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To: bondserv
A good page of lecture notes on the early universe, nucleosynthesis and CMB (cosmic microwave background) evidence.

This page cuts quickly to the point I was making.

The cosmic microwave background radiation. This is a bath of photons with an exact thermal (blackbody) form, coming from all directions, now observed at a temperature 2.728 K (view graph). This implies that the Universe was at one time a dense, opaque, and very smooth gas, quite unlike today's view. Tiny fluctuations, a few parts per million, can be observed, as expected for the seeds of today's superclusters of galaxies.
My point is that initial conditions were very simple, almost homogeneous. The continued expansion of the universe along with gravity, nuclear chemistry, and a lot of time got us from there to here. Not only life on earth represent, but everything that looks interesting and complex about the rest of the universe also grew from those early conditions.

Before you start banging on the second law of thermodynamics, there have already been screaming-match threads with lots of second-lawyering on just this point.

There are mathematical and thermodynamic senses of the words "order," "information," etc. which are misleading to the lay reader. A tiny, dense universe of hot quark-gluon plasma can be regarded as having more "information" and a lower state of entropy than a big universe with galaxies, Earthlings, Klingons, Romulans and tribbles. The second law is not violated by the history of the universe, but you have to be thinking of the location and velocity of every furiously flying quark and gluon inside the little-ball universe as an element of precisely ordered information to claim we've lost information since then.

Another way to think of it is that indeed the useable energy content (potential) of the universe has run down considerably because of the very gravitational collapse, nucleosynthesis, and chemosynthesis that created stars, planets, and people. You can trade unused potential energy for order (in the usual sense), turning potential energy into entropy in the process. That has happened with the universe.

1,325 posted on 03/05/2003 7:12:13 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
"Not only life on earth represent, but everything that looks interesting and complex about the rest of the universe also grew from those early conditions.

Editor wanted, must work for peanuts.

1,327 posted on 03/05/2003 7:17:59 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
Vade,

I will read some of this when I get the chance. Will also check Juniors thread for 2nd Law discussions.

Thanks
1,330 posted on 03/05/2003 8:20:40 AM PST by bondserv
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To: VadeRetro
VadeRetro  wrote:
...The continued expansion of the universe along with gravity, nuclear chemistry, and a lot of time got us from there to here. Not only life on earth represent, but everything that looks interesting and complex about the rest of the universe also grew from those early conditions.

...You can trade unused potential energy for order (in the usual sense), turning potential energy into entropy in the process. That has happened with the universe.


Like I said, for arguments sake, I will accept the premise that the big bang occurred.  Your statements above are evolutionary dogma. You still haven't answered my question, how does the big bang theory explain the information that exists now but did not formerly exist? Do you really believe that information just happens given the laws of chemistry and physics and a lot of time? Does the theory pedict it?
1,334 posted on 03/05/2003 9:02:58 AM PST by Rachumlakenschlaff
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