Posted on 11/20/2009 6:40:11 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
“In fact, evolution is pro entropy creation, because the creation of local order comes at the overall enhanced disorder of the rest of the universe.”
What you said is silly...
How could it come from overall enhanced disorder of the rest of the universe, unless the rest of the universe had “order” to begin with - and where did this order come from? From a Creator?
I would say entropy creation is pro evolution, because evolutionary order is akin to the spontaneous formation of dissipative structures such as thunderheads and sunspots, which arise in conjunction with thermodynamically driven energy flows.
An example of order arising from a local reduction in entropy would be the formation of a snowflake, and this type of process does not provide an attractive model for the origin of life processes.
“Can you prove the universe is?? doubt it.”
Yes I can, and it’s not even hard. If the universe includes “everything”, it is by definition closed. Because there is nothing outside it to be open to...
Like most so-called paradoxes, Young Earth Creationists create this one by drawing a box around the Earth and claiming it's a system with decreasing Entropy. Yes, it is. But when you draw the box correctly around the whole system, there is nothing but increasing Entropy.
They apparently don't understand that they can't even explain the operation of their own thought processes if they accept this argument, which requires a decrease in the Entropy of the brain while it heats up the body around it, thus increasing the Entropy of the entire universe.
First you need to establish whether you are referring to an energy level or level of organization. However, order does not necessarily mean organization, it only means relative momentary relationship. Einstein established the conditions of energy.
Watch is a wrong metaphor. A flower would be a better metaphor. The flower starts off as a small seed, but contained within that seed is the fully grown flower. Bit by bit the flower unfolds itself.
Amazingly, you have actually swerved into (nearly) the correct answer. The universe did indeed begin in its lowest Entropy state.
When you get to highschool math they will introduce the concept of ∞ to you.
“They apparently don’t understand that they can’t even explain the operation of their own thought processes if they accept this argument, which requires a decrease in the Entropy of the brain while it heats up the body around it, thus increasing the Entropy of the entire universe.”
You need to understand the whole of their argument. They believe that Adam and Eve represented “perfection” because they were created by God - so DNA from then on has simply become more imperfect “devolution”.
You cannot explain simple concepts like - the reason you have to mow your lawn every week is because the sun provides the energy to extract carbon out of the atmosphere and place it on the blades of grass (i.e. entropy decreases, until you take out your lawn mower)
that and you’re going to hell if you disagree with them.
“The universe is a thermodynamic system.”
I agree. This is the thermodynamic system we need to be talking about. There is only one, so it is by definition “closed”.
According to the second law, it should be random with no order. How can you “suck” order out of a large closed system if it doesn’t have any to begin with? You can’t make random more random...
Thanks for the ping!
As a mechanical engineer with extensive background in thermodynamics, I’ve been through these idiotic arguments before.
I don't agree that the arguments, or at least the questions, are idiotic. Given that the flow of energy (F) is split between enthalpy (H) and the entropy component (TdS), hence the greater compensating entropy of the "system," where are the boundaries of the "system?"
In other words to make it a quantitative question how much free energy in a cosmological system is necessary before the negative entropic component results in life?
In fact you might reapply your mechanical engineering background to astrophyics or cosmology, for there are relevant questions there.
Of course such occupation probably wouldn't pay the bills.
LOL
What’s a multiverse then?
“To the modern Christian the opposite of creation is nothingness, but in Genesis it reads that God created the world from some pre-existing matter.”
I wouldn’t know about the original version of the Bible, but the one I know starts like this:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness...”
Orthodox belief has always held that God created the universe “ex nihilo,” or out of nothing. The “chaos” or unformed matter of which you speak sounds heretical. More like Platonic philosophy or Hesiod than Christian doctrine.
Of all the popular misconceptions in science, the claim that Entropy is a measure of disorder is fairly innocuous. Increasing Entropy tracks fairly well to disorder in most systems, even when you don’t limit yourself to ideal gases. I know there are important counterexamples. Many of them aren’t accessible to laymen. It isn’t as obviously heretical an oversimplification as “Einstein said everything is relative,” it certainly is nowhere near as erroneous as the claim that “the Entropy of living systems decreases, and that’s impossible.”
“The presence of our sun provides the necessary energy to overcome the forces of the second law of thermodynamics on our planet and, as such, life is able to progress in a direction of increasing order despite the fact that the universe is still moving in the direction of greater disorder.”
There’s not just the sun; there’s also the earth’s own internal heat, which some have put forth as a possible source of energy for the origin of life. Indeed, there have been discovered species near “vents” in the ocean or deep within cracks in the ground, with no discernable access to light, thriving in their own little “ecosystems”.
You are revesing the arguments of the evolutionists. They say that if you wait long enough organization can happen. Now you are saying if you wait long enough some of it may happen, but eventually it will all disappear.
WHAT !?!?!
The sun radiates into space, and if you closed the system by putting the solar system inside an internally reflecting sphere, the entire enclosed volume would come to equilibrium at the temperature of the sun's surface.
In fact, for practical purposes the solid angle subtended by the earth in space by a cone drawn from the center of the sun to the Earth is closed.
This is entirely wrong in the same way. The absorption and reemission of solar radiation by the earth generates entropy ( at what rate? ) and this is what drives the biosphere.
No, I don't need to understand it, because I do understand it. It is they who don't understand that their own claim is largely correct in a very imprecise sense: At the instant of the Singularity, the universe was at its "most perfect" that is, its lowest state of Entropy. In a physical sense, it has devolved toward heat-death since then.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.