argued by analogy to water crystallizing to ice that simple monomers may polymerize into complex molecules such as protein and DNA. The analogy is clearly inappropriate, however... The atomic bonding forces draw water molecules into an orderly crystalline array when the thermal agitation (or entropy driving force) is made sufficiently small by lowering the temperature. Organic monomers such as amino acids resist combining at all at any temperature, however, much less in some orderly arrangement.”
[C.B. Thaxton, W.L. Bradley, and R.L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, Philosophical Library, New York, 1984, pp. 119-120.]

And again:

“The point is that in a non-isolated [open] system there exists a possibility for formation of ordered, low-entropy structures at sufficiently low temperatures. This ordering principle is responsible for the appearance of ordered structures such as crystals as well as for the phenomena of phase transitions. Unfortunately this principle cannot explain the formation of biological structures.”
[I. Prigogine, G. Nicolis and A. Babloyants, Physics Today 25(11):23 (1972)]


485 posted on 01/23/2008 1:53:08 PM PST by CottShop
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To: js1138

Why do evos consider that living things are exempt from the 2nd law?

Animals age and die; when they die, rot sets in. Obviously the 2nd law is at work even now. It’s obviously at work because of the aging process and the deterioration that sets in, even while the organism is alive.

There has to be some impetus to overcome the 2nd law for life to continue to grow and reproduce. Simply adding energy to a system is not enough to overcome entropy unless work is being done to use that energy. Just adding energy is going to increase entropy without some mechanism to harness it. What’s causing the work to be done? What’s bringing the order out of disorder at any level in any system?

For that matter, even if the 2nd law applies to only non living systems, tell me how the non-living systems overcame the 2nd law long enough for the primordial soup to produce life, the first single celled organism. This business of molecules becoming more and more complex all on their own is the stuff fairy tales are made of.

If the 2nd law only applies to non-living systems, then the universe could not have organized itself into stars and planets, galaxies and globular clusters. It could not have set up its own set of orderly laws by which it runs. It could not have resulted in life forming because of certain chemicals coming together with enough electrical charge, yada, yada, yada. I’d love to see an example of raw electrical discharges in nature producing anything orderly. I’ve seen what lightning can do to trees, houses, electrical systems, and people.

So the situation is either something deliberately overcame, and is still overcoming, the 2nd law even now; or if it’s so easy to overcome, it shouldn’t be a Law of Thermodynamics. There should be a Law of Orderliness where everything continually tends towards order on it’s own.


486 posted on 01/23/2008 1:58:57 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: GodGunsGuts

Looks like someone has gone bye-bye.


487 posted on 01/23/2008 2:11:50 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: js1138
I’m merely stating what would be obvious to any chemist or physicist — that evolution is a physical process like metabolism that can increase order in the presence of an energy gradient.

I'm a trained physicist. It's not obvious to me, therefore your assertion is false. You said "any chemist or physicist" therefore it is sufficient to disprove your hypothesis with only one example to the contrary.

488 posted on 01/23/2008 2:19:11 PM PST by bvw
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To: CottShop
When they dug down, they based their opinions on erosion rates and said “This is how old they ‘should be” - the ‘should be’ was STILL the criteria for their annalysis and determinations- preconcieved notions based on assumptions- nothign more.

That is simply not true. You have offered no evidence that they had any preconceived idea of how old the rocks "should be." Do you ever draw conclusions from observations in your own life? If you came across a rotting tree stump crawling with bugs, would you formulate some kind of idea of when the tree fell down? Would that mean you had a preconceived idea of when the tree "should have" fallen down? If I insisted to you that the tree had fallen down yesterday, and that your ridiculous theory that the rotting and the bugs indicated an older age was just based on your assumptions, wouldn't you think I was being a little dense at best?


489 posted on 01/23/2008 2:24:09 PM PST by Ha Ha Thats Very Logical
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To: CottShop
Another "minor" problem with that silly creationist link you provided us with:

http://evolution-facts.org/Evolution-handbook/E-H-6b.htm

I followed the argument up to page 13, and found this nonsense (all emphasis in the original):

MASS SPECTROMETER BREAKTHROUGH—A newly developed research tool, the mass spectrometer, provides dating that is more accurate than the other dating methods.

The following statement by Brown is highly significant. It tells us this: (1) The very expensive mass spectrometer machine actually counts C-14 atoms and gives more accurate totals. (2) Every organic specimen has some radiocarbon atoms, therefore none are more than a few thousand years old. (3) The earliest skeletal remains in the Western hemisphere have been dated by this method, and found to be only about 5,000 years old.

"Several laboratories in the world are now equipped to perform a much improved radiocarbon dating procedure. Using atomic accelerators, the carbon-14 atoms in a specimen can now be actually counted. This gives more precise radiocarbon dates with even smaller specimens. The standard, but less accurate, radiocarbon dating technique only attempts to count the rare disintegrations of carbon-14 atoms, which are sometimes confused with other types of disintegrations. This new atomic accelerator technique has consistently detected at least small amounts of carbon-14 in every organic specimen—even materials that evolutionists claim are millions of years old, such as coal. The minimum amount of carbon-14 is so consistent that contamination can probably be ruled out. If the specimens were millions of years old, there would be virtually no carbon-14 remaining in them.

"Eleven human skeletons, the earliest known human remains in the Western hemisphere, have recently been dated by this new accelerator mass spectrometer technique. All eleven were dated at about 5,000 radiocarbon years or less! If more of the claimed evolutionary ancestors of man are tested and are also found to contain carbon-14, a major scientific revolution will occur and thousands of textbooks will become obsolete."—Walter T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p. 95.

The problem is that when orthodox science discovers that a new procedure will topple major evolutionary foundations, a cover-up occurs. It is likely that the mass spectrometer technique will never be permitted to be applied to major ancient archaeological or pre-archaeological materials, such as ancient hominid bones. To do so would reveal their recent age.

There is far more nonsense here than I care to expose. Just a few "minor" problems:

1) "Every organic specimen has some radiocarbon atoms, therefore none are more than a few thousand years old." False! A boldfaced lie! Enough of an error to flunk any science class. There are other ways for C14 to form than in the upper atmosphere. The AMS technique is so sensitive it can detect tiny amounts of C14. It could detect the C14 from your fingertips, or your breath. To claim that these tiny amounts of C14 prove a young earth are simply lies.

2) "The earliest skeletal remains in the Western hemisphere have been dated by this method, and found to be only about 5,000 years old." The major mistake made here is assuming that the original dates, all by amino acid racemization, were accurate, and the newer radiocarbon dates were wrong–probably out of a wish to show errors in the radiocarbon method. The opposite is true: the Taylor et al. article, by redating these specimens using the AMS method of radiocarbon dating, corrected the earlier, erroneous amino acid racemization age estimates. But creation "science" either misread that article or deliberately lied about the results. And this nonsense has been picked up by a lot of creationist websites. Sorry, the textbooks are not obsolete; the creation science folks are simply wrong once again.

3) "It is likely that the mass spectrometer technique will never be permitted to be applied to major ancient archaeological or pre-archaeological materials, such as ancient hominid bones. To do so would reveal their recent age. " Not permitted by who? Anyone can submit an AMS sample. I've done nearly 125 myself. If creationists have $700 they can do a radiocarbon date on bone, just like real scientists do. In fact, the RATE project did a whole bunch of dating. Then they just quietly faded away, having confirmed what scientists had been saying all along.

Got any more radiocarbon nonsense to post? Every time I rebut one of your silly articles it just makes you look foolish.

490 posted on 01/23/2008 2:36:15 PM PST by Coyoteman (Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.)
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To: metmom

Did you find out the reason why? Just curious :o)


491 posted on 01/23/2008 3:28:33 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: bvw

LOL...glad to see you in the Creation-Evolution threads. Keep up the good work!


492 posted on 01/23/2008 3:34:05 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: GodGunsGuts

No. Just noticed. I just was curious how the newb was doing.


493 posted on 01/23/2008 3:57:53 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom
All EXCELLENT points, Metmom. Not only that, Biblical Creation actually predicts these laws and more. For instance, Biblical Creation predicts the Law of Mass Conservation, evolution must explain it as an add-on. Biblical Creation predicts the Law of Energy Conservation, evolution must explain it as an add-on. Biblical Creation predicts the Law of Energy Decay, evolution must explain it as an add-on. The list goes on and on. And they wonder why Creation science won’t go away! LOL.

Finally, you are quite right to point out that just having enough energy to sustain life is not enough. As pointed out above, the processes of life are chemical processes at their most fundamental level. These chemical processes are subject to the Second Law, or entropy. In order for these chemicals to defy the Second Law, the sun’s energy must first be harnessed by a mechanism that is capable of producing work that immediately contradicts the same in an orderly way, otherwise the chemicals must decay and tend toward disorder. Biblical creation actually demonstrates how this was done, while the Evos are still stuck in the primordial soup. Indeed, the predictions of Biblical Creation is so superior to evolution, you’d almost think God came up with it!

494 posted on 01/23/2008 4:18:49 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: metmom

“Demonstrates” in the last sentence was a bad choice of words. But you get my point ;o)


495 posted on 01/23/2008 4:32:35 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: Coyoteman

Wiley goes scampering off for the tall grass yet again. Why am I not surprised?!?!? Evolution is dead. It has been disproven on almost every level, and even when some aspect of evolutionary religion has been confirmed, such as natural selection, it only shows how Creation had it right from the very beginning. Natural selection = conservation of the original CREATED kinds. LOL


496 posted on 01/23/2008 4:46:02 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: GodGunsGuts
As pointed out above, the processes of life are chemical processes at their most fundamental level. These chemical processes are subject to the Second Law, or entropy.

It's not like these basic chemical processes KNOW they are part of a biologic system and therefore exempt from the 2nd law.

If the law is a law and universal, it applies to everything.

497 posted on 01/23/2008 6:10:17 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom

==It’s not like these basic chemical processes KNOW they are part of a biologic system and therefore exempt from the 2nd law.

Very true! But they act like they KNOW. I wonder why???


498 posted on 01/23/2008 6:21:28 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: GodGunsGuts

Somebody told them?


499 posted on 01/23/2008 6:33:52 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom

I would say somebody ORDERED them!


500 posted on 01/23/2008 6:38:28 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
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