Evolution - Who wants to KNOW?

I've read it three times!
There was no evidence for "The Origin of the Species" in the book, which the title proudly boasts. This is why the school of Neo-Darwinism was formed in recent decades. They knew that Darwin didn't find it, and so they've continued to look for it ever since.

Anyhow, getting back to Joe's comments on The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Here is my first comment:


The two laws of thermodynamics are the most universally applicable and impregnably confirmed of all laws of science. In effect, they specify conservation in quantity and tendency to decline in quality, and so provide what seems to be an impregnable barrier to “upward” evolution (macroevolution). Although evolutionists have tried various ways of getting around this barrier, the fact remains that no case of true upward evolution has ever been observed to occur, nor has any proposed mechanism of evolution ever been found workable, and the thermodynamic barrier provides a good explanation as to why not.

Some quotations coming up, from one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th Century...

How do you define up? What is "upwards evolution"

The abuse of the Second Law of Thermodynamics really bothers me. Evolution is outside of my area of expertise. For this reason I often let experts answer detailed questions about the details, although I am a pretty well informed and interested layman.

My field is Physics, and the Second law of Thermodynamics is exactly in my area of expertise.

There is nothing in the Second Law of Thermondynamic that contradicts evolution-- absolutely nothing.

The Second Law says that entropy can not decrease in a closed system.

First of all (as noted above) entropy does not mean "disorder". Entropy is a mathematical value. To compare this with the non-mathematical subjective word "disorder" is a bit helpful for a layman's understanding. But if you want to understand Entropy, you need to take the time to learn about the PDE involved. Anyone can understand if they study it, but you can't understand this without taking the time to learn the math.

Second of all, the term "in a closed system" is very important (which is why we put it there). There are all kinds of simple examples from ice to rock formations to flowers, where entropy decreases locally. The Second Law just says that these processes involve a transfer of energy from another process that must iinvolve an increase in entropy at least as great as any local decrease.

We consider the Universe a closed system-- for all intents and purposes for any discussion of evolution, the Earth and Sun together consitute a closed system. The Earth can not be considered a closed system by itself because the Earth gets a whole bunch of energy from the Sun.

So one thing you can certainly deduce from the Second Law of Thermodynamics is that evolution could not have taken place without the Sun.

But that's it.

If you use Physics terms with no understanding of the ideas behind them to support a flawed argument -- you are going to make me angry.

Please, let's not go there.

We need to go there if bib is to make any progress.

And you know what happens when you do that:


"Physics mistake make Hulk ANGRY!!!"

THERMODYNAMICS - What evolutionists have stated.

QUOTATION#10

Isaac Asimov, “In the Game of Energy and Thermodynamics You Can’t Even Break Even,” Smithsonian Institute Journal (June 1970), pp. 4-10.

p. 6
“To express all this, we can say: ‘Energy can be transferred from one place to another, or transformed from one form to another, but it can be neither created nor destroyed.’ Or we can put it another way: ‘The total quantity of energy in the universe is constant.’
“ This law is considered the most powerful and most fundamental generalization about the universe that scientists have ever been able to make.
“No one knows why energy is conserved, and no one can be completely sure it is truly conserved everywhere in the universe and under all conditions. All that anyone can say is that in over a century and a quarter of careful measurement, scientists have never been able to point to a definite violation of energy conservation, either in the familiar everyday surroundings about us, or in the heavens above or in the atoms within.”

p. 8
“We can say: ‘No device can deliver work unless there is a difference in energy concentration within the system, no matter how much total energy is used.’
“That is one way 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 is involved in showing the equivalence.”

pp. 10-11
“Another way of stating the Second Law, then, is: ‘The universe is constantly getting more disorderly.’
“Viewed that way, we can see the Second Law all about us. We have to work hard to straighten a room, but left to itself, it becomes a mess again very quickly and very easily. Even if we never enter it, it becomes dusty and musty. How difficult to maintain houses, and machinery, and our own bodies in perfect working order; how easy to let them deteriorate. In fact, all we have to do is nothing, and everything deteriorates, collapses, breaks down, wears out, all by itself—and that is what the Second Law is all about.

“You can argue, of course, that the phenomenon of life may be an exception. Life on earth has steadily grown more complex, more versatile, more elaborate, more orderly, over the billions of years of the planet’s existence. From no life at all, living molecules were developed, then living cells, then living conglomerates of cells, worms, vertebrates, mammals, finally Man. And in Man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe. How could the human brain develop out of the primeval slime? How could that vast increase in order (and therefore that vast decrease of entropy) have taken place?

“The answer is it could not have taken place without a tremendous source of energy constantly bathing the earth, for it is on that energy that life subsists. Remove the sun, and the human brain would not have developed—or the primeval slime, either. And in the billions of years it took for the human brain to develop, the increase in entropy that took place in the sun was far greater than the decrease that is represented by the evolution required to develop the human brain.
“But where did it all start? If the universe is running down into utter disorder, what made it orderly to begin with? Where did the order come from that it is steadily losing? What set up the extremes that are steadily being chipped away?
“Scientists are still arguing the point. Some think the universe originally had its matter and energy all smashed together into one huge ‘cosmic egg’—a situation something like a tremendous deck of cards all arranged in order. The cosmic egg exploded, and ever since, for billions of years, the universe has been running down; the deck of cards is being shuffled and shuffled and shuffled.

“Others think that there is some process in the universe that spontaneously decreases entropy, some natural process that unshuffles and reorders the cards. We don’t know what it can be, perhaps because it takes place under conditions we cannot observe and cannot duplicate in the laboratory—say in the center of exploding galaxies. Perhaps, in that case, as some parts of the universe run down, others build up.
“Then again, it may be that once the universe runs down, the random collisions of particles may—after some unimaginable span of years—just happen to bring about an at-least-partial unshuffling. After all, if you shuffle and reshuffle cards ceaselessly for a trillion years, you may violate the Second Law and end up with an arrangement possessing at least some order, just by the laws of chance.

All the previous posts are gobbly gook. Here's the final say on evolution.

The Southern Association of Professional Engineers are sick and tired of
hearing about how dumb people are in the South. We challenge any
so-called smart Yankees to take this exam administered by the SAPE.
1. Calculate the smallest limb diameter on a persimmon tree that will
support a 10-pound possum.

2. Which of these cars will rust out the quickest when placed on blocks
in our front yard? a '65 Ford Fairlane, '69 Chevy. Chevelle, or a '64
Pontiac GTO?

3. If your uncle builds a still which operates at capacity of 20 gallons
of shine produced per hour, how many car radiators are required to
condense the product?

4. A woodcutter has a chainsaw which operates at 2700 RPM. The density
of the pine trees in the plot to be harvested is 470 per acre. The plot
is 2.3 acres in size. The average tree diameter is 14 inches. How many
Budweisers will be consumed before the trees are cut down?

5. If every old refrigerator in the South vented a charge of R-12
simultaneously, what would be the percentage decrease in the ozone
layer?

6. A front porch is constructed of 2x8 pine on 24 inch centers with a
field rock foundation. The span is 8 feet and the porch length is 16
feet. The porch floor is 1 inch rough sawn pine. When the porch
collapses, how many hound dogs will be killed?

7. A man owns a house and 3. 7 acres of land in a hollow with an average
slope of 15%. The man has five children. Can each of his grown
children place a mobile home on the man's land and still have enough
property for their electric appliances to sit out front?

8. A 2-ton truck is overloaded and proceeding 900 yards down a steep
slope on a secondary road at 45mph. The brakes fail. Given average
traffic conditions on secondary roads what is the probability that it
will strike a vehicle with a muffler?

9. A coal mine operated a NFPA Class I, Division 2 Hazardous Area. The
mine employs 200 miners per shift. A gas warning is issued at the
beginning of the 3rd shift. How many cartons of unfiltered Camels will
be smoked during the 3rd shift?

10. At a reduction in the gene pool variability rate of 7.5% per
generation, how long will it take a town which has been bypassed by the
Interstate to breed a country-western singer?

How are these quotes supposed to hurt evolution?

THERMODYNAMICS - What evolutionists have stated.


QUOTATION#11

Isaac Asimov, “Can Decreasing Entropy Exist in the Universe?” Science Digest, vol. 73 (May 1973), pp. 76-77.

p. 76
“As far as we know, all changes are in the direction of increasing entropy, of increasing disorder, of increasing randomness, of running down. Yet the universe was once in a position from which it could run down for trillions of years. How did it get into that position?
“I can think of three possible answers, all of which are only speculations.

“1) Somewhere, there may be changes under unusual conditions that we can’t as yet study, in the direction of decreasing entropy.

“2) It may be that through sheer random movement, a certain amount of energy concentration is piled into part of the universe. By random motion, a certain amount of order is produced once more.”

p. 77
“3) The universe may be running down as it expands and then winding up again as it contracts, and it may be doing this over and over through all eternity.”

Einherjar, Ya just need a little humour to understand...

I was replying to bib.

The title of this thread is: "Evolution - who wants to KNOW?"

Einherjar: I think you've lost sight of the purpose of this discussion topic. You're too much on the defensive, and suspicious that it's a "have-a-go-at-em" thread.

Read again my first post as to the nature of this thread, thanks, Bib.

Bib, do you read your own posts?

Mr Asimov happened to say the exact same thing I did (right after the part you made a different color). It seems you are reading only paragraphs that you think support your point of view, and not anything that doesn't...



You should listen to Mr. Asimov, instead of picking paragraphs at random that don't even make your point.

He seems to understand the Second Law better than you do.

Here is a quotation especially for ebrown and Einherjar (...thinking of you guys...aaaah):

THERMODYNAMICS - What evolutionists have stated.


QUOTATION#12

Harold F. Blum, “Perspectives in Evolution,” American Scientist, vol. 43 (October 1955), pp. 595-610.

pp. 595-6
“A major consequence of the second law of thermodynamics is that all real processes go toward a condition of greater probability. The probability function generally used in thermodynamics is entropy. Thus orderliness is associated with low entropy; randomness with high entropy. The second law of thermodynamics says that left to itself any isolated system will go toward greater entropy, which also means toward greater randomness and greater likelihood.”

Bib has a PhD in selective resources. When he said he read The Origin of Species three times, I knew it right away.

THERMODYNAMICS - What evolutionists have stated.


QUOTATION#13

Stephen W. Hawking, “The Direction of Time,” New Scientist, vol. 115 (July 9, 1987), pp. 45-49.

p. 45
“There are at least three different arrows of time. First, there is the thermodynamic arrow of time, the direction of time in which disorder or entropy increases. Then, there is the psychological arrow of time. This is the direction in which we feel time passes, the direction in which we remember the past but not the future. Finally, there is the cosmological arrow of time. This is the direction of time in which the universe is expanding rather than contracting.”

p. 47
“Why should the Universe be in a state of high order at one end of time, the end that we call the past? Why is it not in a state of complete disorder at all times? After all, this might seem more probable. And why is the direction of time in which disorder increases the same as that in which the Universe expands? One possible view is that God simply chose that the Universe should be in a smooth and ordered state at the beginning of the expansion phase. We should not try to understand why, or question His reasons because the beginning of the Universe was the work of God. But the whole history of the Universe could be said to be the work of God. It appears that the Universe evolves according to well defined laws. These laws may, or may not, be ordained by God, but it seems that we can discover and understand them. Is it therefore, unreasonable to hope that the same or similar laws may also hold at the beginning of the Universe?”

Bib,

Do you read your own posts?

This last one says "isolated system".

Mr. Asimov, Mr Blum and I are all in agreement.

There would be no evolution if there weren't a Sun.

What is your point?

Please read post #1055671, the one just before you made the above comment.

What about it.

Mr. Blum, Mr. Hawking, Mr. Asimov and I (BTW I like being in such good company) are all saying the same thing.

Entropy never decreases in a closed system.

The Earth is not a closed system-- not even close since it gets huge amounts of energy from the Sun.

Hawking was asking interesting questions about the beginning of the Universe. These questions are based on conjecture-- but they are not really questions of evolution since all of us (including Hawking et. al.) believe the Universe was formed some 10 billion years before the Earth existed even as a barren ball of rocks.

But on evolution we all agree, without the Sun, evolution would not happen.

But we have a Sun, so what's your point?