Posted on 11/20/2009 6:40:11 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
It has always amazed me how unconcerned evolutionists seem to be about entropy and the problems it poses both for a natural origin of life and for macroevolution. The argument from entropy is one of the most powerful arguments against the spontaneous formation of life from a random association of non-living chemicals...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationresearch.org ...
“However, order does not necessarily mean organization, it only means relative momentary relationship.”
That’s the way I always understood it. That entropy isn’t about “order” in the way we usually mean it. Like the way my computer is in order. What way should a random cloud of molecules be grouped, anyway? Whatever way they are. And over time, all things being equal, they will be less the way they are than they now are. If that makes any sense.
we aren’t really discussing the entropy of the sun or of the entire system for that matter though. We’re discussing life on earth and how it appears to be some kind of violation of the second law of thermodynamics. I have simply pointed out that the energy from the sun is responsible for this apparent violation which, as we both know, is not actually a violation at all. I use the term forces for lack of a better term to describe this “process” by which the universe tends to move towards an increasing state of disorder. I think its perfectly applicable and your argument here is more semantics than physics and; furthermore, on earth, it has been overcome thanks to the sun. The real question on my mind is whether the universe is open or closed which is to say, will it, at some point, begin collapsing in upon itself (due to the poorly understood “force” of gravity) and, more specifically, has it collapsed in the past? more than once even? Given our understanding of the big bang, it seems clear that it has collapsed upon itself at least once which would, in fact, be a violation of the second law of thermodynamics as all matter/energy in the universe “spontaneously” assembled itself into the most orderly system the universe has ever known (as far as we know at least).
“I do understand it.”
Then you need to laugh more at them. This is funny stuff, some of the best!
I like how they use “big science words” to explain stuff that they don’t understand and have completely wrong.
These mad-cap “creation science” types certainly decrease the humor entropy on this site.
“When you get to highschool math they will introduce the concept of infinity to you.”
Thanks for conceding the debate... When you make a personal attack on a fellow Freeper like this, a guy that had a 33 year engineering career with HP before his retirement, you have lost the debate.
That does not answer the question as to who is right or wrong, I’m sure it will be debated for the next 100 years, but YOU lost it...
The multiverse is a theory providing the means to avoid concluding that this universe alone is uniquely fine-tuned for life, and that Earth actually is special.
For the purposes of this discussion, the system I described is closed.
the entire enclosed volume would come to equilibrium at the temperature of the sun's surface.
Not even close. The surface temperature of the sun has no relationship to the final equilibrium temperature. It would come to an equilibrium temperature of a black body containing this energy. Unless you're claiming that all points inside the black body would have the same temperature, in which case, SO WHAT? The suns' surface would not be anything special in that eventuality (and in fact would no longer even exist.)
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.
Again, completely wrong. The absorption destroys entropy. The reemission is what generates entropy. The net effect is not entropy generation. Check your math: your sign is wrong. Entry decreases in the biosphere, it's not generated. That's the point.
Except that the premise of the cited creationist argument was that the real and true definition of entropy requires that “order cannot arise from disorder” in the heuristic sense. And they accuse “evolutionists” of trying to weasel out of this fundamental law by technical obfuscation.
“What’s a multiverse then?”
Science’s Alternative to an Intelligent Creator...
I love the way these organizations crave the respect that they can never earn.
Quoted from their site, their articles are:
“Peer-reviewed by degreed scientists”
Hilarious!
The funniest thing I've seen on this thread is a claim that the conversion of mass from energy is somehow a violation of the Second Law. It's almost as st00pid as that cartoon where the kid explodes the professor's head by "proving" that atoms can't exist because the protons repel each other. I have seen that one as recently as ten years ago. Hilarious.
No need for the scare quotes around "force" when talking about gravity, BTW. That really is a force.
What has been translated as “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a [sic] formless and empty,...”
Others translate as this, “In the beginning of God's creation of heaven and earth, the earth was without form and empty...”
That is the earth was without form and empty of life. God formed it and filled it with life. Note that waters exist without being created as in your quote: “...the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Darkness also exists without being created.
The mind just fills in the blanks with the orthodoxy one's been taught without considering any alternatives. For the ancient near eastern peoples chaos was the most malevolent state and a king or deity that created order or took disorder and ordered it gained the highest praise.
I'd never heard of Hesiod, but it would follow that his beliefs would be a corruption of the original truth contained in Genesis. Again, with “Chaos” being the malevolent or useless state.
I agree with you. I was just a little worried that you were losing your sense of humor, and I was just trying to look out for you.
Keep up the good work, and keep the laughs coming
The conceptual problem is in how they describe "a system." A Biosphere might well be a system in some applications useful to a biologist. It isn't a system in any sense where you're talking about Entropy. This is why I used the simplest example of a closed system possible that takes all the characteristics of their argument in mind. Even though you objected to it, the radiation emitted by the sun to anywhere in the universe except the earth is irrelevant to the discussion. It's a complication. Our science education is abysmal even to kids who're receptive to science. Gotta keep it simple. There is no need to get into counting available states or any other physical or mathematical argument that's beyond a layperson. It's unnecessary and sounds like pedantry. I'm not trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat (or suggest anything that they think looks like it): their argument is crap on its own terms and we don't need to venture beyond demolishing it on its own terms.
It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods. -- H.L. Mencken.
Yes to the first. Of course entropy creates problems for origin of life theory. But far from being "unconcerned," those working on origin of life are entirely concerned. The whole point is not to deny the problem -- how you get from non-life, to living organisms, which internally drive chemical reactions against entropy -- but to solve it. If they were "unconcerned," then by definition those working on origin of life theories, uh, wouldn't be working on origin of life theories.
The author's second contention, that entropy creates problems for "macroevolution," is simply stupid. Not only that, it is contradictory to his first contention.
The whole reason entropy provides a problem in elucidating how life might have originated is precisely because living things export entropy, i.e. concentrate negative entropy in themselves, i.e. preferentially catalyze internal chemical reactions in a way that internally increases energy available to do work. Living things do this continually, systematically and persistently. By contrast, non-living systems do not generally do this, not at least to the degree or with the persistence that organisms do. So the problem is how do you bridge that gap.
But, once you do have living organisms, that gap has already been bridged. You can no longer appeal to that problem.
Because evolution, including macroevolution, only concerns living organisms, and living organisms reduce entropy, there can't be any contradiction between evolution and entropy. Certainly not in the facile fashion this creationist and others propose.
Consider that, not only is a living organism, like a mammal for instance, able to concentrate enough negative entropy to develop from a single cell to millions of cells organized into complex, and complexly interacting, organ systems; it is further able to daily expend thousands of calories in doing work on the world around it; even, in the case of one particular species, to build skyscrapers and civilizations.
By comparison, the amount of work against entropy required to evolve a mammal from a fish, distributed in tiny bits over the course of hundreds of millions of years, is utterly trivial!
“That’s the point. To the modern western mind ex nihilo sounds more powerful.”
I’m not sure what you mean by “modern”. You’re definitely correct that the “Near East” liked the idea of Chaos. I think “ex nihilo” has been around since the beginning of Catholicism, which is what I was raised as, and which I do not exactly consider “modern”.
“Others translate as this, ‘In the beginning of God’s creation of heaven and earth, the earth was without form and empty...’
That is the earth was without form and empty of life.”
It still can be interpreted as saying God created the earth, and that it was without form at some stage after he brought it into being, but before he had made it what it is today.
“Note that waters exist without being created as in your quote: ‘...the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.’”
Well, it’s not clear to me that the water cannot be considered part of the earth. I realize earth literally means the dirt and rocks, but we’d say the rivers, lakes, and oceans are part of Earth, wouldn’t we?
Anyway, we must not lose sight of the fact that this is literature assembled over a long span of time. Even the work of artistic masters have inconsistencies that can’t be overlooked. I can’t ignore the fact that Milton, in “Paradise Lost,” speaks of hell (or ) as being in absolute darkness, then goes on to speak as if Satan et. al. can see things.
The Jews very well may have believed in chaos. Much they believe is different from Christianity, obviously. I wouldn’t know about the Eastern Orthodox faith, either. All I’m saying is that orthodox Western Christianity believes in “ex nihilo,” and if that’s who you refer to when you speak of modern Westerners, we agree.
“The mind just fills in the blanks with the orthodoxy one’s been taught without considering any alternatives.”
Yes and no. Most people are familiar with dogma, of course. But they also study other religions. They’ll be more likely to believe in the one they’ve been taught, but that doesn’t mean they don’t consider alternatives. I doubt there are very many Christian Americans who haven’t studied at least a bit of Greek mythology, Hinduism, etc.
“I’d never heard of Hesiod, but it would follow that his beliefs would be a corruption of the original truth contained in Genesis”
He was a Greek poet who lived around the 8th century BC. Like Homer, he never wrote anything down, but his “Theogony,” which speaks of the origin of the universe and was passed down through the generations. He begins not only with Chaos, as I recall, but also the goddess Gaea (from which our word “earth” derives) and Eros, the driving (sexual) power behind creation. It was based in traditional Greek religion, which scholars don’t doubt was borrowed in some measure from Eastern culture.
“If they were ‘unconcerned,’ then by definition those working on origin of life theories, uh, wouldn’t be working on origin of life theories.”
That’s not necessarily true. Seeking the origin of life is not to everyone synonymous with asking “When did organisms start internally driving chemical reactions against entropy?” To some, namely lots of evolutionists, the question is when did organisms start “replicating” themselves. I can’t say I’d agree. What about creatures who lived—in the same sense as we do, however you’d describe it—but didn’t pass anything on to another generation? Did they not exist until they passed things on?
Anyway, just saying, people can inquire into the origin of life without being centrally concerned about entropy.
I can't picture what you're thinking. A star in space is a great example of an OPEN system, as energy is copiously pouring across any nearby closed boundary.
Not even close.
Well, it is an idealization of the sun as an infinite black body at its surface temperature, so that the surface serves as a "pinhole". This is a very nice theoretical model of the sun for many purposes, so I say it is "close" in that sense.
In a more physically accurate model, the interior of the sphere would become filled with black body radiation at the sun's surface temperature very quickly ( hours or days, I think ) and then would slowly heat up as the sun heated up.
The absorption destroys entropy. The reemission is what generates entropy.
I don't think so. Cf. the 1854 definition of entropy. When heat Q flows from a higher temperature T1 to a lower temperature T2 the change in entropy, Q/T2 - Q/T1, is positive.
I suppose you're thinking of the entropy reduction involved in the production of biological materials such as cellulose. Here, the absorption of radiation increases the entropy of the absorbing cell, and the dissipation of this energy lowers the entropy, at the same time "carrying away" the entropy absorbed from the constituents of the cellulose leaving them in the lower entropy "organized" structure. Of course, the net effect is an increase of entropy in the cell and surroundings, just as a refrigerator is a net entropy generator, even though it lowers the entropy of warm items introduced into it via cooling.
In the case of biological processes, the entropy absorbed in the creation of organized structures is ultimately carried away by the earth's radiation into space.
Of course, the amount of entropy absorbed in these life processes is less than miniscule in comparison with the entropy produced by the absorption and radiation of solar energy by gross physical processes.
That's an interesting point. And the device is always more complex or more ordered than the order it creates, isn't it? It's like order has to flow downhill.
I'm trying to think of an example that doesn't follow this rule but I'm coming up blank. For example, I'm more complex than the machine I build, and the machine is more complex than the part it stamps out. And the part can't build the machine and the machine can't build me.
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