Evolution - Who wants to KNOW?

The following Professor has this to say:

THERMODYNAMICS - What evolutionists have stated.


QUOTATION#14

A. B. Pippard, Elements of Chemical Thermodynamics for Advanced Students of Physics (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1966). Pippard, Ph.D., F.R.S., was Professor of Physics at Cambridge.

p. 100
“There is thus no justification for the view, often glibly repeated, that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is only statistically true, in the sense that microscopic violations repeatedly occur, but never violations of any serious magnitude. On the contrary no evidence has ever been presented that the Second Law breaks down under any circumstances, and even the entropy law appears to have an almost universal validity, except in such futile experiments as we have discussed above, the removal and reapplication of constraints.”

According to bib there is no point, s/he is just throwing a lot of quotes around with no agenda at all. S/he seems to be picking all the parts creationists are having problems with though.

How does ebrown's statement compare with the following:


THERMODYNAMICS - What evolutionists have stated.


QUOTATION#15

John Ross, “2nd Law of Thermodynamics,” Chemical and Engineering News, vol. 58 (July 7, 1980), p. 40. Ross was at Harvard University.

p. 40
“ 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.”

The second law of thermodynamics is also the law of increasing entropy or increasing probability. There is always a tendency, even in open systems, for the available energy of the system to be decreased, for the organized complexity of the system to become disorganized, or for its information content to be lowered. In fact, all three of these tendencies are effectively equivalent to each other, and all are directly opposed to vertically upward evolution (macroevolution).


THERMODYNAMICS - What evolutionists have stated.


QUOTATION#16

Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), 347 pp. Dr. Capra is Director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, in Berkeley, California.

p. 89
“In classical thermodynamics the dissipation of energy in heat transfer, friction, and the like was always associated with waste. Prigogine’s concept of a dissipative structure introduced a radical change in this view by showing that in open systems dissipation becomes a source of order.”

p. 228
“It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful and only very few result in useful variations.”

Since im a bit at a disadvantage re: your posts. Ive not read your NINE QUOTES , I did go back to one tthat basically agrees with modern research . Since DNA genomic research has less than a decade of really importantt finds for evolution mechanisms, posting from 1978 gives a "historical context" but no substance, "we know much more today than we did almost 30 years ago"

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

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

Bibliophile,

It would help me understand why you are linking thermodynamics and evolution if you answered the above question from ebrown.

What are you arguing, Bib.

Are you saying that scientists are idiots?
Are you saying the 2nd law of Thermodynamics is incorrect?
Are you claiming that my understanding of Physics is somehow flawed?

It is amazing is that you aren't even posting complete sentences any more.

I would argue that scientists are not idiots, the the 2nd law of thermodynamics is correct and that my years spent studying physics gives me a pretty good grasp of the science -- but I don't see the point.

I would argue these things, but what is your point. How does any one of these questions have anything to do with Evolution?

Do you understand that taking random parts of sentences from complete scientific articles doesn't say anything? You can't even understand the point of view of the author with a paragraph here and a paragraph there.

This is just silly.

Ihate to sandbag you there Bib, but your quotes are off the mark. first, there are easily way more cells than that in a single chromosome of a single celled animal . Second, the author has no understanding of how genomic structure works. Thats not surprising since most findings are occuring weekly , not over years
BUTinstead,Lets go back to the source of the Thermo argument, lord Kelvin himself. Kelvin had a historically entertaining argument witth Lyell, Hutton, Darwin and Huxley. His Accumulated disorder concept gave him an estimate of total ancient time of about 100 million years.lotsa life can evolve in that time darwins only problem was with the time alloted. He felt that natural selection worked much more slowly, and not having the advantages of understanding the genome, he felt tthat everytthing of groups of animals over an Order, were essentially 'starting from scratch" when we now know tthat the temporal distance between a man and a mouse (genomically) is only about 10 m illion years. GENES DONT DESTRUCT< THEY CONTINUE ON AS THE NEXT HIGHER ORDER APPEARS> Thats why we have or geenome 25% the same as a mouse and 97% with a chimp. We can mathematically reconstruct the time of evolution (meanwhile youre trying to discuss why it cant happen)
there is little use in the persistence of invoking Kelvin, other than its a historical donnybrook thatshould be required reading for a few Creation "scientists" who dont give a damn about the history of science.
the energy budgeet of the planet is fairly constant. Many scientists have stated that metamorphism was more active in the Paleozoic and therefore ta daaa, proof that Kelvin had a point. Well, deeep drilling, moo seismic work, and mantle seismicitty shows us that its just as active a mechanism today.We measure natural carbon as an example.

Forgive me but I have not read all posts and my comments may have already been voiced.

That said, in the scientific sense of evolution narrowly focused on the development of life, we must keep some things in mind.

It has already been rightly pointed out that those who would eschew Darwinian concepts of evolution, for some reason, like to use the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics to disprove Darwin's theory by natural fiat. This would seem an attempt to disprove the science of biology with the science of physics. Nice trick if you can do it, after all how can scientists propose an increase in complexity while supporting the very law that forbids it? .However, this usually demonstrates only a partial understanding of the law in question. The caveat of the "closed system" is unintentionally or conveniently left out in their haste to supply other explanations for the increased complexity of biologic organisms.

The second is the school of thought that evolution is a striving purposeful process bent on creating the perfect biologic unit (Read: Humans). This concept's dependency on purpose or intent tends to mislead many who then fall into philosophical side bars in a further quest for the meaning of all life, why we were "created", etc.

Evolution is merely the way of the world. All the organisms that are alive today can merely claim that they are the descendants of those who were able to reproduce...that's it. None are better than those that have gone before or their future prodigy. There is no "Invisible Guiding Hand" working towards an ultimate perfect being. Some may be better adapted than others but there is little advantage to those individual's "selfish genes" if they do not get reproduced generation after generation. Evolution works in the here and now and not with any forward looking insight towards a goal of perfection. The finch with today's strong grain cracking beak has no place in the future where that grain no longer exists but is now replaced by flowers with deep stems at the end of which lies life giving nectar. However, that which presently has a beak long enough that will suffice will survive.

Evolution, biologically speaking, is on going random changes subjected to current conditions on a constant basis over very long periods of time with no guarantee of a final product. Envision space aliens taking two photographic snapshots of earth. The first is taken on year "one" with no life on earth. They then leave and travel back home to examine their photo. A specific amount of time passes ("Billions and Billions" of years) that we shall call "N". During N we see the appearance and development of the chemistry of life to the point of super-intelligent carbon based units then the earth looses its magnetic field and is bombarded by solar radiation which sterilizes it. The aliens come back at time = One + N and take another snapshot and find no surprises just the same barren landscape shown in the original photo. That's evolution too. Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer chances--no guarantees baby!

JM

Wow Bib, you've been busy. I applaud your ability to generate discussion, which is what these forums are for, but your preference seems to be discussion for discussions sake, and your latest series of posts are just a rehash of creationist rhetoric which has been dealt with many times before.

To make matters worse, I'm not even convinced that you're a real creationist-believer yourself, so it's not even very satisfying to try to "set you straight"

Maybe if you could convince us that you're a true believer, then we could get some real satisfaction out of bashing your misguided, selectively misleading and non-sensical interpretations of scientific theory.

Do you really believe that the SLT proves that Biological Evolution could not have happened? If all the evidence we see for Evolution is flawed or misinterpreted, then maybe this thread would be more fun if you tell us what it was that did leave such a spectacular trail of evidence (graven into every scrap of reality we see around us).

Not true, entropy often decreases in open systems.

Care to quote the context bib? I would like to know which mutations we are talking about.

farmerman has brought up a very important point that Darwin recognized as problematic regarding his theory. If life complexity builds upon itself, according to his theory, and individuals, who are the depository of evolutionary changes, die, where lays the storage depot for all the accumulated expositions to the environment? Where are these building blocks? The discovery of genetics he was unaware of but that discovery bolstered his theory by providing the required depository. Darwin knew something was going on. Cross a black dog with a white dog and you don't consistently get a grey one. Also, the offspring of two adults with average intelligence produce a genius...what's the deal with that? Darwin was much less sure of his theory then science is today. He thought he knew what was happening but couldn't back it up totally with a rational explanation--a worrying position for any true scientist.

JM

Quote, "It has been estimated that those chance errors occur at a rate of about one per several hundred million cells in each generation. This frequency does not seem to be sufficient to explain the evolution of the great diversity of life forms, given the well-known fact that most mutations are harmful and only very few result in useful variations."

Bib not only has selective reading, but selective interpretation. Claims to have read Origin of Species three times, but doesn't come up with the same conclusions with the majority of people that have read the same book - including most of the respected scientists of today. It's true that Charles Darwin was mistaken in some of his conclusions, but most of the others have been replicated and proven with current science.

CI: Behave yourself, or I'll unleash the Leprechaun!

What I don't get is how an allele is dominant and recessive. Is there a special pattern or something that makes them more apparent than the other?

Quote, "Science, by definition, limits itself to what can be observed, measured and verified. It is an appropriate tool for answering certain types of questions, but an inappropriate method for answering others."

When in a pair of chromosomes two different genes controlling say eyecollor exists, the dominant overrules the recessive one.

I thought I'd provide Bib with an example of the second law of thermodynamics not applying to open systems. In the settup above salt is dissolved in water. This is a state of relatively high enthropy. Applying heat to the water however, and providing a cool surface for vapor to condense, we can sepparate the salt from the water.



Now in the open system the water has been sepparated from the salt, and the salt has chrystalised. Enthropy has decreased significantly. In the closed system also incorporating the imediate surroundings of the box however temperatures have equalised resulting in a total increase in enthropy. The second law of thermodynamics holds for closed systems, it does not hold for open ones.

Ein: Define a "Closed System?"