American Spectator: Evolution's Thermodynamic Failure

In the current debate over "Intelligent Design," the strongest
argument offered by opponents of design is this: we have scientific
explanations for most everything else in Nature, what is special about
evolution? The layman understands quite well that explaining the
appearance of human brains is a very different sort of problem from
finding the causes of earthquakes; however, to express this difference
in terms a scientist can understand requires a discussion of the
second law of thermodynamics.

The first formulations of the second law were all about heat: a
quantity called thermal "entropy" was defined to measure the
randomness, or disorder, associated with a temperature distribution,
and it was shown that in an isolated system this entropy always
increases, or at least never decreases, as the temperature becomes
more and more randomly (more uniformly) distributed. If we define
thermal "order" to be the opposite (negative) of thermal entropy, we
can say that the thermal order can never increase in a closed
(isolated) system. However, it was soon realized that other types of
order can be defined which also never increase in a closed system. For
example, we can define a "carbon order" associated with the
distribution of carbon diffusing in a solid, using the same equations,
and through an identical analysis show that this order also
continually decreases, in a closed system. With time, the second law
came to be interpreted more and more generally, and today most
discussions of the second law in physics textbooks offer examples of
entropy increases (order decreases) which have nothing to do with heat
conduction or diffusion, such as the shattering of a wine glass or the
demolition of a building.

It is a well-known prediction of the second law that, in a closed
system, every type of order is unstable and must eventually decrease,
as everything tends toward more probable (more random) states. Not
only will carbon and temperature distributions become more disordered
(more uniform), but the performance of all electronic devices will
deteriorate, not improve. Natural forces, such as corrosion, erosion,
fire and explosions, do not create order, they destroy it. The second
law is all about probability, it uses probability at the microscopic
level to predict macroscopic change: the reason carbon distributes
itself more and more uniformly in an insulated solid is, that is what
the laws of probability predict when diffusion alone is operative.
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Read it at http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9128

J. Spaceman

Timothy Birdbrain thinks that this guy is onto something
'Thermodynamics and Darwinism' at
http://tbirdblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/thermodynamics-and-darwinism.html

J. Spaceman

He's made the same argument before, and it has been refuted
before. "If it's impossible in a closed system, it's improbable in an
open one, yadda yadda yadda." Obviously, neither one of them has ever
seen a snowflake in their lives.

Elf

I've brought up the snowflake argument a few times and never gotten a
challenger to it. They're never around when you call them out. Surely they
must have some way to dismiss it.

"the idea that the four fundamental forces of physics alone could
rearrange the fundamental particles of nature into nuclear power plants
[... and assorted other things] appears to violate the second law of
thermodynamics in a spectacular way."

Nor have they seen sunshine.

I once brought up the "snowflake" example to a creationist,
and his response was that that was OK, because it was only a small
increase in order.

One thing which I don't recall any response to is this: The laws
of thermodynamics also apply to intelligent agents. In fact, they
were discovered in the 19th century because of the limitations that
the clever engineers ran up against in designing engines. If there
is a violation of the laws of thermo in life, "intelligent design"
is clearly not the place to look for an explanation.

It is worthwhile pointing out that one of the founders of
thermodynamics, Ludwig Boltzman, was an admirer of Charles Darwin,
and took him as a model of how to do science.

--
---Tom S. <http://talkreason.org/articles/chickegg.cfm>
"It is not too much to say that every indication of Design in the Kosmos is so
much evidence against the Omnipotence of the Designer. ... The evidences ... of
Natural Theology distinctly imply that the author of the Kosmos worked under
limitations..." John Stuart Mill, "Theism", Part II

Mother asks boy to clean his room which is not in order, full of balls
around here and there.
Boy makes tiny bomb (not very explosive, more like soft one) and detach
super balls and roller bearing balls around the bomb except in
direction of door and window which he lefts somebit open for
precaution. He goes out of his room and we hear "thumbummm". Boy peeks
from door and he can see how balls bounces here and there but
eventually set in fine rows on shelves and on the floor beside wall.
That's because floor is slanting and shelves sloping ..
Finally mother rush in saying :"What the heck You...Oh.. You have
already ordered Your room, all balls are now ordered fine rows. Thanks
son. You gonna have some ice cream now.."

But we all live in an -open- system. Sunlight comes streaming in by the
gudgeon.

Another fundie putz who does not understand the second law of
thermodyanmics. Entropy is guarnateed to increase only in a closed
thermodynamics system. When energy comes in, order can increase. If you
do work on your desk you can straighten it out.

Bob Kolker

xxxxxxxxx

Bad news: If Evolution runs afoul of the laws, then ID is in the same
boat. Plants came first. 99.99% of them have no thermal generating
abilities. Then came the fishies. Uh, oh. Many more of them have thermal
generation capabilities. Then came the animals and the creepie crawlies.
Now we're getting into serious thermal generation! Not only do massive
numbers of insects thermally generate, some kill their enemies via
mobbing and "body heat" them to death. Worse! All those warm-blooded
mammals! But wait! There's more!! Finally we get to the pinnacle of
creation: Man. And he tames fire; Invents the internal combustion
engine, thermal blankets, napalm, and the H-bomb; And not content with
the uncontrolled fusion of the bomb, he now strives to replicate the
heart of the sun for power generation.

Sounds like an ordered progression of disorder and heat generation to me...

--
"If Christians want us to believe in a Redeemer, let them act redeemed."
--Voltaire

http://academics.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=24195

Dear Prof. Sewell,

It is simply intolerable that you would propagate already debunked
assertions as found in your article, Evolution's Thermodynamic Failure.
Snowflakes form spontaneously and repeatedly by the billions as heat flows
through the system of the Earth's atmosphere. This order is paid for by the
thermonuclear reactions in the sun. Weather, climate, plate tectonics, and
ocean currents, are all forms of spontaneous order created as
undifferentiated energy flows through matter.

Please reconsider your position. You are only hurting the cause of knowledge
and your reputation.

--
Zachriel
http://zachriel.blogspot.com/

SOUP: A Warm Story of Spontaneous Order from Undifferentiated Heat

Let's start with a homogeneous pot of soup. Add heat. (We usually do this
with a stove.)

After a bit, small bubbles coalesce as air is forced out of the soup. They
rise to the surface to join the steam that is rising from the surface, which
then condenses to droplets of pure water on the pot lid. Then, you will
notice that eddies start to form in the soup, then complex turbulent flows.
With enough heat, the soup comes to a full boil, and turbulence abounds. The
soup is no longer anywhere near a state of uniformity, but pressure waves
churn throughout the mixture.

Soon, the whole pot is roiling as steam is forcing its way from the interior
of our concoction to the surface. Steam clouds form and create their own
complex turbulent flow. As the steam erupts, it creates lavish patterns of
bursting soup which splatters, making patterns on the wall behind the stove.
One particular pattern might resemble the Madonna, or perhaps, a cat. The
steam above the pot creates intricate patterns as it rises to the ceiling,
where water condenses, and forms droplets, which then drop sporadically,
chaotically. Our pot lid rattles a bit to let the steam out.

Stir frequently.

A thickening of the soup's surface occurs, and along the edges. We scrap
some of it off. Using our palette as a sensitive chemical detector, we can
determine that complex chemical changes have occurred, the scrappings are
not the quite same as the rest of the soup, but have been transformed. Yum!
Tastes good.

The soup is no longer homogeneous, but continues to undergo complex changes,
and so becomes a heterogeneous and delicious food.

Add salt.

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> J. Spaceman
>

No life is a closed system, all life takes in energy.

--
Bob.

You shithead. Takes in energy means that the system is wide open. Yet
another Christian Shithead who cannot comprehend thermodynamics.

Bob Kolker

>

In order to see something the optic nerve has to connect to something
more than just the eye.

This is cool.More and more articles questioning the DoE.Hope to see more
of it in the future.

People are finally realizing that the DoE cannot explain everything away.

Furthermore, people distrust scientific authority more and more and if
anything , it's the scientists that brought this upon themselves with
all the scandals that have arisen from the pharma industry all to way to
military technology.

Nicola

Thankfully, the last scandal in palaeontology was unmasked over 50
years ago.
So at least the public should trust palaeontologists.

RF
> Nicola

Look fart-arse. Read my reply and what I replied to.

Maybe you will not make such mistakes if you learn to read.

--
Bob.

Has anyone here read this?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226739368/

Into the Cool : Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life (Hardcover)
by Eric D. Schneider, Dorion Sagan

dunk

>Evolution's Thermodynamic Failure
>By Granville Sewell
....

That's right, living things consume energy - lots of it - then they die.
That's because life isn't a closed system. There is absolutely nothing in
the theory of evolution to suggest that it produces a net decrease in
entropy and, furthermore, the people who are claiming that it does know
that it doesn't. That's two lies for the price of one.

It is also very worthy of note that those promoting anti-Darwinism are
systematically fusing it with reactionary politics. Just thought I'd point
that out in case anybody was tempted to doubt these people's insincerity.

--
Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow, we eat, drink and be merry.

D Silverman FLAHN, SMLAHN

AA #2208

One wonders how someone can go round all their lives without noticing
that big, hot yellow thing in the sky. We call it the sun. Evidently
the author of this piece has never heard of it.

Can anyone think of a way of breaking this news to him gently?

RF

He read, "No, life is a closed system."

The (notable lack of a) comma makes a substantial difference in
meaning. If there was doubt, your following phrase should have made
your meaning clear.

Zachriel
http://zachriel.blogspot.com/

>
> --
> Bob.

His comment makes perfect sense to me, an atheist with a fair understanding
of thermo. Perhaps the problem is your comprehension of English? Or were
you just looking for someone to insult?

If they are all this ignorant, there is little for you to cheer.

The theory of evolution explains how life changes on earth over time.
No one claims that it can "explain everything away"

The scandals you are referring to are not scientific.

>>This is cool.
>>Nicola

LOL. Nick is always the last IDiot to admit that an argument is
moronic. Get the lights on this one when you leave, Nick.

You can't buy publicity this bad.

CT

Have any of the 2LoT folks explained how life can continue and
replicate if it violates their conception of 2LoT?

Are there any physicists who take the order argument seriously?

> Jason Spaceman wrote:

<snip>

>>
>> J. Spaceman
>>
>
>
> This is cool.

No, it's just fucking ignorant.

This argument isn't new. The fact this schmuck thinks he's smart enough
to come up with a new criticism of evolution based on the laws of
thermodynamics is a sign of a poor education in high-school physics at
the very least.

But since the problem in the US with comprehension of the ToE is
basically due to bad education competing with high levels of religious
belief and indoctrination in spiritualistic religious dogma, it's not
that surprising that comprehension levels in physics might be sub-par as
well..

Anyone got comparative stats on US-v-World highschool-leavers knowledge
of physics?

After the pounding into the dirt the previous proponents of this idiotic
proposition got, I hope not. Their asses must still be smarting, even
now.

No, it can't. But eventually there won't be cracks big enough to stick
god into, even if you stuffed him into an envelope.

> anything, it's the scientists that brought this upon themselves with

No, it's just a sign that the brain organisation we formed in the
savannah isn't necessarily always up to the job of coping with the
complex universe we discover we're really in.

chimps with hydrogen bombs.

> Nicola

Wash my feet, fundie!

Jesus!

Homeskooled, Nicola?

--
Seppo P.
What's wrong with Theocracy? (a Finnish Taliban, Oct 1, 2005)

So yeah, thermodynamics should be banned for all except
thermodynamicists. Although the problem with this is you'll get
gullible people buying into scams about cars that "never need to be
refueled" because they're "charging as they move". Maybe we should
teach that one little bit of thermodynamics: no perpetual motion
machines. Unfortunately, this is just a special case of the 2LoT.
Ahhh, dammit.

Maybe we should forcibly teach EVERYONE about REAL thermodynamics. Cut
off those lame creationist arguments at the source.

as opposed to religious leaders who've sold people on justice in the
the other world while opposing justice in this one.

yes...make sense...fundies oppose every form of questioning of
authority.

What do you have against the Department of Energy?

Are you suggesting that the 2LoT is a problem for evolutionary science?
What does neodarwinism postulate that we don't see everyday? Do you
suppose the sun figures into any of this?

What is your educational background, i.e. have you finished high
school, and was it US public schooling? Just curious.

Not even the ToE does that. ToE only explains the origins of the
species.

Ignoring for the moment the observation that it's CEOs and generals and
politicians who make these scandals, and not generally sceintists, how
is the truth of any theory affected by them?

>
> Nicola

Latest real scientific scandal - stem cell announcement in South Korea
- was uncovered within weeks by ...scientists. Primarily the ones at
his own university. Mistakes, impatience, and outright dishonesty in
science are always uncovered sooner or later.

Kermit

Like staking him out in the desert until he notices it, plus a few
more days to think over the implications without any distractions?

--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas

They seem to fall into three camps:

1) life is magic, so the rules don't apply

2) the 2LoT only controls what happens "naturally"; intelligent
designers can get around it.

3) haven't stopped to think about it

Regarding (2), ISTRecall reading something by one of the bigwigwigs of
the DI that indicated a belief that refrigerators _violate_ the 2LoT,
and are able to do so because they are the product of intelligent
design.

This is old news. Sewell published essentially the same thing in 2002
(check ISCID). He was wrong then, and he's still wrong now.

I wasn't aware that the Department of Energy was trying to explain
everything away.

Somewhere, in some odd logic-free corner of the universe, I'm sure that
makes sense.

>
> Nicola

Yes! Why do these morons not realize that their (wrong) interpretation
of the 2nd law precludes ID as well? It also eliminates the
possibility of society forming, of a child growing, of a book being
written (like the bible), and a ton of other things we know occur?

In fact, now that I think of it, the existance of the bible
demonstrates that their interpretation is wrong!!!

Lee Jay

Among other possible misconceptions, most of them think that the IDer
is God, who isn't bound by such petty strictures.

If so, the layman shows his ignorance. While obviously there are
considerable differences between earthquakes and brains, everything
must be understood according to physics. This leaves ID and other
creationist beliefs out of the realm of science, because ID violates
the laws of thermodynamics by importing action from beyond the
observable universe (the "alien hypothesis" has never been the real
position of ID). The fact is that Sewell is simply utilizing a gross
prejudice as the basis for development of his further incorrect
statements.

No, it does not. All arrangements of order and disorder follow the
laws of thermodynmics, including SLOT (actually, SLOT isn't exactly
about "order and disorder", or rather it is about energetic "order and
disorder" (to the extent that those terms apply), but we can usually
discuss SLOT in terms of order and disorder). In fact a main point of
science is to get rid of the artificial distinctions that Sewell and
laymen make.

Here is one place the man shows himself to be a poor interpretor of
SLOT. All changes in fact have to do with energy relationships, which
is what SLOT truly rules (heat is just a certain statistical
consideration of energy), and this includes carbon diffusing in a solid
or wine glasses shattering. SLOT was indeed known first through heat
engines, thus the historical relationship of SLOT with heat, but Sewell
is confusing physics with earlier formulations of SLOT.

Completely untrue. Entropy must increase overall, but this may very
well entail an increase in order in some cases. God, learn some
physics, idiot.

Again the dolt shows his lack of knowledge. Fire often increases
order, which is why we use it to reverse corrosion to produce pure
metal (increase in order). Fire is the process of consuming order, and
in the process it may very well increase the order of the substances
with which it is in contact--like metal.

Natural heat, from fire or elsewhere, can produce metal from its
"corrosion products", or it can concentrate silver and gold, as
hydrothermal processes often have.

Erosion also creates order, such as natural arches--all that is
important is that the overall entropy increases, and then subsections
of order, like natural arches, are fully allowed to appear via these
"natural processes".

> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Read it at http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9128\

>The discovery that life on Earth developed through evolutionary "steps," coupled with the >observation that mutations and natural selection -- like other natural forces -- can cause
>(minor) change,

No, this is simply your prejudice. The evidence of genetics is that
that large changes have been caused by evolution. Or can similar DNA
sequences appear in disparate organisms without derivation under your
faulty understanding of SLOT?

>is widely accepted in the scientific world as proof that natural selection -- alone among >all natural forces -- can create order out of disorder,

What a fool. Ores, snowflakes (as many have mentioned), and mineral
crystals are among the many "natural processes" producing order out of
disorder. Read some science for once. Amino acids have been found in
asteroids as well.

>-- can create order out of disorder, and even design human brains with human >consciousness.

Again the extreme prejudice shows. Of course natural selection can't
design human brains, it can only select changes that culminate in
brains.

>Only the layman seems to see the problem with this logic.

Only the uneducated, like Sewell, seem to believe that there is
something exceptional about natural selection (well, there is one
thing, which is that natural selection preserves and changes organisms
through a fantastic amount of time. Yet although this is in fact
"exceptional" in one sense, there is nothing exceptional about it
physically).

>In a recent Mathematical Intelligencer article ("A Mathematician's View of Evolution," 22, >number 4, 5-7, 2000), after outlining the specific reasons why it is not reasonable to >attribute the major steps in the development of life to natural selection, I asserted that >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.

Again your misunderstanding is horrific. The probabilities, without
intelligence evolving first, do indeed tell against the appearance of
computers and nuclear power plants by chance (unless the totality of
all matter and energy is much greater than we can show). But this is
just a matter of probabilities within the constraints of matter/energy,
SLOT tells us nothing directly about their appearance. Perhaps more
importantly, if computers and nuclear power plants were part of
evolutionary processes I can see nothing at all that would suggest that
they would not eventually be produced "naturally".

>S. Angrist and L. Hepler, for example, in Order and Chaos (Basic Books, 1967), >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."

This is only opinion, rather old opinion, and it is not "science".
Basically the authors are making the point that even if dolts like
Sewell think that there is something anomalous about the effects of
"intelligence", in fact these are only a part of the total increase in
disorder (it's not bad opinion, in fact). But of course human
civilization wouldn't even exist if ordering processes hadn't produced
our planet, increased the levels of certain elements, and also evolved
humanity. The spectacular failure of Sewell's thought is that
evolution falls under the rule of SLOT (which he doesn't and couldn't
demonstrate), while magic will apparently violate SLOT without any need
for us to pause for thought.

>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.

It doesn't, dimwit. In fact we have to use the degradation of order in
order to produce computers. That it doesn't happen "naturally" is a
function of probabilities, probabilities which no longer operate once
natural evolution has produced natural beings such as humans, who
operate entirely according to "natural processes".

>In Appendix D of my new book, The Numerical Solution of Ordinary and Partial >Differential Equations, second edition, (John Wiley & Sons, 2005) 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.

Wow, you reinvented the wheel. You must be very proud.

>In these simple examples, I assumed nothing but heat conduction or diffusion was going >on, but for more general situations, I offered the tautology that "if an increase in order is >extremely improbable when a system is closed, it is still extremely improbable when the >system is open, unless something is entering which makes it not extremely >improbable."

Is there anyone besides yourself (and AS dolts) who think this is
profound? Of course the probability of TV sets appearing in the
environment has increased dramatically with the appearance of humans
(who slowly increased in probability due to the sun's output of order).
That's sort of the point of science and technology.

>Importing thermal order will make the temperature distribution less random, and >importing carbon order will make the carbon distribution less random, but neither makes >the formation of computers more probable.

Wow, did you stumble across the fact that only probable things will
likely happen? Doesn't it even occur to you to ask why brains evolved,
rather than that computers appeared throughout the earth? Obviously it
depends on the probabilities of matter/energy combinations.

>What happens in a closed system depends on the initial conditions; what happens in an >open system depends on the boundary conditions as well. As I wrote in "Can >ANYTHING Happen in an Open System?" (The Mathematical Intelligencer 23, number 4, >8-10, 2001),

No, not just anything can happen in an open system, dumbass. That's
why we know that humans don't share 95%+ of their genetic material with
chimps through mere chance. How would you explain it?

What is more, if you really understood SLOT you'd recognize that even
common energy processes are governed by SLOT, so that heat flow in a
conductor (at least in the vast majority of conductors) has to move
from the higher temperature region to the lower temperature region. By
inexact analogy open systems don't allow genetic similarities to appear
through magic, unlike Sewell's apparent delusion would allow.

>THE EVOLUTIONIST, therefore, cannot avoid the question of probability by saying that >anything can happen in an open system, he is finally forced to argue that it only seems >extremely improbable, but really isn't, that atoms would rearrange themselves into >spaceships and computers and TV sets.

No, stupid little man, "evolutionists" know that initial conditions,
mutation rates, and selection issues play roles in "deciding what
happens". Your strawman only suggests that nothing can happen at all.

>Darwinists believe they have already discovered the source of all this order, so let us >look more closely at their theory. The traditional argument against Darwinism is that >natural selection cannot guide the development of new organs and new systems of >organs -- i.e., the development of new orders, classes and phyla -- through their initial >useless stages, during which they provide no selective advantage.

There are no useless stages, or at least there are vanishingly few (the
occasional vestigial organ may suddenly come under selective pressure).
We do not, of course, know all of the useful stages (SLOT dictates
degradation of ordered knowledge), but this lends no credence to your
strawman.

>Natural selection may be able to darken the wings of a moth (even this is disputed), but >that does not mean it can design anything complex. Consider, for example, the aquatic >bladderwort, described in Plants and Environment, by R.F. Daubenmire (John Wiley & >Sons, 1947):
>The aquatic bladderworts are delicate herbs that bear bladder-like traps 5mm or less in >diameter. These traps have trigger hairs attached to a valve-like door which normally >keeps the trap tightly closed. The sides of the trap are compressed under tension, but >when a small form of animal life touches one of the trigger hairs the valve opens, the >bladder suddenly expands, and the animal is sucked into the trap. The door closes at >once, and in about 20 minutes the trap is set ready for another victim.

And? Are you suggesting that bladders could not have been produced for
a different purpose (storage, for instance) and then adapted to first
use animals that wandered into the bladder, then later developed means
of "deliberately" trapping insects?

>It seems that until the trigger hair, the door, and the vacuum chamber were all in place, >and the ability to digest insects, and to reset the trap to be able to catch more than one >insect, had been developed, none of the individual components of this carnivorous trap >would have been of any use. What is the selective advantage of an incomplete vacuum >chamber? To the casual observer, it might seem that none of the components of this trap >would have been of any use whatever until the trap was almost perfect, but of course a >good Darwinist will imagine two or three far-fetched intermediate useful stages (and >maybe even find one in Nature!), and consider the problem solved.

How about this. Show to us that the genes for the bladderwort's
bladder are not related to any other genes in plants without such
bladders. Now come on, you must be able to do so, and you know that
not just anything can happen. Evolutionists recognize that shared
complex genes for development of structures can't just continue to
reappear (it's that probability thing), so clearly the bladders must
have one-of-a-kind genes. So demonstrate that these one-of-a-kind
genes exist, or shut the hell up.

>When you look at the individual steps in the development of life, Darwin's explanation is >difficult to disprove, because some selective advantage can be imagined in almost >anything.

No it isn't. All you have to do is to show that organisms don't share
complex information, and you'll have shot down evolutionary theory.
But instead of using the reasonable test, you prefer to demand answers
that are lost to prehistory and to SLOT's dictates.

>Like every other scheme designed to violate the second law, it is only when you look at >the net result that it becomes obvious it won't work.

It doesn't violate the second law, so quit lying.

>Although these similarities may, to our modern minds, suggest natural causes, they do >not really tell us anything about what those causes might be.

Sewell finally said one true thing, immediately followed by a false
one. Of course the similarities suggest "natural causes", and the
seemless manner in which changes are integrated into organisms suggests
relatively slow change under the pressure of natural selection.

>In fact, the fossil record does not even support the idea that new organs and new >systems of organs arose gradually: new orders, classes and phyla consistently appear >suddenly.

Do you never tire of being wrong? The synodont fossils indicate a
massive array of changing forms. At a smaller scale, this is much the
case for hominid evolution as well. And although we only had
Archaeopteryx to go on for so long, fossils dated later indicate that
birds also had complex adaptive radiations, some apparently dating to
before Archaeopteryx.

> For example, Harvard paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson in "The History of Life" (in >Volume I of Evolution after Darwin, University of Chicago Press, 1960) writes:
>It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly.

You really like old sources, don't you? Obviously this is not as true
now as it was then. Whale evolution is well attested now by fossils,
which was not the case in 1960. Nevertheless, the record is spotty
enough that there is still truth to it. However, "most taxa" refers
more spectacularly to species appearing abruptly (which many
ID/creationists count as "microevolution" and thus do not deny), and
not as much to long term evolutionary developments, like horse
evolution, mammal evolution, and increasingly, even dinosaur evolution.

>They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptibly changing >forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution...This phenomenon >becomes more universal and more intense as the hierarchy of categories is ascended. >Gaps among known species are sporadic and often small.

You sure are an idiot. Species gaps are the rule. This "phenomenon"
becomes less problematic as the hierarchy of categories is ascended,
that is, among organisms which have hard, fossilizable parts (fossil
documentation of phyla evolution runs afoul of soft body parts).

>Gaps among known orders, classes and phyla are systematic and almost always large.

Depends on the size of gaps, of course. Fossil evidences of species
transitions in the evolution of birds from dinosaurs are more absent
than that of more recent species evolution, but Archaeopteryx--even by
itself--is one fantastic transitional organism.

>These peculiarities of the record pose one of the most important theoretical problems in >the whole history of life: Is the sudden appearance of higher categories a phenomenon of >evolution or of the record only, due to sampling bias and other inadequacies?

They would be important theoretical problems if they weren't just made
up. Also, they would be more problematic if the genetic evidence
didn't show that all life descended from a common ancestor. But then
you don't care about the probabilities of that pattern of order
appearing without reasonable cause, do you?

>Finally, I am well aware that logic and evidence are powerless against the popular >perception,

Clearly logic and evidence don't touch your prejudices, or even appear
in your stupid articles.

>...so I want to offer here a portion of a November 5, 1980 New York Times News Service >report:
>Biology's understanding of how evolution works, which has long postulated a gradual >process of Darwinian natural selection acting on genetic mutations, is undergoing its >broadest and deepest revolution in nearly 50 years. At the heart of the revolution is >something that might seem a paradox. Recent discoveries have only strengthened >Darwin's epochal conclusion that all forms of life evolved from a common ancestor. >Genetic analysis, for example, has shown that every organism is governed by the same >genetic code controlling the same biochemical processes. At the same time, however, >many studies suggest that the origin of species was not the way Darwin suggested... >Exactly how evolution happened is now a matter of great controversy among biologists. >Although the debate has been under way for several years, it reached a crescendo last >month, as some 150 scientists specializing in evolutionary studies met for four days in >Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History to t!
hrash out a variety of new hypotheses >that are challenging older ideas... At issue during the Chicago meeting was >macroevolution, a term that is itself a matter of debate but which generally refers to the >evolution of major differences... Darwin knew he was on shaky ground in extending >natural selection to account for differences between major groups of organisms. The >fossil record of his day showed no gradual transitions between such groups, but he >suggested that further fossil discoveries would fill the missing links. "The pattern that we >were told to find for the last 120 years does not exist," declared Niles Eldridge, a >paleontologist from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Eldridge >reminded the meeting of what many fossil hunters have recognized as they trace the >history of a species through successive layers of ancient sediments. Species simply >appear at a given point in geologic time, persist largely unchanged for a few million years >and !
then disappear. There are very few examples -- some say none -!
- of one
species >shading gradually into another.

Wow, you found a non-scientific source which gets several things wrong.
First of all, Darwin was not on shaky ground in extending his
evolutionary hypotheses to "major groups of organisms", because the
latter share morphological similarities. Then they used Eldridge's
criticism of species gradualism as if it applied to "major groups".
It's quite obvious that Eldridge completely disagrees with Sewell's
incorrect claim that species gaps are sporadic, and that the real
problems arise when ascending the hierarchy. Gould and Eldridge were
faulting the speciation pattern, not the well-attested transitions
between vertebrate classes.

>SCIENCE HAS BEEN so successful in explaining natural phenomena that the modern >scientist is convinced that it can explain everything. Anything that doesn't fit into this >materialistic model is simply ignored.

And how would we investigate anything not "fitting the materialist
model", to use Sewell's benighted phrase? Of course science has
successfully explained much about evolution as well, which a
knowledgeable person would know. This is why we continue to use the
model.

> When he discovers that all of the basic constants of physics, such as the speed of >light, the charge and mass of the electron, Planck's constant, etc., had to have almost >exactly the values that they do have in order for any conceivable form of life to survive in >our universe, he proposes the "anthropic principle" and says that there must be many >other universes with the same laws, but random values for the basic constants, and one >was bound to get the values right.

Yeah, right. Sewell's confusing "anthropic principle" with the
multi-verse. Plus, the real problem with supposing that there is a
problem with the cosmic constants is simply that we have no reason to
suppose that life arising is in any way "special", so that even if it
were unlikely we have no reason to think that this matters any more
than any other unlikely random outcome would be a "problem".

>When you ask him how a mechanical process such as natural selection could cause >human consciousness to arise out of inanimate matter, he says, "human >consciousness -- what's that?"

BS. I can give you a pretty damn good hypothesis for human
consciousness, and I came up with it using evolutionary considerations:

http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

>And he talks about human evolution as if he were an outside observer, and never seems >to wonder how he got inside one of the animals he is studying.

This is a philosophical issue, and it does relate to epistemology.
Still, the Kantian solution is good (modified to include evolution, of
course) for purposes of investigation, and it is part of the positivist
foundation of modern science.

>And when you ask how the four fundamental forces of Nature could rearrange the basic >particles of Nature into libraries full of encyclopedias, science texts and novels, and >computers, connected to laser printers, CRTs and keyboards and the Internet, he says, >well, order can increase in an open system.

No, dimwit, we have to explain such creations via evolution of life and
"intelligence".

>The development of life may have only violated one law of science, but that was the one >Sir Arthur Eddington called the "supreme" law of Nature, and it has violated that in a >most spectacular way.

It is you who are happy to violate SLOT. Here (p.17) is where I wrote
a worthwhile letter condemning the violations of SLOT needed by ID and
magical views of consciousness:

http://www.defenddemocracy.org/usr_doc/Letters_from_Readers.pdf

>At least that is my opinion, but perhaps I am wrong.

You are demonstrably wrong in virtually the entire article.

>Perhaps it only seems extremely improbable, but really isn't, that, under the right >conditions, the influx of stellar energy into a planet could cause atoms to rearrange >themselves into nuclear power plants and spaceships and computers.

Only thanks to the evolution of intelligence.

>But one would think that at least this would be considered an open question, and those >who argue that it really is extremely improbable, and thus contrary to the basic principle >underlying the second law, would be given a measure of respect, and taken seriously by >their colleagues, but we aren't.

I suppose it's your ignorance that offends us the most.

Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Glen
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Actually, it's not so much that I was wrong, as that I worded the first
sentence confusingly. I should have written something like:

"It's quite obvious that Eldridge completely disagrees with both
Sewell's incorrect claim that species gaps are only sporadic, and with
Sewell's false statement that the real problems arise when ascending
the hierarchy."

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

Or a tornado. Or, for that matter, a refrigerator.
--

Bob C.

"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless

You two seem to be in violent agreement. What do you imagine
"No life is a closed system" (note the lack of a comma
following the word "no") might mean?

And the reason you failed to actually read the above
excerpts (and Jason's original quote of an *actual* fundie
shithead) was...?

>> finding the causes of earthquakes; however, to express this difference

>> fire and explosions, do not create order, they destroy it. The second

>This is cool.More and more articles questioning the DoE.Hope to see more

....especially those which demonstrate the complete
cluelessness of the author, such as the above.

<snip>

But, just to be sure he doesn't get lonely, see to it that a colony of
friendly fire ants is nearby.

--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------

Nunc Id Vides, Nunc Ne Vides

- Unseen University Motto -

>[...]

He left out the parts about how a global flood, earth less than 10,000
years old, and man coexisting with dinosaurs are all part of
Intelligent Design, too.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering

--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
Servum tui ero, ipse vespera

Ahem, that's what they're after: No life. (Or is that "afterlife"? Eh,
same difference.)

--
"If Christians want us to believe in a Redeemer, let them act redeemed."
--Voltaire

Of course that's why noone has to plug their refridgerators in.

Carl
a.a. 1966

Dropped on your head as an infant?

Nicola

I'm glad to see all these laypeople contribute to this thread.Many few
know what the heck they're talking about,but A+ for effort!

Nicola

Nope.

> ... Cut off those lame creationist arguments at the source.

Cutting off Nick's head would be murder (if he's human).

CT

>Bob Casanova wrote:

>>>Jason Spaceman wrote:

>I'm glad to see all these laypeople contribute to this thread.Many few

What part of the Sewell's apparent inability to understand
that closed systems have zero relevance to evolution are you
missing? Or do you have a reading comprehension problem?

Oh, and most engineers (at least the competent ones)
understand the concept of entropy quite well; it is, after
all, part of their training.

Thanks for the clarification. It explains a lot.

(BTW, when *answering* a question, the question mark isn't needed.)

Hey, Beavis. American Sphincter.

"Jason Spaceman" <notr...@jspaceman.homelinux.org> wrote in message
news:5ev6r15kio6mu5nlb...@4ax.com...

> J. Spaceman
>

Why Newton?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Law_of_Thermodynamics#History>

Newton had no concept of thermodynamics. The thermodynamics that we know
and love was invented in the 19-th century. There were no laws of
thermodynamics in Newton's time. Newton did not have a conservation of
energy law either. His third law is a conservation of momentum law.

During Newton's time, heat was thought to be some kind of fluid (caloric).

Bob Kolker

As long as you're picking nits, you should have written "What you
should also have done is to spell Eldredge's name correctly". Matters
about as much.
>
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm