Do the doctrines of evolutionism protect the Bible?

What specifically in the evolution of life on earth is prevented by entropy?

I have answered you question many times. Feel free to read back through the threads to see what all I have said on the subject.

I read back through to try and figure out what you are getting at on entropy. Since I thought I had it figured out, showed you many lines of evidence to prove empirically that the things you say are not allowed actually have happened, and still find you arguing entropy, I guess I do not know your point.

What about evolution, specifically and technically, is prevented by entropy?

 

Bob

You said ""The evolutionist needs to pretend that there is no connection between biological systems and entropy. No connection between mythical self-ordering systems that aggregate and assimilate new genetic information over time - and entropy."

I then went out and showed you multiple lines of evidence to indicate that new genetic information HAS been assimilated and put to use over time.

So, what specifically and in technical temrs does entropy prevent evolution from doing? A straight answer will be fine. One or two sentences.

 

I'm curious: what are the quotation marks in your posts intended to indicate? At first I thought you were quoting me (that's generally what I use quotation marks for), but of course I never said the things you put in quotation marks, so the straw man appears to be of your own making.

No, I didn't say that either. I merely consider populations of life forms to have the EXISTING God-given capability of evolving (through mutations, both beneficial and benign), and so, as you say, there is no reason why this ability should instantly fail, and entropy in no way precludes it.

 

"You know UTEOTW - I am actually enjoying this."

You're right. This is fun. Take the few places where you state a definate consequence, show empirically and conclusively that your conclusion is wrong, and then listen to the silence when you are asked to give a concise statement of what you now think is prevented in evolution by entropy.

 

Again a manifest misunderstanding. Worth noting, because it is typical of most creationist misunderstanding of science.

When a living creature grows and forms, it is a perfect example of a LOCAL decrease in entropy, because a high degree of order is imposed on matter that was otherwise more disorganized.

Note how BR neglects to use the word "local" in the part about decrease in entropy. Yet every reader of these posts is an example of matter that has been gathered from a disorganized form and made more orderly. You did this by creating messiness and heat loss (higher entropy) in the environment around you. This was accomplished by the engines within your biological cells that worked this "miracle" of every day life.

Asimov stated that life follows the law of increasing entropy; it does; but the increasing entropy is temporarily for a while pushed out of of the organism into the environment. Eventually enough entropy accumulates in every individual living organism so that it dies. But the next generation carries on.

Did I say pocket of gas? That is from your own imagination. If you want to know the actual incredible but true sink for the excess entropy generated by life and other processes on earth, it is shed from earth as infrared radiation off into space. And that is perfectly good science in spite of your inability to understand what thermodynamic science is all about.

Readers, BobRyan's problem is that he takes mere words as slogans (Quoting Asimov in this case) without bothering to understand the deeper insights necessary to understand the words.

Beware of theology based on that kind of reasoning. That kind of reasoning will lead people to declare playing with cards is a sin, watching movies is a sin, swimming with boys and girls in the same swimming pool is a sin, - and you know I'm not making this stuff up. You all know people who have said that was so.

That's slogan reasoning for you, which is what BobRyan is trying to apply to science.

 

"So you "show" an entire family of genes mutating into a new set of genes in the lab?"

Nope. I show that a SINGLE gene was duplicated and then mutated into a whole family of genes that do various functions. I guess you haven't tried to address the specifics of the claim because you cannot find anything on homologs at AIG.

You objections here have become laughable. You cannot show that your assertions have any actual consequences and you cannot disprove the multiple lines of evidence presented to you from a variety of posters. The only explanation is that you refuse to see the truth when presented to you.

The fact is that entropy is constantly increasing. However, life has a way of using the resourses at its disposible. As has been pointed out to you by many people, you gloss over the fact that local decreases in entropy are allowed so long as the total entropy increases. Life manages to pull together raw materials and shape them into useful products that allow the organism to live for a while. Eventually, that organism loses its battle and dies, but hopefully it has reproduced in the mean time. And another creature goes through the cycle of life. Sometimes, in the course of the process of reproduction, a bit of the information carrying chemicals have a copying error. Sometimes this error kills the offspring and does not get passed on. Sometimes this error is harmful and makes the offspring less likely to survive to pass on the change. Sometimes the change is helpful and makes it more likely that the offspring will pass on its genes. All of this takes place in the context of entropy and the rest of thermodynamics. And it works quite well, thank you.

"When will Bob start pretending these details don't exist?"

I don't know. When will you stop pretending that your claims have not been answered? Multiple lines of evidence to show new "information" has been presented to you.

"Notice that the molecule to bat ordering of matter and energy DOES require "a VAST DECREASE in entropy" according to YOUR OWN quote of Asimov? Yet? Care to "respond" to the point? Yet?"

Why the "yet?" This has been answered many times. Life reduces local entropy all the time by taking raw materials and putting it together as complex and useful chemicals. This IS a vast decrease in entropy. And, by the laws of thermodynamics, it is accompanied by an even greater increase in the entropy of the universe.

"Still pretending that molecule-to-brain is an example of "disorder"? Asimov states the opposite."

Nope. That brain is much more ordered than the raw materials that went into making it. It is a local decrease in entropy. I am curious though how you think either of us was actually able to grow a brain if this is such a problem?

"And in so "claiming" you argue that there is just as much "disorder" in going from molecule to man as there is in going from man to dust. That we find these two sequences to be equally likely in the lab and that both demonstrate the decay and disordering of matter biology and energy states"

You are equivocating two things which are not equal. Have you any reason to actually believe that the chemistry for a good mutation is different than that of a bad one? No! Hmmmm.

"Your argument is "consistently" that entropy woud have to have some kind of "intelligence" to know not to allow a molecule to bat self-ordering of matter and energy for it is "just as likely" as water evaporating in dry air."

Know. YOU are arguingthat somehow entropy has this intelligence. I say the two are equally likely. YOU say that only the bad mutations are allowed. Are you sure you understand entropy? The evaporation of water would lead to an INCREASE in the entropy of the water. Condensation would lead to a decrease. Oh no! Another system showing a spontaneous decrease in local entropy!

"Notice that you still "claim" this upward "creation" of brand new "families of genes" - this self ordering of molecule to bat - is what? "Disorder"? "

I merely show that it has happened in contrary to your assertions that it cannot happen.

"Excuse me! Did you just make the atheist evolutionist argument "Evolutionism is highly unlikely but WE ARE here so it must have happened"??"

No. I made the argument that I am an example of a large local decrease in entropy.

"Now you "know" I am going to be saving that quote - and placing it opposite this one..."Observing" UTEOTWs claim to the contrary - is left as a simple exercise, reading the text above."

So, you now say that a living organism IS NOT an example of a local decrease in entropy? You fall further and further from reality.

"Has never happened even ONCE in the lab."

Oh how soon we forget. Do you remember I gave you three specific cases of this just above. Did you miss them? Well, here are some more I gave you several pages back.

One last thing. If you could, would you explain to me the significance of the following equation and its relevence in this discussion?

G = H - TS

I'll even give you a little hint. S is the thermodynamic term for entropy. You will notice that there are other terms in the equation.

 

There are many examples of entropy temporarily decreasing due to an engine of some kind imposing that decrease at the expense of an increase in entropy elsewhere.

Your refrigerators all reduce entropy in the things they cool down; but more heat is produced in the moter and in the heat coils in the back of the refrigerator than is removed from the food inside.

A snowflake forms a specified intricate pattern with orderly arrangement of the molecules of water; but in so doing it sheds "heat of condensation" into the environment.

A car carries you from point a to point b, imposing a new placement of the position of your body in space as you wished it to. But it does so at the expense of creating a lot of excess heat and carbond dioxide and water from burning gasoline.

A child grows from a single cell to a complete human adult. It does so by using energy from food and shedding much heat and waste products into the environement

A species evolves from species a to species b. It does so in the context of whole generations living and dying and creating extra heat, extra waste products in the surrounding environment.

2LOT is never disobeyed in any of these examples in spite of the fact that they all involve a local decrease in entropy for a particular part of creation. Entropy can decrease in one spot IF a corresponding increase in entropy is made to occur elsewhere. We live by this and we use this principle in all kinds of heat engines.

 

Oh, another great example of decrease in entropy: pure water falling from the sky. Water is always picking up contaminants. How come it gets spontaneously, naturally purified? Hint: Look for an engine that applies energy and look for a shedding of excess heat somewhere into the environment.

 

Oddly the "inverse process" that is "forbidden" is in fact a "local one".

In Christ,

Bob </font>[/QUOTE]Bob, this quote is a very good statement (in English) about the 2nd law, IF a person understands that law. What you have written in response IS NOT what the statement expresses.

Is incorrect. To better match what the statement says, it should be:

"local" and "isolated" are not synonyms. "Isolated" means that there is no (zero) work, energy or any other input into the "isloated" system from outside the system (ie the universe). Practically, we don't find any systems that are really "isolated". This concept, however, is useful in demonstrating that while the entropy of one system may decrease by X amount, the entropy of an interacting system and/or the universe must increase by X PLUS amount.

I'm not, here, getting into the evolution debate. It just troubles me a bit to read twenty page of back and forth, where the debators are arguing "apples and oranges". All the while, non-technical readers are getting influenced by technically unsustainable argumnets and don't know the difference.

My argument, no doubt, will also be misunderstood. But thats OK. I rest in the hope that, "The Truth will set us free."

In Christ
Michael

 

Michael, as a layman I can assure you that UTEOW and Paul are doing an excellent job of presenting a very technical argument in terms ordinary people can understand with minimal effort. Feel free to contribute yourself, I am enjoying this quite a bit.

 

Thank you for the contribution, Michael.

When these threads get this long, sometimes you wonder if there is anyone left paying attention. Glad to see Travelsong along for the same reason.