Impossible evolutionary steps?

"There has been nothing presented on this thread to show that evolution does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics."

There has been nothing presented yet on this thread that shows a possible problem from entropy for evolution to refute.

 

"All of it is a problem."

So we are back to including biological evolution as a problem. Which part and why?

"It takes a huge leap of the imagination to suppose that you can get from the first living cell to humans by continually smashing things up and hoping that a few bits will land in the right place (the thing that you call mutations and natural selection)."

Straw man.

"Have you ever seen a flowchart of metabolic pathways? It's like a huge plate of spaghetti..."

Argument from incredulty.

So, would new metabolic pathways observed to evolve answer this? Probably not.

Copley, S. D. (2000). “Evolution of a metabolic pathway for degradation of a toxic xenobiotic: the patchwork approach.” Trends Biochem Sci 25(6): 261-265.

Johnson, G. R., Jain, R. K. and Spain, J. C. (2002). “Origins of the 2,4-dinitrotoluene pathway.” J Bacteriol 184(15): 4219-4232.

Prijambada I. D., Negoro S., Yomo T., Urabe I. (1995). “Emergence of nylon oligomer degradation enzymes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO through experimental evolution.” Appl Environ Microbiol. 61(5):2020-2.

Seffernick, J. L. and Wackett, L. P. (2001). “Rapid evolution of bacterial catabolic enzymes: a case study with atrazine chlorohydrolase.” Biochemistry 40(43): 12747-12753.

 

What, only one of them? I could usually get one reaction to work in the lab. The problem was, when they asked me to do two or three reactions in sequence it always seemed to go wrong. After throwing away all the waste there was hardly anything left and I would give my supervisor half a spatula full of stuff that was the wrong colour and he would ask me to start all over again. Too many long hours in that horrible smelly place and too few results.

Mike

 

Did you stop reading after the first example?

Did you notice that a new pathway is multiple steps? Maybe evolution is better than you at making new pathways. Could be many possible pathways being tried in parallel.

Point is, you made a statement about how incredibly complicated metabolic pathways were and expressed doubt that something so complex could evolve. No reason why it cound not other than your own incredulty. But in only a minute or two of looking I produced multiple examples for you. Are your other general statements of incredulty similarly based in fact?

 

Who is this guy called evolution?
Have you actually met him?
He must be very clever.

Mike

 

That is because evolutionists are not true scientists. They look at all science through the haze of evolutionary faith. They are also very vocal at trying to spread their erroneous faith.

 

"That is because evolutionists are not true scientists. They look at all science through the haze of evolutionary faith. They are also very vocal at trying to spread their erroneous faith."

Quoting from Merriam-Webster...

I assume you are talking about the definition which goes "firm belief in something for which there is no proof" and not those like "allegiance to duty or a person" or "fidelity to one's promises" or "belief and trust in and loyalty to God."

If so, then that is an incorrect use of the word. (For that matter, I am not sure if any of the definitions fit very well at all.) This is because there actually is plenty of evidence for evolution to have happened and to be happening. Things like the twin nested heirarchy, the know transitional forms, the convergance of different way of generating phylogenies, genetic parahomology, anatomical parahomology, shared transposons, shared endogenous retroviral inserts, shared pseudogenes, ontogeny, genetic vestiges, anatomical vestiges, present biogeography, past biogeography, atavisms, and the chronology of the fossil record just to name a few.

Besides, your statement still does not change the fact that for 15 pages there have been YE charges that thermodynamic entropy prevents evolution but there has yet to be anything specific presented that is prevented. It does not prevent mutation. It does not prevent selection. It does not prevent drift. It does not prevent migration. It does not prevent exon shuffling. It does not prevent recombination. It does not prevent stasis. It does not prevent gene flow.

I am still at a loss just what evolutionary mechanism is supposed to be prevented. Mike went on for pages claiming it was the "whole process" then when pressed changed to abiogenesis and said that he did not "remember" saying it wa the whole process. Then when asked if that meant that he found no fault with evolution just abiogenesis he went back to the whole process. But still nothing specific from anyone. No claims of a specific mechanism prevented. No specifics about how that mechanism is prevented. We did have an assertion that new metabolic pathways could not be formed but several quick examples of such seems to have quashed that.

So, what is prevented by thermodynamic entropy?

 

You use a lot of fancy names in your second paragraph which most folks can't pronounce, however, none of this changes the truth that there is no scientific evidence to call evolution a theory. It is at best a hypothesis, I prefer to call it a concept. Therefore, belief in evolution falls into the realm of faith or perhaps religion would be a better word.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which Albert Einstein called the “premier law of science”, in the three statements in which it has been expressed on this thread, shows that there is an inexorable tendency of all natural processes toward decay and disorder. There has been no scientific evidence that refutes this truth. Therefore, evolution, which requires that order spontaneously arise out of disorder, is false. Face it! Let God be God and let God speak to you.

John 1:3[KJV] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

 

OH I see, if you bold your text, that proves something! Strikingly missing, of course, is any explanation of just what part of the theory of eovlution is prohibited by this "second law".

There also seems to be an impression that life = order. As far as the science of thermodynamics is concerned, life is in fact disorder. It is unpredictable, chaotic, and does bad things to our nicely ordered lives! Where life goes, things get messy and entropy increases, the very thing favored by thermodynamics, and therefore life is favored by thermodynamics! (p.s. you can see I'm right because I used exclamation points)

 

"You use a lot of fancy names in your second paragraph which most folks can't pronounce, however, none of this changes the truth that there is no scientific evidence to call evolution a theory."

They are not fancy names. It is the evidence for evolution. If you do not even know how to pronounce them then I doubt you know what they are. If you do not even know what they are, then on what basis can you proclaim that there is no evidence? I find that a serious problem for you to claim that there is no evidence if you are not even familar with what the evidence is asserted to be.

"The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which Albert Einstein called the “premier law of science”, in the three statements in which it has been expressed on this thread, shows that there is an inexorable tendency of all natural processes toward decay and disorder."

You are correct in that there are three accurate statements of the 2LOT on this thread.

"No apparatus can operate in such a way that its only effect is to convert heat absorbed by a system completely into work."

"No process is possible which consists solely in the transfer of heat from one temperature level to a higher one."

"It is impossible by a cyclic process to convert the heat absorbed by a system completely into work."

Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics Smith and Van Ness 4th Edition 1987

Now, tell me which of these statements supports your assertions about the second law and which one of these statements is the one that prevents mutation. Which one prevents selection. Which one prevents drift. Which one prevents migration. Which one prevents exon shuffling. Which one prevents recombination. Which one prevents stasis. Which one prevents gene flow.

"There has been no scientific evidence that refutes this truth."

There has yet to be anything presented by the YEers to refute. There has yet to be anything specific claimed to be prevented by entropy. Tell me which of the mechanisms of evolution are prevented by thermodynamic entropy and on what basis and we can have a discussion. So far it has been nothing but assertions and statements of incredulty. But no facts.

 

I think we are onto something here. He has also ignored my question about the guy called evolution who is very clever.

It's impossible, but there are lots of people who believe in a distant God of some sort and they push him back as far as possible into the past. It's called deistic theology, and it exists in various forms, but the ultimate deism is the belief that God set the universe in motion, with its physical laws, and then stepped back and left it to its own devices. This makes God into a sort of "absent landlord" who isn't interested in our affairs, or even the process of creation, because everything will happen according to the laws that have been set in place. But it's hard to imagine that someone who believes this theology believes in God "in their heart".

Mike

 

Given over to strong delusion--

There are many who have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Saul of Tarsus is one example. Jesus turned him around.

The nation of Israel(God's covenant people) are presently separated from God through their unbelief. Are there any nations following God (I AM THAT I AM) in AD 2005? God still has a remnant--scattered about the globe--witnesses of Jesus. He will never leave them nor forsake them. He has lost none that the Father has given Him--save one--the friend who betrayed Him.

Let us agree with God that He will bring the lost sheep back to The Fold. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

I said it in bold type and I will say it again.

Evolution requires that order spontaneously arise out of disorder.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, which Albert Einstein called the “premier law of science”, in the three statements in which it has been expressed on this thread, shows that there is an inexorable tendency of all natural processes toward decay and disorder. There has been no scientific evidence that refutes this truth. Therefore, evolution, which requires that order spontaneously arise out of disorder, is false.

Futhermore, evolution is an atheistic philosophy. It denies Scripture which states in John 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Your second paragraph is perceptive. Evolution from non-life to life requires a spontaneous increase in order. Evolution from a single cell to higher life forms requires a spontaneous increase in order. The Second Law prohibits such a spontaneous increase in order. Yet in your second paragraph you correctly observe that life spontaneously tends to disorder, consistent with and predicted by the Second Law.

 

As you well know the three statements to which I referred are as follows:

"There are at least three aspects or ways to express the Second Law:

1. As a measure of the increased unavailability of the energy of a system for useful work. [Classical Thermodynamics].
2. As a measure of the increased disorder, randomness, or probability of the arrangement of the components of the system. [Statistical Thermodynamics]
3. As a measure of the increasingly confused information in the transmission of the coded message through a system. [Informational thermodynamics]"

Also as you well know evolution is an atheistic philosophy.

 

"1. As a measure of the increased unavailability of the energy of a system for useful work. [Classical Thermodynamics]."

Yes, that is what is meant by the 2LOT. That is thermodynamic entropy.

"2. As a measure of the increased disorder, randomness, or probability of the arrangement of the components of the system. [Statistical Thermodynamics]"

Yes, this is a way to express entropy by using statistics. But this is a case where you must be very careful about your definitions. The order and arrangement is specifically at the molecular level and is not what the lay person would think of as order. Let me explain.

Take steam. It is flying arround at high speed in a gaseous state. The distribution of the molecules is even in the sense that they are spread out, but the arrangement is constantly changing as they collide. If you rotate your view of the molecules, they will appear to be the same from all reference points.

Now condense that steam to liquid water. All the molecules are still spread out but over a smaller area. They are not moving as quickly. And since they are so close, they can start interacting. For example the positive and negative parts of different molecules can start lining up. So while the distribution is still pretty random, there is more order than when you had steam. You cannot rotate your view quite as many ways and still see the same thing. The entropy has decreased.

Now freeze that water. The water now forms a crystal. The molecules arelined up in a very specific way. You can only rotate your view by specifc numbers of degrees and stil get the same view. The entropy is even lower.

This is what is meant. It is a matter of arrangement at a molecular level only. It has nothing to do with higher forms of order and nothing to do with what you are talking about as order.

"3. As a measure of the increasingly confused information in the transmission of the coded message through a system. [Informational thermodynamics] "

This is not thermodynamic entropy. This is information theory. And life is not a coded message either.

"Also as you well know evolution is an atheistic philosophy."

I did not know that. I thought it was a science. Are all sciences "atheistic philosoph[ies]" or just those of which you deny the findings? Is chemistry an "atheistic philosophy?" Why not? Remember that I have already listed the observations for evolution for you above. You expressed that you were not familar with them. (I think your words were that you did not even know how to pronounce them.) I am still concerned that you claim that there is no evidence when you are not even casually familar with what the evidence is asserted to be.

"The Second Law prohibits such a spontaneous increase in order."

No it does not. There are plenty of spontaneous decreases in order. Set some water outside on a cold night to see an example. The only requirement is that the entropy of the universe increase. The entropy of a particular system is free to decrease and can do so spontaneously.

"Evolution from non-life to life requires a spontaneous increase in order. Evolution from a single cell to higher life forms requires a spontaneous increase in order."

You may have to define here just what you mean by order. You do not seem to mean the thermodynamic definition used in statistical formulations of thermodynamics. It may be useful at this point to reference a few cases of life demonstrating its ability to form new proteins, new genes, and new pathways. Surely these types of processes would meet your strained definition of order. Let us know when you are familar with each of these. If you can find that every single one is not an increase in what you would call order and can tell us why, then we may have the basis for a discussion. Of course, these examples are just the tip of a very large iceberg.

"Selective sweep of a newly evolved sperm-specific gene in Drosophila," Nurminsky DI, Nurminskaya MV, De Aguiar D, Hartl DL, Nature. 1998 Dec 10;396(6711):572-5.

"Adaptive evolution after gene duplication," Hughes AL, Trends Genetics, 2002 Sep.18(9):433-4.

"Accelerated protein evolution and origins of human-specific features: Foxp2 as an example," Zhang J, Webb DM, Podlaha O, Genetics. 2002 Dec;162(4):1825-35.

"Syncytin is a captive retroviral envelope protein involved in human placental morphogenesis," Mi S, Lee X, Li X, Veldman GM, Finnerty H, Racie L, LaVallie E, Tang XY, Edouard P, Howes S, Keith JC Jr, McCoy JM, Nature 2000 Feb 17;403(6771):785-9.

"Origin of antifreeze protein genes: A cool tale in molecular evolution," John M. Logsdon Jr. and W. Ford Doolittle, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA,Vol. 94, pp. 3485-3487, April 1997.

DeVries, A. L. & Wohlschlag, D. E. (1969) Science 163, 1073-1075.

"A carrot leucine-rich-repeat protein that inhibits ice recrystallization," Worrall D, Elias L, Ashford D, Smallwood M, Sidebottom C, Lillford P, Telford J, Holt C, Bowles D, Science. 1998 Oct 2;282(5386):115-7.

"Recruitment of a double bond isomerase to serve as a reductive dehalogenase during biodegradation of pentachlorophenol," Anandarajah K, Kiefer PM Jr, Donohoe BS, Copley SD, Biochemistry 2000 May 9;39(18):5303-11.

"The Tre2 (USP6) oncogene is a hominoid-specific gene," Paulding CA, Ruvolo M, Haber DA, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science U S A 2003 Mar 4;100(5):2507-11.

"The human genome contains many types of chimeric retrogenes generated through in vivo RNA recombination," Anton Buzdin*, Elena Gogvadze, Elena Kovalskaya, Pavel Volchkov, Svetlana Ustyugova, Anna Illarionova, Alexey Fushan, Tatiana Vinogradova and Eugene Sverdlov, Nucleic Acids Research, 2003, Vol. 31, No. 15 4385-4390.

"The narrow sheath Duplicate Genes: Sectors of Dual Aneuploidy Reveal Ancestrally Conserved Gene Functions During Maize Leaf Development," Michael J. Scanlona, K. David Chenb, and Calvin C. McKnight, IV, Genetics, Vol. 155, 1379-1389, July 2000.

"The maize duplicate genes narrow sheath1 and narrow sheath2 encode a conserved homeobox gene function in a lateral domain of shoot apical meristems," Judith Nardmann1, Jiabing Ji, Wolfgang Werr, and Michael J. Scanlon, Development 131, 2827-2839 (2004).

Copley, S. D. (2000). “Evolution of a metabolic pathway for degradation of a toxic xenobiotic: the patchwork approach.” Trends Biochem Sci 25(6): 261-265.

Harding, M. M., Anderberg, P. I. and Haymet, A. D. (2003). “‘Antifreeze’ glycoproteins from polar fish.” Eur J Biochem 270(7): 1381-1392.

Johnson, G. R., Jain, R. K. and Spain, J. C. (2002). “Origins of the 2,4-dinitrotoluene pathway.” J Bacteriol 184(15): 4219-4232.

Long, M., Betran, E., Thornton, K. and Wang, W. (2003). “The origin of new genes: glimpses from the young and old.” Nat Rev Genet 4(11): 865-875.

Nurminsky, D., Aguiar, D. D., Bustamante, C. D. and Hartl, D. L. (2001). “Chromosomal effects of rapid gene evolution in Drosophila melanogaster.” Science 291(5501): 128-130.

Patthy, L. (2003). “Modular assembly of genes and the evolution of new functions.” Genetica 118(2-3): 217-231.

Prijambada I. D., Negoro S., Yomo T., Urabe I. (1995). “Emergence of nylon oligomer degradation enzymes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO through experimental evolution.” Appl Environ Microbiol. 61(5):2020-2.

Ranz, J. M., Ponce, A. R., Hartl, D. L. and Nurminsky, D. (2003). “Origin and evolution of a new gene expressed in the Drosophila sperm axoneme.” Genetica 118(2-3): 233-244.

Seffernick, J. L. and Wackett, L. P. (2001). “Rapid evolution of bacterial catabolic enzymes: a case study with atrazine chlorohydrolase.” Biochemistry 40(43): 12747-12753.

I am also still looking for you to tell me specifically which mechanisms of evolution you assert is prevented by you entropy claims. And why.

 

I have read several of these threads. Regardless of what a Yec person says, who he refers to as a scientist for reference it is dismissed quickly by the OEC folks. So I don't think this will ever be resolved in these discussions.
But a couple of thoughts are racing around in my almost empty head. I do wonder if the Old Earth folks actively witness with the same energy they defend the theory of evolution? Are evolutionists who claim to be Christian and I don't doubt them, as evangelistic about thier Christian beliefs as they are about thier evolutionary beliefs? Are they as dogmatic about thier Christian beliefs as they are about thier evolutionary beliefs?

 

No, it's Greek philosophy. It started with Thales of Miletus (c.625-546 BC) who believed that the primary entity was water, and his ideas were perpetuated in various modified forms by other philosophers.

Mike

 

What is DNA?

We learn something every day, don't we?

Water can no more freeze spontaneously than it can boil spontaneously. There must be a transfer of heat.

 

I have stated before that discussing the errors of evolution is as useless as shoveling manure against a tidal wave. All you get back is more manure. I don't know why I try. The perversity of human nature I guess.

I do have a question though. I have stated and believe that evolution is an atheistic philosophy. When evolutionists deny the teaching of Scripture [below] how can they be dogmatic about spreading its message?

John 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.