Science or The Bible?

I don't recall anyone on this Forum claiming that the universe is a closed system. Furthermore evolution deals with the formation of the universe, not just biological life on earth.

 

I don't recall anyone on this Forum claiming that the universe is a closed system. Furthermore evolution deals with the formation of the universe, not just biological life on earth. </font>[/QUOTE]No, it doesn't. Biological evolution - which is what is commonly understood whens someone says evolution" - has nothing to do with the formation of the Earth. You just want to make it seem that way, because there's so much evidence for biological evolution that you cannot refute it, so you try to make it seem as if the theory also involves the beginning of the universe, which is much easier to refute, because 'evolution' certainly wasn't responsible for that.

 

Exactly what Brett said. How do you get evolution of species extended to Cosmology, I'll never know.

That is like saying geology deals with a thyroid.

 

The Second Law has never been refuted either decisively or indecisively. Also evolution doesn't begin with life it begins with nothing. </font>[/QUOTE]Of course the second law has hever been refuted. What has been refuted is the creationist misapplication of the law - that "canard". It is that CANARD that is refuted. Disorder (or entropy, as it is called in thermodynamics) can be decreased any time you want to, and if you don't believe it, try to convince your wife you can't help clean up the house on that grounds! But the trick is, in order to decrease disorder in one place, disorder has to increase more somewhere else, that's all. This is the trick life uses all the time.

Your car uses that trick to put your body in a place of your preference, your refrigerator uses it to keep your food cold, and your body chemistry uses it to keep you alive, and hopefully to have descendents. When you were just a single cell, and all the nutrients that were someday going to be put together and become you were scatted all over the countryside, your body used that trick to bring order out of disorder and make you what you are today.

And at no point was the law violated, in spite of the decrease locally of the entropy, because entropy increased in the rest of the surroundings.
Evolution uses the familiar processes of birthing, growing, living, dying, and also mutations and also preferential survival based on inherited differences. None of that can possibly be construed to be against thermodynamics, they are happening around us all the time.

 

"Your thought experiment is not relevant to the question of the Second Law and evolution. With a little work it might be used to explain the presence of dew on a cool morning but nothing else."

This is not a thought experiment. This is an example of what precisely is meant by disorder in the thermodynamic sense. I have taken the example roughly from a book by a physicist, Brian Greene.

The point is that you cannot point to any step of evolution that violates an actual statement of the second law. So you handwave around claiming something that you cannot actually show to be true.

 

Once again: Evolution is an atheistic philosophy that assumes all that exists evolved from nothing. It is in fact a false religion.

THIS ARTICLE IS BY AN EVOLUTIONIST
NOT A CREATIONIST

HOW EVOLUTION BECAME A RELIGION
Creationists correct?: Darwinians wrongly mix science with morality, politics
Saturday, May 13, 2000 - National Post
By MICHAEL RUSE

Source: http://www.omniology.com/HowEvolutionBecameReligion.html

In 1980 the young governor of Arkansas, one Bill Clinton, neglected his constituent base and was defeated in his run for re-election. He learned a lesson never to be forgotten, regained office in 1982, and remained governor until he was elected President. During the two-year interregnum, the governor's mansion was occupied by a man called Frank White, whose surprise at his election was equalled only by his inadequacy for the job.

Uncritically, Governor White signed into law a bill promoted by an evangelical Christian state representative, a bill debated by the legislature for less than half an hour. This "balanced treatment" bill required that children be taught not only the theory of evolution, but also the Bible -- taken absolutely literally. Countering the claim that we are all descended by Charles Darwin's glacially slow process of development from very simple organisms, children were also to be told, in their biology classes, that Adam and Eve were real people, and that Noah's Flood once covered the whole earth.

The U. S. constitution separates church and state. Whatever its pedagogical merits -- and they were few -- the Arkansas law was clearly unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law, and before the year was out a trial was held and the legislation struck down. Appearing as expert witnesses for the ACLU were the famous -- Stephen Jay Gould, Harvard professor, paleontologist, and America's best-known evolutionist -- and the not-so-famous -- a philosophy professor from the University of Guelph, yours truly.

I still remember arguing in the Arkansas court house with one of the most prominent of the literalists (now generally known as creationists). Duane T. Gish, author of the best-selling work, "Evolution: The Fossils Say No!," resented bitterly what he felt was an unwarranted smug superiority assumed by us from the side of science.

"Dr Ruse," Mr. Gish said, "the trouble with you evolutionists is that you just don't play fair. You want to stop us religious people from teaching our views in schools. But you evolutionists are just as religious in your way. Christianity tells us where we came from, where we're going, and what we should do on the way. I defy you to show any difference with evolution. It tells you where you came from, where you are going, and what you should do on the way. You evolutionists have your God, and his name is Charles Darwin."

At the time I rather pooh-poohed what Mr. Gish said, but I found myself thinking about his words on the flight back home. And I have been thinking about them ever since. Indeed, they have guided much of my research for the past twenty years. Heretical though it may be to say this -- and many of my scientist friends would be only too happy to chain me to the stake and to light the faggots piled around -- I now think the Creationists like Mr. Gish are absolutely right in their complaint.

Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion -- a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint -- and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it -- the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.

One of the earliest evolutionists was the eighteenth-century physician Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles. He was no atheist, believing rather in God as "Unmoved Mover": a being who decides right at the beginning on the future course of nature, lays down unbreakable laws, and never acts again.

Rightly, Erasmus Darwin saw this "deism" as challenging Christian theism, which takes God as ready always to intervene miraculously in His creation. For Erasmus Darwin, evolution was simply confirmation of his commitment to a law-bound process of creation set down by a non-interventionist God. It was part and parcel of his alternative religion.

To this vision, Darwin's grandfather added an enthusiasm for social progress -- as embodied by the Industrial Revolution -- which progress he then read right into his science. Erasmus saw social progress as a rise from a simple village-based society to the complexity of the modern city, and analogously he thought evolution rises progressively from the simple, the undifferentiated blobs of the first life forms (known as "monads"), to the apotheosis of organic complexity, the human race.

In his progressivism -- especially in his belief that we humans ourselves can and do improve our overall well-being -- Erasmus clearly stood in yet another way against Christianity, which stresses that salvation can come only through God. For the Christian, our greatest gains "count for naught."

Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity. It stressed laws against miracles and, by analogy, it promoted progress against providence.

And so things continued. In 1859, Charles Darwin, the father of modern evolutionary thought, published his great work On the Origin of Species. With this book, Darwin hoped to change things and make a less ideological system of evolution. He offered a systematic survey of the biological world, showing how many different factors -- the fossil record, the geographical distributions of organisms, the discoveries from embryology -- point to evolution. At the same time, he proposed his celebrated mechanism of natural selection: thanks to population pressures, some creatures flourish and have offspring and some do not and, over the ages, this "survival of the fittest" leads to full-blown change.

But almost at once Darwin's efforts were frustrated by (of all people) his greatest supporter, his famous "bulldog," Thomas Henry Huxley.

When Jesus died he left no functioning religion. This was the work of his supporters, especially Saint Paul, and as we all know the Christianity of Saint Paul was not exactly identical to the Christianity of Jesus. Like the great apostle and Christianity, Huxley -- one of the most prominent scientists and greatest educators and social reformers of his day -- had begun by denying evolution, and when converted had the same enthusiasm as Paul.

But like Paul also, for all that Huxley venerated Charles Darwin, he could see in the master's writings only a glimpse of what he himself needed for his own purposes. And in working to his own ends, Huxley was led to the same consequences as Paul: a functioning system, but not that of the man in whose name he worked and preached.

Origin appeared at just that time in Victorian Britain when it was necessary to transform the country from a rural-based, near-feudal society and to fit it for an urbanized, industrialized future. There was need for reform everywhere: in the civil service, merit had to count, not connection. In medicine, doctors had to stop killing patients and start curing them. In education, learning had to be for today and not to glorify the past. Huxley and his fellow reformers were in the thick of all this -- Huxley himself was a college dean, served as a member of the new London School Board and on numerous royal commissions looking into the state of things.

Correctly, Huxley saw Christianity -- the established Anglican Church particularly -- as allied with the forces of reaction and power. He fought it vigorously, most famously when he debated Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford. (Supposedly, on being asked whether he was descended from monkeys on his grandfather's side or his grandmother's side, Huxley replied he had rather be descended from an ape than from a bishop of the Church of England.)

As a social reformer therefore, Huxley, known in the papers as "Pope Huxley", was determined to find a substitute for Christianity. Evolution, with its stress on unbroken law -- which could be used to reflect messages of social progress -- was the perfect candidate. Life is on an upwardly moving escalator. It has reached Victorian Britain. Who knows what glories and triumphs might lie ahead? Thus the vision of Saint Thomas -- something to be preached far and wide. Working men's clubs, popular scientific congresses, debating societies, university convocations were Huxley's Corinthians and Galatians.

Indeed, recognizing that a good religion needs a moral message as well as a history and promise of future reward, Huxley increasingly turned from Darwin (who was not very good at providing these things) toward another English evolutionist.

Herbert Spencer -- prolific writer and immensely popular philosopher to the masses -- shared Huxley's vision of evolution as a kind of metaphysics rather than a straight science. He was happy to insist that even moral directives come from the evolutionary process itself.

"Social Darwinism" (more accurately, Social Spencerianism) took evolution to entail struggle and success for the few, and so the moral message was understood as enthusiasm for laissez-faire individualism. The state should stay out of the running of society, and the best should be allowed to rise to the top. Failures deserve their fates.

Of course, there were differences between Social Darwinians. Socialists, Marxists and anarchists also justified their beliefs in the name of Darwin. The point is that the harnessing of evolution to ends that were explicitly moral, even political, went on right through the nineteenth century.

The even greater point is that it continued to go on right through the twentieth century. Evolutionary ideas were to undergo a great transformation in the 1930s and 1940s, when a professional science of evolutionary studies was developed -- a professional science which stood on its own legs by its own merits, having no need for an alternative career as secular ideology. But this secular ideology or religion hardly folded its tents and crept away. One of the most popular books of the era was Religion without Revelation, by evolutionist Julian Huxley, grandson of Thomas Henry. First published in 1927, the book was revised (for a second time) and reissued in the 1950s.

"All thought and emotion," Huxley wrote, even the highest, spring from natural mind, whose slow development can be traced in life's evolution, so that life in general and man in particular are those parts of the world substance in which the latent mental properties are revealed to their fullest extent." As always, evolution was doing everything expected of religion, and more.

Today, professional evolution thrives. But the old religion survives and thrives right alongside it. Evolution now has its mystical visionary, its Saint John of the Cross. Harvard entomologist and sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson tells us that we now have an "alternative mythology" to defeat traditional religion. "Its narrative form is the epic: the evolution of the universe from the big bang of fifteen years ago through the origin of the elements and celestial bodies to the beginnings of life on earth."


Faithful to the oldest tradition of evolutionary theorizing -- reading his morality and politics into his science and then reading it right back out again -- Mr. Wilson warns us that we have evolved in symbiotic relationship with the rest of living nature, and lest we cherish and preserve biodiversity we will all perish. Drawing on the dispensationalism of his Southern Baptist childhood, with the eloquence and moral fervour of Billy Graham, Mr. Wilson begs us to repent, to stand up and acknowledge our sins and to walk forward in the ways of evolution. We have but a short time, else moral darkness will fall on us all.

The language of Stephen Jay Gould is hardly more tempered. We learn that evolution "liberates the human spirit," that for sheer excitement evolution "beats any myth of human origins by light years," and that we should "praise this evolutionary nexus -- a far more stately mansion for the human soul than any pretty or parochial comfort ever conjured by our swollen neurology to obscure the source of physical being."

Mr. Gould ultimately rejects traditional readings of evolution for a more inspiring, liberating version: "We must assume that consciousness would not have evolved on our planet if a cosmic catastrophe had not claimed the dinosaurs as victims. In an entirely literal sense, we owe our existence, as large and reasoning mammals, to our lucky stars." If this is not to rival traditional Judaeo-Christian teaching -- with its central belief that we humans are not just random happenstances, but a major reason why God created heaven and earth -- I do not know what is.

What is the moral to be drawn from all of this? You might think that the time has come to save evolution from the evolutionists.

Darwinism is a terrific theory that stimulates research in every area of the life sciences. In the human realm, for instance, discoveries in Africa trace our immediate past in ever greater detail, while at the same time the Human Genome Project opens up fascinating evolutionary questions as we learn of the molecular similarities between ourselves and organisms as apparently different as fruit flies and earthworms. Surely this is enough.

There is no need to make a religion of evolution. On its own merits, evolution as science is just that -- good, tough, forward-looking science, which should be taught as a matter of course to all children, regardless of creed.

But, let us be tolerant. If people want to make a religion of evolution, that is their business. Who would deny the value of Mr. Wilson's plea for biodiversity? Who would argue against Mr. Gould's hatred of racial and sexual prejudice, which he has used evolution to attack?

The important point is that we should recognize when people are going beyond the strict science, moving into moral and social claims, thinking of their theory as an all-embracing world picture. All too often, there is a slide from science to something more, and this slide goes unmentioned -- unrealized even.

For pointing this out we should be grateful for the opponents of evolution. The Creationists are wrong in their Creationism, but they are right in at least one of their criticisms. Evolution, Darwinian evolution, is wonderful science. Let us teach it to our children. And, in the classroom, let us leave it at that. The moral messages, the underlying ideology, may be worthy. But if we feel strongly, there are other times and places to preach that gospel to the world.

Michael Ruse is professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph. His next book, Can a Darwinian be a Christian? The Relationship between Science and Religion, will be published this fall. [printer friendly version]

 

Once again: Evolution is a scientific field of study and a scientific theory. People who make a religion based on evolution - and there probably are some who do that - are going beyond mere evolution into religion. People who make an atheistic philosophy that is based, in part, on evolution are going beyond mere evolution into philosophy. People who claim that evolution is actually religion or philosophy are setting up a false enemy to destroy, and therefore using false tactics to destroy it. Evolution is based on science, lives by science, dies by science, that is to say based on evidence, lives by evidence, dies by evidence alone, and nothing else will do the job! And it is not the fault of any scientist or student of science that the evidence is what it is. The evidence, after all, was ultimately put there by God.

 

You are cahnging the subject. (And Paul has done a very good job countering your change of subject.)

Now you were making a charge that the 2LOT prevents evolution fro happening. I gave you three statements of the second law straight from a textbook on thermo. I gave you what that text has to say on what disorder means in the realm of thermodynamics. I then expanded that by giving a multiple paragraph example of how entropy and disorder on a molecular scale change, using an example from one of the best physicists of our day.

Now you have been challenged to show how evolution actually has an entropy problem while using one of these actual statements of the second law and keeping in mind what thermodynamics really means by "disorder" and not what a lay person thinks of as disorder. I'd really like to know how, say, a human is able to grow from fertilized egg to adult in your version of entropy where everything must decay.

I suppose in your shoes I'd change the subject too. Or else ignore what entropy really is and go back to the YE misrepresentation of entropy.

 

Dr Gish accused the scientists of not playing fair. That's probably a reasonable quip. I will say that it is a little disappointing to the that it is the creationist side here who generally flirts with "not fair". If I were watching this debate silently I would note that Paul, Ute, Deacon, and others have been very cordial and fair. It is rather the creationist side which continues to make insinuations that theistic evolutionists are not real Christians, or that they lack faith, or that they worship science above God. These are all obvious falsehoods - and they do not help the argument.

 

UTEOTW

It may surprise you to learn that there is more than one textbook on Thermodynamics and that your quotes from Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics Smith and Van Ness,4th Edition 1987 are not the final word on the Second Law and Entropy.

There are at least three aspects or ways to express the Second Law and its measure entropy:

1. As a measure of the increased unavailability of the energy of a system for useful work. [Classical Thermodynamics].
2. As a measure of the increased disorder, randomness, or probability of the arrangement of the components of the system. [Statistical Thermodynamics]
3. As a measure of the increasingly confused information in the transmission of the coded message through a system. [Informational thermodynamics]

In so-called Classical Thermodynamics, the Second Law , like the First, is formulated in terms of energy:

A. It is in the transformation process that Nature appears to exact a penalty and this is here the second principle makes its appearance. For every naturally occurring transformation of energy is accompanied, somewhere, by a loss in the availability of energy for the future performance of work. R. B. Lindsay. Entropy Consumption and Values in Physical Science, American Scientist, vol.47 [September 1959]. page 378; as quoted in The Modern Creation Trilogy, page 131, Volume 2.

A second way of stating the entropy law is in terms of Statistical Thermodynamics.

B. All real processes go with an increase of entropy. The entropy also measures the randomness, or lack of orderliness of the system; the greater the randomness, the greater the entropy. Harold Blum, Perspectives in Evolution, American Scientist [October 1955] page 595; as quoted in The Modern Creation Trilogy, pages 132, 133, Volume 2.

The equivalence of entropy in the classical and statistical context is implied in the following:

C. Each quantity of energy has a characteristic quality called entropy associated with it. The entropy measures the degree of disorder associated with the energy. Energy must always flow in such a direction that the entropy increases. Freeman L. Dyson, Energy in the Universe, Scientific American, vol 224 [September 1971], page 52; as quoted in The Modern Creation Trilogy, page 134, Volume 2.

Similarly, the equivalence of these concepts with the information concept is recognized:

D. It is certain that the conceptual connection between information and the Second Law of Thermodynamics is now firmly established. Myron Tribus and Edward C. McIrvine. Energy and Information, Scientific American, vol 224 [September 1971], page 52; as quoted in The Modern Creation Trilogy, page 134, Volume 2.

Isaac Asimov, an evolutionist, confirms that all these different ways of looking at the Second Law are really equivalent to each other:

E. That is one way [that is, decreasing availability of energy] of stating what is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It is one of many ways; all of them are equivalent although some very sophisticated mathematics and physics are involved in showing the equivalence. Asimov, In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics, page 8; as quoted in The Modern Creation Trilogy, page 135, Volume 2.

I assume that you will agree that for evolution to occur a number of things must occur.

1. There must be an input of energy.
2. There must be an exponential increase in order.
3. There must be an increasingly complex transfer of information.

Now according to Dyson [Paragraph C above] the addition of energy results in an increase in entropy or to quote him precisely “Energy must always flow in such a direction that the entropy increases.” Furthermore, Blum [Paragraph B above] tells us “the greater the randomness, the greater the entropy” or conversely the greater the entropy the greater the randomness. Dyson agrees noting “The entropy measures the degree of disorder associated with the energy.” But for evolution to occur there must be an increase in order. However, with an input of energy the disorder increases.

Finally, and most importantly, in order for evolution to occur there must be an increasingly complex transfer of information. Tribus tells us [Paragraph D above.] “It is certain that the conceptual connection between information and the Second Law of Thermodynamics is now firmly established.” Furthermore, we see from the statement on Informational Thermodynamics [Item 3 above] entropy defined As a measure of the increasingly confused information in the transmission of the coded message through a system..

So we see that evolution violates each of the three statements related to the Second Law presented above.

May I also note in closing that Isaac Asimov, an evolutionist, confirms that all these different ways of looking at the Second Law are really equivalent to each other. [Paragraph E above]

Incidentally I did a “Google” search on the Second Law and was amazed at the number of scientists who ignorantly argued that the Second Law applied only to closed systems in an attempt to support evolution. Please note what scientists Ross and Sommerfeld have to say about this matter:

Harvard scientist John Ross, in a letter to Chemical and Engineering News [July 7, 1980], writes: There are no known violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Ordinarily the second Law is stated for isolated systems, but the second Law applies equally well to open systems. . . There is somehow associated with the field of far from equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of Thermodynamics fails for such systems. It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself.

Thermodymanicist Arnold Sommerfeld author of Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics [Academic Press, 1955] writes [page 155]: The statement in integral form, namely that entropy in an isolated system cannot decrease, can be replaced by its corollary in differential form, which asserts that the quantity of entropy generated locally cannot be negative irrespective of whether the system is isolated or not, and irrespective of whether the process under consideration is irreversible or not.

I am sure that you will use a little or a lot of semantic engineering to wiggle your way out of this explanation you requested and continue to justify your defiance of the Word of God.

 

Yawn...

YEers will often attempt a fallacy of equivocation by taking advantage of the fact that both information theory and thermodynamics use the term "entropy" and that there are even some similarities in the manner with which each uses the term. Of course, since they chose the same term, you should expect them to share some similarities. But the entropy of information theory is not the same as the entropy of thermodynamics.

"It may surprise you to learn that there is more than one textbook on Thermodynamics and that your quotes from Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics Smith and Van Ness,4th Edition 1987 are not the final word on the Second Law and Entropy."

No, but a textbook and thermodynamics should be considered to be not only a valuable source but also one which is unbiased for our discussions.

You have yet to give me a reason why I should doubt the explanation of entropy given by a thermodynamic textbook in favor of your version.

"here are at least three aspects or ways to express the Second Law and its measure entropy:

1. As a measure of the increased unavailability of the energy of a system for useful work. [Classical Thermodynamics].
2. As a measure of the increased disorder, randomness, or probability of the arrangement of the components of the system. [Statistical Thermodynamics]
3. As a measure of the increasingly confused information in the transmission of the coded message through a system. [Informational thermodynamics]"

OK.

1. Is from the 2LOT.
2. Is the the way of looking at entropy in the example I gave you that you dismissed. Statistics merely makes my qualitative description quantitative.
3. Is not thermodynamics, it is information theory. This is where you make your mistake. You fallaciously equivocate two different meanings of the same word.

Quote A is good.

Quote B is good.

Quote C is good provided that you recognize how statistics treats entropy. I have given you an example which you have dismissed. YOu will need to do better. Statistical entropy is a measure of the randomness or disorder in the physical arrangement of individual molecules or atoms.

Quote D is good provided you understand what is meant. As I said above, thermo and information use the same term because there are some similarities which suggest that the same term be used.

I cannot find a text of the article quoted for Quote D but I have found an article that cites the same source that may shed some light on the subject.

Emphasis added.

http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/journal/issues/1999/oct/abs1385.html

That "6" in there points to the same source as your quote.

Quote E is good.

"Now according to Dyson [Paragraph C above] the addition of energy results in an increase in entropy or to quote him precisely “Energy must always flow in such a direction that the entropy increases.” Furthermore, Blum [Paragraph B above] tells us “the greater the randomness, the greater the entropy” or conversely the greater the entropy the greater the randomness. Dyson agrees noting “The entropy measures the degree of disorder associated with the energy.” But for evolution to occur there must be an increase in order. However, with an input of energy the disorder increases. "

But you now have a problem. You are again confusing disorder in the arrangement of molecules with what a lay person thinks of as disorder. They are two separate things.

"Finally, and most importantly, in order for evolution to occur there must be an increasingly complex transfer of information. Tribus tells us [Paragraph D above.] “It is certain that the conceptual connection between information and the Second Law of Thermodynamics is now firmly established.” Furthermore, we see from the statement on Informational Thermodynamics [Item 3 above] entropy defined As a measure of the increasingly confused information in the transmission of the coded message through a system."

And since, as shown, you have drawn a connection that does not exist, if your premise is faulty so is your conclusion. You have yet to show the connection between thermo and information. You hop back and forth between the two but it requires you to ignore what the statistical treatment of entropy actually means.

"Incidentally I did a “Google” search on the Second Law and was amazed at the number of scientists who ignorantly argued that the Second Law applied only to closed systems in an attempt to support evolution."

If they were saying so, they were wrong.

I would assert that some were saying that the 2LOT only requires the entropy of a closed system to increase. The enropy of an open system can increase or decrease provided that the total entropy of the universe increases. This is a distinction that you may have missed.

"I am sure that you will use a little or a lot of semantic engineering to wiggle your way out of this explanation you requested and continue to justify your defiance of the Word of God."

Sigh. Another fallacy to end the post.

In the end, though, it is you who is required to resort to semantics. You try and lead the reader down a road and hope they miss the fact that there is a washed out bridge along the way that fails to connect two of your points.

I can merely stand on the shoulders of real thermodynamics and show where you go wrong. No semantics or fallacies required.

 

We engineers used to call the above "semantic engineering". Politicians and talking heads call it "spin, spin, spin."

By the way I don't need to show a connection between information and thermodynamics, Tribus and Asimov have already done it.

Tribus: It is certain that the conceptual connection between information and the Second Law of Thermodynamics is now firmly established. Myron Tribus and Edward C. McIrvine. Energy and Information, Scientific American, vol 224 [September 1971], page 52; as quoted in The Modern Creation Trilogy, page 134, Volume 2.

Asimov: Isaac Asimov, an evolutionist, confirms that all these different ways of looking at the Second Law are really equivalent to each other:

That is one way [that is, decreasing availability of energy] of stating what is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It is one of many ways; all of them are equivalent although some very sophisticated mathematics and physics are involved in showing the equivalence. Asimov, In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics, page 8; as quoted in The Modern Creation Trilogy, page 135, Volume 2.

It is your task to prove they are wrong since you cannot deny that evolution requires an increasingly complex transfer of information and we see that in Informational Thermodynamics entropy is defined As a measure of the increasingly confused information in the transmission of the coded message through a system.

 

"By the way I don't need to show a connection between information and thermodynamics, Tribus and Asimov have already done it.

Tribus: It is certain that the conceptual connection between information and the Second Law of Thermodynamics is now firmly established. Myron Tribus and Edward C. McIrvine. Energy and Information, Scientific American, vol 224 [September 1971], page 52; as quoted in The Modern Creation Trilogy, page 134, Volume 2."

Let's try this again.

Another author, using the same reference as you, cites the same source to show that there is NOT an equivalence between the entropy of thermodynamics and that of information theory. He even explains why.

Now, this is not someone trying to argue either side of our debate so he has no incentive to distort what the author is claiming.

Your Asimov quote does not give enough of the quote to know what statements of entropy he is trying to say are equivalent so I am not sure how it helps the discussion.

I did find a quote from Richard Feynman, perhaps one of the greatest physicists of the last century that more succinctly conveys my ealier example of what is meant by statistical entropy.

Again, we see that it is the physical arrangement of molecules and not what the layman thinks of as order and disorder.

It might be helpful if you were to read a little Shannon and see how the father of information theory uses "entropy" in his most famous work.

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/paper.html

You have not yet shown that we should consider thermodynamic and informational entropy to be one and the same. All you have done is produce a quote which shows what everyone agrees to: that is that there is some similar mathmatical treatments of statistical and informational entropy. You have not shown that they are the same.

Oh, BTW, you should know that in information theory that a random change to a sequence would be considered an increase, not decrease, in information. So if you are trying to apply information theory to biology, every mutation is by definition an increase in information. This is why you see YEers like Gitt try and cozy up to Shannon information in a failed attmept to lend their argument some credence just before they dump SHannon because of this unfortunate, for them, aspect of the theory.

One more thing. You have yet to tell us just what your entropy claims are supposed to prevent from happening. Do they prevent mutations? Do they prevent natural selection? Do they prevent sexual selection? Do they prevent migration? Do they prevent genetic drift? Do they prevent reproduction? I am not sure what action it is that you are saying is not possible because of entropy and much less why.

[ June 22, 2005, 04:16 PM: Message edited by: UTEOTW ]

 

I think this information is relevant:

BIBLE VERSUS SCIENCE COMMUNITY CONSENSUS
http://www.christian-forum.net/index.php?showtopic=1069

 

There are some on this Forum who insist [ignorantly I assume] that the concept of evolution applies only to biological evolution on earth. I have insisted that evolution is an atheistic philosophy and includes the evolution of the universe. The following article supports my contention.

http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/02144/text/basics/univevol.htm

Evolution of Universe

The three main theories put forward to explain the origin and evolution of the universe are:
1. The Big Bang Theory
2. The Steady State Theory
3. The Pulsating Theory

1. The Big Bang Theory: Le Maitre and Gammow proposed this theory. According to this theory, at the beginning of the universe, the whole matter of the universe was once concentrated in an extremely dense and hot (~10 12K) fireball. Then about 20 billion years ago a vast explosion (big bang) occurred. The matter was broken into pieces, which were thrown out with high speed in all directions forming stars and galaxies; which are still moving way from one another. According to Hubble's law, the velocity of recession of a galaxy becomes equal to the velocity of light at a distance equal of 20 billing light years. It means, the light rays from stars and galaxies, which are situated at a distance of 20 billion light years or more, can never reach us. Thus this distance becomes the boundary of observable universe. On account of continuous recession, more and more galaxies will go beyond this boundary and the will be lost. As a result of this, the number of galaxies per unit volume will go on decreasing and ultimately a time may come when we may have empty universe.

2. Steady State Theory: Bondi, Gold and Fred Hoyle developed this theory. According to this theory, the number of galaxies in the observable universe is constant and new galaxies are continuously being created out of empty space, which fill up the gaps caused by those galaxies, which have crossed the boundary of the observable universe. As a result of it, the overall size of mass of the observable universe remains constant. Thus a steady state of the universe is not disturbed at all.

3. Pulsating Theory: According to this theory, the universe is supposed to be expanding and contracting alternately i.e. pulsating. At present, the universe is expanding. According to pulsating theory, it is possible that at a certain time, the expansion of the universe may be stopped by the gravitational pull and the may contract again. After it has been contracted to a certain size, explosion again occurs and the universe will start expanding. The alternate expansion and contraction of the universe give rise to pulsating universe.

 

An example of the imagination of evolutionary cosmologists.

http://fire.biol.wwu.edu/trent/alles/Cosmic_Evolution.pdf

Before the Bang

An Interview with two University of Washington Astronomy Professors

[OldRegular question: I wonder what it was.]

Just as I have said: Evolution is an atheistic philosophy.

 

The argument against the theory of evolution can go on indefinitely when it is fought on the ground of this fact vs. that supposed fact.

The theory of evolution is a RELIGIOUS, not scientific (because in the end analysis, it has to be believed by faith), attempt to deny the existance of God, and therefore any accountability to such a God.

Here's the end to the entire argument:

Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

 

Actually, Scripture and science go together. Can any scientist tell us by purely-secular knowledge what GRAVITY is made of, or what fuels it so it works continually?

God uses science to both show us the earth is VERY ancient and that evolution doesn't exist. For example, in the Smithsonoan, there useta be a fossil skeleton of an alligator far larger than a modern alligator can ever become, under the best-possible living conditions. there was a sign next to the huge skeleton telling us to compare it with a modern gator skeleton a few feet away & try to spot any differences other than size. THERE WERE NONE except the big gator had sharper claws. (I 've not visited the Smithsonian for 30 or more years, so I dunno if that exhibit is still there.)

And we've now progressed to the point on physics where we believe the quark is the smallest unit of matter This leads us to ask secular science where quarks came from. If they say, "They've always existed", I say, "Then that calls for an intelligent being with the power to create something from nothing to have always existed. Quarks come in six "flavors", and there's an exact pattern for the construction of every subatomic particle. For example, every proton thus examined is made of two "up" quarks & one "down" quark. This calls for an INTELLIGENCE to have created both the different kinds of quarks and their patterns for the construction of each kind of subatomic particle...let alone, to have supplied the power that joined the quarks together to have formed protons, electrons, etc. Thus, our faith is increased all the more when we realize that JESUS FORMED ALL PHYSICAL EXISTENCE. God is allowing us in these last days to see His basic building blocks, allowing us to see there is but one plausible explanation for their existence...HE MADE THEM, endowing each one with its special properties as He chose. Yes, TRUE science, realizing there are things and forces beyond all secular explanation, goes hand-in-hand with SCRIPTURE.

 

"Can any scientist tell us by purely-secular knowledge what GRAVITY is made of, or what fuels it so it works continually?"

I think that Einstein made a pretty good case near the beginning of the last century that gravity results from the curvature of space-time. The foce itsilf is transmitted via the massless, chargeless, spin 2 particle the graviton (as yet unobserved).

"For example, in the Smithsonoan, there useta be a fossil skeleton of an alligator far larger than a modern alligator can ever become, under the best-possible living conditions. there was a sign next to the huge skeleton telling us to compare it with a modern gator skeleton a few feet away & try to spot any differences other than size. THERE WERE NONE except the big gator had sharper claws. "

Yes, but that display is/was for laypersons. There are differences.

http://www.sdnhm.org/exhibits/crocs/tguide/tgcrocs.html

"This leads us to ask secular science where quarks came from. If they say, 'They've always existed'."

Good thing, then, that they do not say that they always existed.

"...let alone, to have supplied the power that joined the quarks together to have formed protons, electrons..."

These would be gluons, at least in the case of protons. Electrons are not made of quarks. They are as fundemental as quarks.

"God is allowing us in these last days to see His basic building blocks, allowing us to see there is but one plausible explanation for their existence...HE MADE THEM, endowing each one with its special properties as He chose. "

I am not sure the point of this statement in this forum. We are all Christians and will therefore accept that God made the physical laws no matter how far to the YE or OE end of the spectrum we lean.

Furthermore, all of these things operate according to God's laws. Eventually I feel that we will have a unified theory of physics that unites quantum mechanics and general relativity. But it will not settle the issue. Those who believe in God will proclaim that God put all the laws together and those who do not accept God will claim that by knowing the underlying laws that we know all we need to know of the universe without having to invoke God at some point to explain the universe.