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To: Ol' Sparky; Vaderetro; PatrickHenry; RadioAstronomer; ThinkPlease
My God. You have a technical degree from a top 25 university and are comparing evolution to a hurricane. My, how standards have been lowered. You've been brainwashed with propaganda.

What's the matter, Sparky; fresh out of out-of-context quotes? No essays written by magicians to post? Having to resort to personal insults?

With this tremendous degree you have, you shouldn't feel intimidated to call up Bob Enyart. Then, we could here [sic] a guy with a real nice degree make an idiot out of himself.

Putting your personal envy over my degree aside, Enyart is welcome HERE anytime he wants to dip his toe into the water, where there are no time limits, and swell-sounding sound-bites don't cut it.

You've learned evolution well. [snip, to see what it is like to quote someone out-of-context]

Why thank you! [This business of quoting someone out-of-context is kinda fun! It is so easy to turn someone's words around and make it seem like they're saying the exact opposite of what they meant! Now I can see why all of the anti-Evolutionists use this technique so frequently!]

Most of the Founders of science were Creationists. There are dozens of scientists that have accomplished more than you ever will that are Creationists.

And I dare say there are more than a few dozen Evolutionists who have accomplished more than you ever will. So what?

Your degree is meaningless...

Well, to tell you the truth, Sparky, you aren't the first person to say that. I can recall those very words being said to me ... by a minimum wage "bus-boy" who used to wash my dirty dishes while I was enjoying a post-graduation ceremony meal at the University. And guess what? He's STILL bussing dishes in the cafeteria, 25 years later.

And now to the meat of the matter:

You seemed to think I'm some sort of moron for stating that there is a concentration of energy taken from the surroundings (localized decrease in entropy) in a Hurricane, acheived at the expense of an even greater increase in entropy of the Hurricane's surroundings.

Well, Sparky, if you'd bothered to read the material I quoted previously, you'd have noticed THIS:


"Occasionally and coincidentally, movements of wind and warm moisture from a tropical ocean can cause a concentration of energy to form a hurricane. (Hurricanes are no more a violation of the second law than a car going uphill. More heat from the warm ocean surface has been fed into the incipient circling wind pattern than is present in the final huge vortex. Of course, the observer of a destructive hurricane cannot sense the basic contributions of solar energy nor the complex energy dissipation that coincidentally formed it.) The "death" of a hurricane is a more obvious example of the second law in action: Unless this kind of ocean-originated storm is continuously fed thermal energy from warm waters to maintain its high-energy existence, a hurricane dissipates its energy just as any wind "blows itself out". The second law always is a valid tendency and -- in dynamic cases like this -- demonstrates that tendency in a relatively short time rather than years or eons."

--Frank L. Lambert, Professor Emeritus (Chemistry)
Occidental College, Los Angeles


You see the part where Professor Lambert says:

"Hurricanes are no more a violation of the second law than a car going uphill."

The only reason for that statement being made is because the Hurricane represents a localized DECREASE in entropy; if it didn't, Professor Lambert wouldn't need to say what he said.

Since you weren't impressed by my meager credentials, here's Profossor Lambert's: you can disparage him all you want, and tell everyone reading this thread how YOU think you know more about Thermodynamics that a Professor of Chemistry.


Frank L. Lambert graduated with honors from Harvard University and received the doctorate in chemistry from the University of Chicago. After military service in WWII and industrial research and development, he joined the faculty of Occidental College in Los Angeles. His primary concern was teaching and his most important publication in the field, that few professors seem to have read, urged the abandonment of the traditional lecture system in chemistry. ("Why lecture -- since Gutenberg? Aren't textbooks available now?")

For many years he taught "Enfolding Entropy", a course for non-science majors. His research in the polarography of halogen compounds was designed for undergraduate collaboration and all but one of his scientific articles were published with student co-authors.

Professor emeritus from Occidental College, he became the first scientific advisor to the J. Paul Getty Museum. He has continued to be a consultant to the Getty Conservation Institute since its founding and as it has grown to have a staff of 14 scientists. His Web sites on the second law of thermodynamics for science students, www.secondlaw.com and www.2ndlaw.com averaged more than 10,000 readers per month in 2001.

www.shakespeare2ndlaw.com is a Web site for those who are not in science. In describing the concept of activation energies as vital in "damming" the second law, it shows the importance of this concept in developing a realistic philosophy of life. ("Why NOT me?" is the only valid question in times of distress caused by accidents and ill-health.)


Looking forward to your next flurry of juvenile insults...

442 posted on 02/02/2002 8:48:37 PM PST by longshadow
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To: longshadow
It simply boggles the mind that you have a high school diploma, let alone graduated from a "top 25 technical university." Hurricanes do NOT prove the earth is become more orderly or that the earth is decreasing in entropy. The Second Law applies to the earth, you educated IDIOT. The Second Law was established through observation on this earth and the primary application of the Second Law is on living things that use energy.

"There is a general natural tendency of all observed systems to go from order to disorder, reflecting dissipation of energy available for future transformation—the law of increasing entropy." R. B. Lindsay: "Physics—To What Extent Is It Deterministic?" American Scientist, Vol. 56, Summer 1968, p. 100.

Observed systems would include life on the planet.

Henry Morris: ALL observed systems include life oRemember this tendency from order to disorder applies to all real processes. Real processes include, of course, biological and geological processes, as well as chemical and physical processes. The interesting question is: "How does a real biological process, which goes from order to disorder, result in evolution. which goes from disorder to order?"

443 posted on 02/02/2002 9:03:30 PM PST by Ol' Sparky
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To: longshadow
A similar example would be the much larger "vortex" in a tornado or hurricane. These might be viewed as "structures" and to appear to be "ordered," but they are soon gone. What they leave in their wake is not a higher degree of organized complexity, but a higher degree of dissipation and disorganization.
444 posted on 02/02/2002 9:09:56 PM PST by Ol' Sparky
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