Posted on 12/28/2005 3:01:53 PM PST by johnnyb_61820
... the idea that the four fundamental forces of physics alone could rearrange the fundamental particles of nature into spaceships, nuclear power plants, and computers, connected to laser printers, CRTs, keyboards and the Internet, appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics in a spectacular way.
Anyone who has made such an argument is familiar with the standard reply: the Earth is an open system, it receives energy from the sun, and order can increase in an open system, as long as it is "compensated" somehow by a comparable or greater decrease outside the system. S. Angrist and L. Hepler, for example, in "Order and Chaos", write, "In a certain sense the development of civilization may appear contradictory to the second law.... Even though society can effect local reductions in entropy, the general and universal trend of entropy increase easily swamps the anomalous but important efforts of civilized man. Each localized, man-made or machine-made entropy decrease is accompanied by a greater increase in entropy of the surroundings, thereby maintaining the required increase in total entropy."
According to this reasoning, then, the second law does not prevent scrap metal from reorganizing itself into a computer in one room, as long as two computers in the next room are rusting into scrap metal -- and the door is open. In Appendix D of my new book, The Numerical Solution of Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations, second edition, I take a closer look at the equation for entropy change, which applies not only to thermal entropy but also to the entropy associated with anything else that diffuses, and show that it does not simply say that order cannot increase in a closed system. It also says that in an open system, order cannot increase faster than it is imported through the boundary. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
I have both a BS and MS in Science.
My particular field is Computer Science.
I used to believe in classial evolution.
It is, however, a theory that one must take on "faith" rather than "factual supposition".
Take for example, a computer program. Let's say I let you start in a high level language (C or Fortran). This is equivalent to DNA at the gene level - that is, each C or Fortran statement does "work" and performs a function, rather than be a meaningless garble of characters - which is what level evolution must operate at.
How long do you suppose it would be before I could randomly generate even a simple useful program? One whose complexity is one billionth that of a living, reproducing, intelligent lifeform?
Why can't man, with all his 21st Century wisdom, create anything from scratch that can 1) reproduce and 2) feed itself and 3) be smart enough to survive?
So I can even let you DESIGN your lifeform - can you do it?
and it all happened, and coincidentally in just the way that the first life could 1) reproduce 2) eat 3) avoid death (intelligence).
Yeah....right.
Agreed.
Next, I expect we will be reading he's been appointed Presidential Science Advisor...
Agreed, applying thermodynamics to agrue the case for or against evolution is the biggest straw man a person can make. Mr. Sewell needs to take a break from the algebra and visit a book on logic.
Wrong! Since all the evidence points to complexity more than 40 orders of magnitude beyond what statistically can be expected to occur within a couple of billion years, your assertion that it was done without a creator is radical speculation on a level far above what is attributable to the average 'Area 51' freak.
It was magnanamous of you to offer your criticism of Prof. Sewell's math, since he has done only a mere two PhD's in math.
Leave some salt or sugar water out in the sun. You'll end up with crystals which are more complex than their structure in solution.
...look at Katrina at Cat 5 - organized Spiral Bands, symmetrical, with a perfectly round and clear eye. That was accomplished through solar energy, ...
Yes.
with no intelligent designer at all.
This last part is a non-sequitar. How can you know there was "no intelligent designer at all."
Ahem, that deterioration is something becoming more complex. These things do have strict definitions you know, though I will grant that requires opening a math book.
I hate it when this happens.... (that ominous extended period of silence)
bttt
OK. How about Legos covered in photovoltaic voltage cells?
Yep. THAT oughta do it!
This issue is not going away.
What you will see over time is that more Religious scientists, agnostic scientists, and even athiest scientists will throw up their hands and admit, either enthusiastically or grudgingly that the theory is broken.
If and only if the probability distribution is isotropic or nearly isotropic.
Unfortunately, out here in the real world, the probability distribution is extremely anisotropic which makes the applicability of a model based on isotropic probability distributions pretty questionable. The probability distribution of the molecular conformation phase space is extremely biased and irregular, though many creationists/ID-ists pretend otherwise for the sake of their argument.
If the probability distribution was not highly irregular, industrial chemical synthesis would not be possible.
It's not uncommon for pregnant women to talk to themselves. However, writing to themselves is a bit more...ummmm....different. Trust your Christmas was Happy!
Francis X.
Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
Don't bring a math professor to a thermodynamics debate.
bump for later
Another ID debate I would love to contribute to but cannot for other things are in demand right now and through the weekend.
Thanks for the ping.
Good idea. Legos evolving and growing photo cells. A perfect example of Darwinian evolution.
Humph. Very happy - and I hope yours was the same. We have extracted Patrick from diapers (with mixed results, thus far), and are still waiting for the Tooth Ferry to get here with James' new teeth.
Tomorrow when I feel more energetic, I'll probably go to the source and print this article out.
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