Can Evolution be Described as a Religion?

I came across the the YEers misusing the 2LOT. I have had classes in thermo. I understand the second law of thermodynamics well enough. The YEers misrepresent the 2nd law.

In areas where you do not have training, you must rely on what others have to say. This was an area in which I had personal knowledge. I knew the flaws immediately. I did not need to look at anyone else's appraisal. I did not have to make a choice on who it seemed was being truthful. The errors lit up like a flare.

Here is how my thermodynamics textbook states the second law. (Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics Smith and Van Ness 4th Edition 1987)

Now just what part of that is it that "evolutionists in almost every facet of their thinking continue to deny?"

 

You don't mind me using simple language I hope.
First we don't live in a closed system.
All things tend toward a state a state of degeneration, whether it be a car, house, or even a chemical reaction. In any simple chemical reaction heat is lost, thus the increase of entropy.
What happens when a tree goes up in flame. I am sure you can write the chemical formula for it. The end result is ash and heat. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. It is only changed from one form to another. The tree cannot be used any longer in a useful form any longer. It has been changed to ash and heat. It has degenrated. Entropy has been increases. This is the second law of Thermodynamics. There is no way the opposite is true. The tree is not goint to produce that which is in a better state, but that which is in a worse state.
DHK

 

UTEOTW,

"The young earthers were the first I went to. At the time I accepted their position and was eager to accept what they had to say. But most of it immediately sounded fishy. Then I came across the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics line. I knew immediately what was wrong with that one. My opinion of them then became that they either were speaking as experts in fields they did not understand or that they were misrepresenting things. I found either dishonest."

This is EXACTLY how I felt!!

When I was saved I wanted more than anything to believe in a young earth. At that time I had just started medical school and had already had 4 years of Biology, Biology, and more Biology. From the start the arguments (especially 2LOT) were so obviously flawed that I couldn't swallow them no matter how much I wanted to!

I began to wonder whether or not the YEC proponent "science experts" (many of the ones I read had DMIns and not science degrees) really understood things or if they chose to suppress their own questions.

I wondered, "Is this really the intellectual limits of Christian thought? Is this the best scholarship we can muster?"

Thankfully I now realize that the significance of Genesis was not that of a literal scientific account but rather a theological one.

DHK I think Ute's got you on the 2LOT thing.

 

"You don't mind me using simple language I hope."

Of course not.

"First we don't live in a closed system."

That is right. That is the first thing that most YEers get wrong when discussing the second law. We live in an opne system. We receive a tremendous amount of energy from the sun. That is why it is possible for some things on earth to decrease in entropy while the universal requirement for increasing entropy is met.

"All things tend toward a state a state of degeneration, whether it be a car, house, or even a chemical reaction."

I'll disagree with this. Sometimes such things are favorable and sometimes they are not.

"In any simple chemical reaction heat is lost, thus the increase of entropy."

Well, close. If you consider G=H-TS then you will see that it is Gibbs free energy that tells us if something is favorable. And if you look closely, you will see that reactions that reduce the entropy of a system can be favorable. Now these will still meet the requirement of increasing universal entropy, but the system itself can spontaneously have its entropy reduced.

"What happens when a tree goes up in flame. I am sure you can write the chemical formula for it. The end result is ash and heat. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. It is only changed from one form to another. The tree cannot be used any longer in a useful form any longer. It has been changed to ash and heat. It has degenrated. Entropy has been increases. This is the second law of Thermodynamics. There is no way the opposite is true. The tree is not goint to produce that which is in a better state, but that which is in a worse state."

But, before the tree was burned, it had spent years turning raw materials and undirected energy from the sun into all that stored chemical energy that can be released to turn it into flames and ash. That large local decrease in entropy happens spontaneously and naturally through observable chemical and physical processes. That alone is enough to show that local decreases can happen and that self organization is possible. That is also the place where most YEers start down the wrong path. They mistakenly equate the statistical disorder on a molecular level that is entropy with common concepts of disorder on a macro scale.

Again, quoting from the same text on this aspect of things.

 

But again, this is where the evolutionist contradicts all three laws of science: not only the first and second laws of Thermodynamics, but the law of biogenesis--life only comes from life.

From the little seed of the acorn comes the mighty oak. Life only comes from life. Evolution denies that. Evolution states that somewhere along the line life originated from a conglomeration of gases. That is impossible. Scientists cannot create life. The life that is found in the acorn cannot be duplicated by the scientist. The life that is found in the chicken egg cannot be duplicated by the scientist thought they know exactly what the chemical make-up is. Life only comes from life.
So from the seed grew the tree. The minute the tree starts to grow, the same minute it starts to degenerate. It is subject to the curse of this earth. It will not grow perfectly. It will grow with flaws. A doctor knows through an ultrasound, before a child is even born, whether or not that child is going to be born with a disability. The second law of Thermodynamics is at work as soon as as life is conceived. Evolution goes against both the law of biogenesis and the second LOT, very clearly.
DHK

 

Natural selection is not a thing, it is another word for "natural history."

If evolution is a religion then bald is a hair color.

 

"But again, this is where the evolutionist contradicts all three laws of science: not only the first and second laws of Thermodynamics..."

There is no violation of any laws of entropy here. Look again at the formal statements of the second law. You cannot show me how any proposed step in evolution, say in the descent of man from its common ancestor with the other apes, violates these principles.

"...but the law of biogenesis--life only comes from life."

First, abiogenesis is not a part of the theory of evolution. It is the theory of how life changes. There must be life already existing for it to evolve.

Second, scientists only say that what you are talking about precludes fully formed complex life from springing up. It says nothing about whether organic chemistry can eventually give rise to life.

Third, we have no evidence for abiogenesis and never will. However the first living things got to be on this planet is beyond our ability to discover. This is not a problem for me. God wanted life here. Whether He placed the first life here from nothing or allowed chemistry to do His work, I don't know. I can look at what we do know about His creation and easily conclude that once He allowed that life to be here, all subsequent life developed through common descent from that first life.

"The second law of Thermodynamics is at work as soon as as life is conceived."

Again, you make my point. Though everything is subject to the laws of thermodynamics, that fertilized egg is able to bring together raw materials and form them into a complex human. Through nothing but ordinary chemistry, the local entropy is decreased and a human forms. The entropy of the universe continues to increase. All that evolution requires is that this local decrease last long enough for that baby to reproduce. Yes, thermodynamics will eventually lead to that baby returning to dust. But thermodynamics does not prevent life. If you think that it does, then give me one step in the evolution of man from its common ancestor with the other apes that is prevented by entropy.

"Evolution goes against both the law of biogenesis and the second LOT, very clearly."

Nope. See the above discussion.

I'll add, bringing up abiogenesis is a common way to distract from the fossil record, from the genetic evidence, from biogeography, and from the other lines of evidence for actual evolution. Not to mention astronomy and geography.

 

Actually, evolution says that if a five legged frog mates with a five legged frog-----there will develope a species of frogs with five legs. The fact is that five legged frogs are not likely prone to be better at survival than four legged ones and they are not going to look for other five legged ones-----frogs don't know how to count.

What actually happens is that the "gene pool" is constantly being mixed. Will an elephant living 2000 years ago look exactly like any elephant alive today? NO! Everything varies. Oh sure, one elephant will recognize another as an elephant; however, no two are EXACTLY alike. I resemble my grandfather on my mother's side and yet his ears stuck out and he had a bump on the bridge of his nose. The question that evolutionists cannot answer is when or why cannot one species sire offspring with another. There is a gap and evolutionist cannot bridge it.

 

How interesting that Christians and atheist evolutionists quickly see - and admit - the contradiction between the claims of atheist evolutionism and the Christian Bible statement on origins of life on earth.

How fascinating that this most obvious fact of all - must be ignored by some evolutionists here in an effort to marry atheism's evolutionism to the Christian Gospel that starts with John 1 declaring the Creator Role of Christ.

In Christ,

Bob

 

And sadly - you have not been able to produce that level of objectivity for your argument in defense of evolutionism. Not one creationist source.

Wrong.

Simply wrong at the most basic level of communication UTEOTW! Why do you use such a tactic?

The context is fine - the PROBLEM that you find with my use of your source is that I don't AGREE with their desire to STILL BE ATHEISTS in spite of the problem their OWN statements point out with evolutionism. The "problem you have" with my quote of them - is that I am free to SEE the devastating DETAIL of what they admit we SEE in science and I am not married to a slavish devotion to their "hopefull rationalizing" about what we MIGHT see one day to help correct the problem for evolutionism.

You merely find fault with my lack of devotion to evolutionism when I show its gaffs flaws and blunders. That devotion on your part - does not change the fact "admitted to" by Asimov as being SEEN in real life.

My rejection of their rationalizations in defense of atheism does NOT negate the one FACT of science that they DO correctly identify and that I quote. It is that FACT that I am emphasizing - not their wishful hopeful thinking as faithful devotees of atheism's dogma of evolutionism.

This concept just isn't that hard to get! Why not respond to it instead of continually pretending that you don't get it??

Surely you can not argue that ONLY an atheist can quote an evolutionist will you? And surely you will not argue that ONLY a BELIEVER in evolutionism can be allowed TO SEE the occassional facts of science these sources sometimes bring to light (in spite of themselves. )

Your only response has been to employ revisionist history and to twist the quotes in my post rather than dealing accurately with the details. You pretend that the fact that the atheist evolutionist REMAINS an atheist evolutionist IN SPITE of the science fact exposed - is some kind of "proof" of something scientific.

In fact it is only "proof" about flaws in human nature.

In Christ,

Bob said

</font>[/QUOTE]Actually I quote the salient point of that section that DOES show REAL science support - repeatedly.

What I don't quote is the fact that Asimov "needs to rationalize" in defense of evolutionism IN SPITE of the INCREASED entropy he has just admitted to in the case of all human biological systems.

Notice below how his own hopeful - yet self-contradicting speculation fails to solve the problem.

The "obvious" flaw in that hopeful bit of speculation that we can ALL see - (but UTEOTW has to "pretend" not to understand) - is that in the case of the human biological systems that Asimov ALREADY admitted to be suffering from INCREASED entropy (which was ALL human biological systems according to Asimov) -- the TREMENDOUS ENERGY SOURCE - the Sun - WAS SHINING on them at the time that consistent and ubiquitous INCREASED entropy is being observed in them!

The point is devastating to his thinly veiled, shallow speculative argument in hopeful support of his atheist beliefs in evolutionism.

The question I point out - would have been asked by ANY serious student of science with an ounce of critical thinking still available for the topic of evolutionism.

But alas - such is not "allowed" among evolutionists.

Agreed?

In Christ,

Bob

 

There you go again. Asimov says evolution is consistent with thermodynamics, you say he "implies" it is not. Who knows better what he implies, you or Asimov?

There's something about the thermodynamics of life you don't get, and that is, life actually increases entropy, living things are the very embodiment of increased entropy and are hence favored by the second law of thermodynamics, providing there is a source of useable energy.

 

Evolution is a scientific theory, not a religion, because:

a) Evolution does not contemplate a Diety or a lack of a diety, but simply describes itself as a result of natural law

b) Evolution is proposed strictly on the basis of evidence and stands or falls strictly on the basis of evidence.

c) Evolution is welcomed in the scientific community because of its explanatory power and the way it correlates and organizes a vast body of otherwise unrelated information.

These things have nothing to do with religion and the science of evolution will procede and advance regardless of any religious sideshows taking place along the way.

 

Bob

Where is the citation for your claims about the archy conference? We are all still waiting to see if you can show that you are making an honest claim about what they decided.

Do you really want to play this game? You lose when you do. It has already been shown that you leave out the part of Asimov's quote you don't like and imply, falsly, that he believed something that he actually did not believe.

Let's look at another, shall we? you said about your quotes that

"The context is fine - the PROBLEM that you find with my use of your source is that I don't AGREE with their desire to STILL BE ATHEISTS in spite of the problem their OWN statements point out with evolutionism. The "problem you have" with my quote of them - is that I am free to SEE the devastating DETAIL of what they admit we SEE in science and I am not married to a slavish devotion to their "hopefull rationalizing" about what we MIGHT see one day to help correct the problem for evolutionism."

Hmmm. In this post http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/2589/11.html#000163 you said

Now the full quote is

Now, as you presented the quote, it appeared that SImpson was saying that there is not transistional horse series. When you see the full quote, you then see that Simpson has no problems with the horse series. He is pointing out that the simple pregression that was thought to be true when only a few examples of horse fossil were known was found to be incorrect when a large number of horse fossils were finally unearthed.

Simpson was not saying that there was a problem with the horse sequence. He was arguing against an outdated idea call orthogenesis. This simply said that evolution proceeded in a straight line. A evolves directly to B without any side branches or intermediates. He was attempting to show that this idea was wrong by showing how jerky the horse series was. It was "uniform, continuous transformation" that he was arguing against.

This clearly demonstrates that you quote incorrectly in a manner than tries to make people seem to say things which they did not. It is dishonest. Nothing in the full statement sounds like your claim that they are wishing away some huge problem that they uncovered because they have to because they refuse to believe in God. You have not honestly quoted Simpson.

 

The truly baffling thing here is that Bob will actually have the nerve to turn around and claim that his quotes are correct and do not misrepresent the author's intent.

Then he'll continue to make the same claim over and over about the archy conference without ever once addressing your challenge.

Endless applause for your patience UTE. I'd have gouged my eyes out in frustration by now.

I suppose it's a good thing though. These kinds of dishonest tactics by the YEC crowd are exactly what need to be exposed.

 

Used to be frauds, but not any more.

Considering all the frauds which have been exposed in the world of anthropology and palentology, is it not reasonable to question the veracity of anything dealing with evolution?

Why do we continue to try to make the perfect things of God be forced through the paradigm of imperfect man and his quest for "knowledge" commonly called science?

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Tons and tons of frauds eh? Can you name two?

What exposed them as frauds? Faith? Oh yes, it was science wasn't it?

hmmm

 

"Used to be frauds, but not any more"

Huh? What do you mean? Do you mean that YEers used to be fraudulent but are not any more?

"Considering all the frauds which have been exposed in the world of anthropology and palentology, is it not reasonable to question the veracity of anything dealing with evolution?"

Why don't you name us a handful of things in current use in biology that you consider to be fraudulent.

"Why do we continue to try to make the perfect things of God be forced through the paradigm of imperfect man and his quest for "knowledge" commonly called science?"

Who is forcing anything? Do you consider your believe in a non-geocentric world "forced?" God Himself gave us the relevation in His Creation that we study. God Himself gave us the intellect and the drive to look at the world around us. Are you saying that He erred?

 

Gup20

First, I don't know if you have noticed yet, but I moved your offer to answer my information assertions to a new thread because the moderators seemed to indicate that they did not want the other thread to turn into a debate. It can be found here.

http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/66/21.html?

"This is perhaps one of the biggest lies in evolution."

This is not a lie. As far as the past goes, are you telling me that it is not possible to make any observations about a creature based on its fossil? It must be or else you have made a false statement. In fact we can make observations about a long dead creature from its fossil.

Form indicates function. From this we can learn a lot. For example, in the human ancestors certain features of the bones indicate whether the particular creature walked upright or not. From whale ancestors, we can test the ratios of oxygen isotopes to see which ones were aquatic and which ones were not. Certain features about bones can let you know whether a creature was warm-blooded or not. We can look at growth rates. The teeth will tell us what the creature ate. The amount of wear on the teeth may also indicate age. Studies of the front arms of theropod dinosaurs have shown that they used a certain motion when using those arms to grasp prey. Certain changes are recorded in the bones of these theropods that strengthened this motion. Later, some theropods adopted this very same motion as the powered upstroke in bird flight. So there are things we can observe about the past.

Of more concern for you would be the things we can learn about how the creature died from its fossil. There is a discipline, I think the name is something like taphony but that's not it, that is basically the study of the conditions under which a fossil formed beginning with its death. You have shown in the past that you appeal to the Ken Ham "millions of dead things buried by water" story to expalin the fossils and you accept the Baumgardner flood model and you accept the no predation before the Flood. There are implications.

First the flood model you support also says that the water over the continents flowed at hundreds of feet per second during the flood. This would have destroyed the delicate creatures rather than fossilize them.

Second, many fossils are found in conditions incompatible with being buried by a great flood. For a great example, look at all the bird and dinosaur fossils coming from China that are buried in volcanic ash. I suppose that in the middle of the Flood, with flood layers underneath, this whole ecosystem had not noticed that it was underwater and then got buried intact by ash which was then covered in more flood deposits. Sounds iffy. Other examples are just as incompatible even if they are more subtle. Many fossils are indded buried in water born sediment. But this can take many forms. For example, some fossils are found in very fine silt which can only settle out in extremely still water. This is not compatible with the flood model you endorse.

Finally, there is another aspect of the act of fossilization. Many fossils show evidence of the act of death itself. Many bones are found with actual bite marks or punctures or crushed bones from the predator that killed them. This goes against the no predation theory. Other fossils show evidence of scavenging. So I am expected to believe that while the flood was raging, some animals managed to hunt and kill other animals, dispite the lack of predation at the time, and even more amazingly, that some animals, after being killed by the flood, were then scavenged by other animals, again in violation of the no meat eating rules at the time.

We also have other means of making observations. For example I can take DNA from a whale, a dolphin, a hippo, a deer, and a pig and test them (along with some unrelated animals for control) genetically to see if the genetics agrees with the fossil record. In this case, it has been done and confirms the fossil record. And before you go running to your common designer (although, I must ask just why you would expect a whale to share DNA with a deer since you ususally assert that similar animals should have similar DNA) it was retroviral DNA inserts that were used. This is in the present.

Another example would be vestigals. Sticking with the whales, there are some pretty amazing vestiges to explain without evolution. Instead of going the normal route, such as the remains of legs, I am going to take a different route. The cetaceans contain scores of vestigal olfactory genes in their genome. They have all been rendered useless through mutation. Just why would a designer, if making one of the whale "kinds" (Whatever that may be. You AIG link suggested it should be at the taxomic level of "family" which puts humans in the same "kind" as chimps and bonobos and maybe gorillas. I cannot rememebr.) from scratch, would include genes for a sense of smell which the animal could never use. Common descent handles this well. Do you have a recently created kinds reason that whales should have genetic vestiges of a sense of smell?

Since YEers roll all science they disagree with into evolution, let's take one more example. Astronomy. The universe is incredibly large and light has a finite speed. Therefore when we look out into space we are making direct observations of the past. And astronomy yields a billions of years history for the universe made possible by direct observation in the present.

"In fact, no one was there at the beginning of creation. No one was there to observe it."

This has no bearing on evolution. As shown, we can make observation about how it happens and it happened.

"Therefore, the uniformitarian worldview is invalid in determining pre-fall conditions."

Again, uniformitarianism is a geological concept that has no bearing on biology. Furthermore, you do not give us reason to believe that a physical process today would be expected to have a different result than a physical process in the past.

"Here, the Bible compares the wearing out that happens to a garment with the biological systems in the earth - stating that they wax old wearing out, not evolving into something better."

You honestly believe that that verse was intended as a statement about the second law of thermodynamics. Really? REALLY??? After all you talk about how we should let the Bible speak for itself and should look for what was the intended meaning you want us to believe that a description of thermodynamics was the intent of this verse. You really will twist anyhting you can to fit your brand of exegesis won't you.

Now, looking above at the statements given of the second law of thermodynamics from a textbook on the subject, tell us what step in the evolution of man from its common ancestor with the other apes violoates the second law and how. Show your work!

"Natual Selection is the only known possible mechanism for creating all the life on earth - according to evolution. However, natural selection is a blind killer - not a creator."

No there are others. Sexual selection for one. Mass extinctions for another. But, as shown above, life seems to fit better a design from tinkering rather than a recent, intelligent design. See the whale vestigal olfactory genes for an example.

"Evolution is the equivalent to stating that a car evolved on it's own naturally without any human intervention or design."

Nope. A car shows a distinctly different set of optimizations and tradeoffs than what is seen in life.

"You see... there was this giant magnetic explosion, and metal molecules started gathering together..."

As I have said before, you really need to either stop attempting to argue by analogy (which may be fallacious to begin with) or should at least come up with analogies that have a bearing on the topic.

BTW, looking forward to the information thread answer. You may want to address a few of the other threads in the Science section. They are looking awfully bare without any young earth answers. Of course I think that it is because young earthers have no logical, empirical answers.

 

Indeed they are. What is amazing is that UTEOTW just admited as much in his post that I just responded to -- and yet you seem to be at a loss to either PROVIDE a quote or post from me and SHOW where the quote is NOT an EXACT QUOTE of Asimov when I quote him.

Why would you simply level charges without any evidence at all?? Simple - evolutionism demands such tactics. It is after all junk-science.

You seem to be living in a factless void anyway - I am not sure that you would experience much of a change after such an act on your part.

Your "tactic" of charging WITHOUT a quote at all to base it on - is pretty much the daily-standard for evolutionism eh?

I congratulate your consistent devotion to that religion. But I urge you to consider truth and light instead.

In Christ,

Bob