…and this is a 
Entropy and evolution
Category: Evolution • Science
Posted on: November 10, 2008 12:09 PM, by PZ Myers
One of the oldest canards in the creationists' book is the claim that evolution must be false because it violates the second law of thermodynamics, or the principle that, as they put it, everything must go from order to disorder. One of the more persistent perpetrators of this kind of sloppy thinking is Henry Morris, and few creationists today seem able to get beyond this error.
Remember this tendency from order to disorder applies to all real processes. Real processes include, of course, biological and geological processes, as well as chemical and physical processes. The interesting question is: "How does a real biological process, which goes from order to disorder, result in evolution. which goes from disorder to order?" Perhaps the evolutionist can ultimately find an answer to this question, but he at least should not ignore it, as most evolutionists do.
Especially is such a question vital, when we are thinking of evolution as a growth process on the grand scale from atom to Adam and from particle to people. This represents in absolutely gigantic increase in order and complexity, and is clearly out of place altogether in the context of the Second Law.
As most biologists get a fair amount of training in chemistry, I'm afraid he's wrong on one bit of slander there: we do not ignore entropy, and are in fact better informed on it than most creationists, as is clearly shown by their continued use of this bad argument. I usually rebut this claim about the second law in a qualitative way, and by example — it's obvious that the second law does not state that nothing can ever increase in order, but only that an decrease in one part must be accompanied by a greater increase in entropy in another. Two gametes, for instance, can fuse and begin a complicated process in development that represents a long-term local decrease in entropy, but at the same time that embryo is pumping heat out into its environment and increasing the entropy of the surrounding bit of the world.
It's a very bad argument they are making, but let's consider just the last sentence of the quote above.
This represents in absolutely gigantic increase in order and complexity, and is clearly out of place altogether in the context of the Second Law.
A "gigantic increase in order and complexity" … how interesting. How much of an increase? Can we get some numbers for that?
Daniel Styer has published an eminently useful article on "Entropy and Evolution" that does exactly that — he makes some quantitative estimates of how much entropy might be decreased by the process of evolution. I knew we kept physicists around for something; they are so useful for filling in the tricky details.
The article nicely summarizes the general problems with the creationist claim. They confuse the metaphor of 'disorder' for the actual phenomenon of entropy; they seem to have an absolutist notion that the second law prohibits all decreases in entropy; and they generally lack any quantitative notion of how entropy actually works. The cool part of this particular article, though, is that he makes an estimate of exactly how much entropy is decreased by the process of evolution.
First he estimates, very generously, how much entropy is decreased per individual. If we assume each individual is 1000 times "more improbable" than its ancestor one century ago, that is, that we are specified a thousand times more precisely than our great-grandparents (obviously a ludicrously high over-estimate, but he's trying to give every advantage to the creationists here), then we can describe the reduction in the number of microstates in the modern organism as:
Now I'm strolling into dangerous ground for us poor biologists, since this is a mathematical argument, but really, this is simple enough for me to understand. We know the statistical definition of entropy:
In the formula above, kB is the Boltzmann constant. We can just plug in our estimated (grossly overestimated!) value for Ω, have fun with a little algebra, and presto, a measure of the change in entropy per individual per century emerges.
Centuries are awkward units, so Styer converts that to something more conventional: the entropy change per second is -3.02 x 10-30 J/K. There are, of course, a lot of individual organisms on the planet, so that number needs to be multiplied by the total number of evolving organism, which, again, we charitably overestimate at 1032, most of which are prokaryotes, of course. The final result is a number that tells us the total change in entropy of the planet caused by evolution each second:
-302 J/K
What does that number mean? We need a context. Styer also estimates the Earth's total entropy throughput per second, that is, the total flux involved from absorption of the sun's energy and re-radiation of heat out into space. It's a slightly bigger number:
420 x 1012 J/K
To spell it out, there's about a trillion times more entropy flux available than is required for evolution. The degree by which earth's entropy is reduced by the action of evolutionary processes is miniscule relative to the amount that the entropy of the cosmic microwave background is increased.
This is very cool and very clear. I'm folding up my copy of Styer's paper and tucking it into my copy of The Counter-Creationism Handbook, where it will come in handy.
Styer DF (2008) Entropy and evolution. Am J Phys 76(11):1031-1033.
Life Science
Physical Science
Comments
Posted by: Sarcastro | November 10, 2008 12:18 PM
I usually rebut this claim about the second law in a qualitative way, and by example...
I just point at the sun.
Posted by: gribley | November 10, 2008 12:21 PM
Sarcastro is right -- the simplest rebuttal is to point out that the Second Law applies to a closed system. I don't know why creationists don't get that; probably they just hope that their target audience won't pick up on it.
That said, great post about a great topic! I'm glad the physicists (among whom I used to be numbered) are proving useful.
For those of us interested in reading the original paper, I found it here [PDF].
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 10, 2008 12:21 PM
Paging Mr. Stimpson.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 10, 2008 12:21 PM
All self respecting scientists know the entropy argument was bunk, but it is always nice to see some numerical values. Twelve orders of magnitude. Well, this will make the creationist argument a trillion times more silly than before, but what do they care? The entropy lie will still be repeated.
Posted by: ryanm | November 10, 2008 12:22 PM
The biggest obstacle for the cretinists seems to be, as has been stated a million times before, local vs. total decreases in entropy. If there couldn't be local decreases in entropy, then how could we ever build a bridge, skyscraper, type a letter, or do anything for that matter? Physics would be violated any time us humans tried to create complexity in this world, and surely the godbots don't think this is happening, right?
Posted by: Guy G | November 10, 2008 12:23 PM
Nice. Just last week I was wondering what sort of numbers could be applicable for the entropy argument. I must say I'm very impressed with just how big those numbers are.
Posted by: Ibid | November 10, 2008 12:24 PM
Creationists always try to use the second law,
to disprove evolution, but their theory has a flaw.
The second law is quite precise about where it applies,
only in a closed system must the entropy count rise.
The earth's not a closed system' it's powered by the sun,
so fuck the damn creationists, Doomsday get my gun!
That, in a nutshell, is what entropy's about,
you're now down with a discount.
--copy pasta from mchawking.com
Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 10, 2008 12:26 PM
One of their biggest mistakes is in confusing complexity and order.
Entropy is always increasing complexity, some of which does show up in evolution as variety (though natural selection ruthlessly hacks away at much variation). Increasing order, in fact, is not something that we see in evolution, or at least it can't be quantified as such.
Of course Granville Stewart yammers on about all this, making the factual point that the sun's input of energy doesn't mean that just anything can happen--like a PC randomly self-assembling over the time the earth has existed. Well of course that's true, but evolution is readily fueled by the sun's input.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Frasque | November 10, 2008 12:35 PM
I wonder how they account for digestion.
Posted by: raven | November 10, 2008 12:36 PM
It does? That means life is impossible.
1. Farmers supposedly plant seeds every spring. These little oblong objects put in the dirt turn into corn, wheat, and other plants which we eat, photosynthetic, self reproducing, evolving machines that turn sunlight, CO2, and water into organized matter. Obvious fairy tale.
2. Supposedly in animals and higher primates (humans), two haploid cells fuse to form a zygote. 20 years later, the zygote weighs 160 lbs and wants more money for college and plans to fuse haploid cells with some other multikilogram higher primate to make more zygotes. Another fairy tale that violates the second law and clearly impossible.
Posted by: maria | November 10, 2008 12:37 PM
If you repeat a lie enough times people will believe it. I've heard this argument refuted so often that I'm amazed that it still come up.
Thank you for writing this blog.
Posted by: Sean Carroll | November 10, 2008 12:38 PM
Darn it, that's a nice little calculation. Wish I had thought of doing it first.
It's not strictly right, as you point out, as he's trying to give the creationists every benefit. But there is a problem in identifying the "reduction in the number of microstates" from one generation to another, because it's not precisely the same degrees of freedom being re-arranged. I wonder if it's possible to fix that part up just a bit. (You'd get the same conclusion, obviously.)
Posted by: blf | November 10, 2008 12:41 PM
I just point at the sun.
It's probably been excerpted on FSTDT or similar (I'm too lazy to look right now), but some years ago a fundie-nutter argued the closed constraint was obviously bunk because if it was true, then the Earth violated the law because there'd have to be a gigantic source of energy somewhere, and there clearly isn't. I swear I'm not making this up...!
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 10, 2008 12:44 PM
Also: Nonequilibrium thermodynamics
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-nature-breaks-the-second-law
and also:
Natural selection for least action
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/50874678nw60t5l2/
Posted by: Matt Heath | November 10, 2008 12:45 PM
raven@10: Exactly! If you read discussions of extra-terrestrial life (say Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot) "life" is more or less defined as "that which locally pumps away entropy" (at least if we treat machines as extensions of the life forms that built them). So, for example, if we found a planet with oxygen and methane in the atmosphere, whatever was replenishing them (however odd to us) would be worth of the name "life".
Posted by: SteveM | November 10, 2008 12:50 PM
here:
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | November 10, 2008 12:50 PM
The existence of mathematics proves the existence of a mathematics-maker!!! Hah, refuted you!!!
Posted by: Simong | November 10, 2008 12:51 PM
I've never actually had a creationist try to use the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as an argument against evolution. Perhaps I've only argued with a better class of nutter, 'cause all it really shows is that the person knows next to nothing about entropy. Generally, I suspect I'd take it as a good indication that any discussion was a waste of my time.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 10, 2008 12:52 PM
best fstdt quote evah
Posted by: blf | November 10, 2008 12:57 PM
SteveM, yep, that's the "argument" I was thinking of. My jaw is still bouncing off the floor…
Posted by: Xerxes | November 10, 2008 12:57 PM
This doesn't affect the argument at all, but the Earth's radiation doesn't go into the cosmic microwave background (the field of photons permeating the universe that have not interacted with anything since the universe became transparent 300ky after the Big Bang), it just goes into the generic photon background. Aliens with large infrared telescopes could observe these photons to determine the Earth's temperature and maybe get some spectral information about it. Recent experiments have used space probes to look at the Earth's radiation from far away to see if the signatures of life can be picked out. That might give us a good idea what to look for when examining exoplanets.
Posted by: genewitch | November 10, 2008 12:58 PM
way to go pz. I spit coffee out my nose at work on the "trillion times" part.
Jerk.
:-D
Posted by: Randy | November 10, 2008 12:59 PM
I am SOOOOO downloading that paper right now.
Posted by: Jim | November 10, 2008 12:59 PM
Although intended to illustrate a much different point about thermodynamics, Drexler's Engines of Creation contains an excellent counterexample to the "disorder always increases" myth, which is simple enough that even a creationist might be able to understand it:
Posted by: Pete UK | November 10, 2008 1:04 PM
In the space of a few words, he more or less accepts the validity of physics, chemistry, biology and even geology as sciences, and of course he is upholding the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the basis for his argument.
So he seems to be supporting the scientific method and (most of) its cumulative achievements. But evolution - oh no!
A bit selective, wouldn't you say?
Posted by: O-dot-O | November 10, 2008 1:09 PM
In this month's Scientific American: Does Nature Break the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-nature-breaks-the-second-law
Posted by: Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker | November 10, 2008 1:19 PM
The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, "Death to all those who would whimper and cry"
And dropping a bar bell he points to the sky
Saving, "The sun's not yellow it's chicken"
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 10, 2008 1:23 PM
SteveM #16,
what you might not know, is that the fruitbat who came up with that hilarious statement did manage to add some more inepsies later on, after someone pointed out that the sun was such a source of energy :
"I didn't explain why the sun doesn't count"
It doesn't get any better than this !
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 10, 2008 1:25 PM
READY! SET! FAIL!
Posted by: Sili | November 10, 2008 1:26 PM
Aha!
Since everything has to from order to disorder, it's perfectly natural to ice to melt! GLOBAL WARMING IS A LIE!!
Posted by: Les Lane | November 10, 2008 1:26 PM
Lack of peer review is a unifying feature of pseudosciences. In this regard creationism is indistinguishable from astrology , homeopathy, etc. Effective peer review would cause all these "fields" to quickly disappear.
Posted by: Desert Son | November 10, 2008 1:36 PM
negentropyeater at @28:
And here I was all set to suggest that the world's major theistic traditions need to go back to worshiping Ra,
Ancient Egyptian deity of the sun.
Ra Ra Ra!
Sis boom ba!
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: speedwell | November 10, 2008 1:40 PM
why does the Sun's energy not make a truly dead plant become alive again (assuming a sufficient supply of water, light, and the like)?
I seriously think this moron thinks that a tree, say, is "dead" when you cut it down. Any gardener knows that parts of a "dead" plant can be grafted or rooted, "assuming a sufficient supply...".
I get much the same level of argumentation from people who believe that you should eat bean sprouts because they are "living" food.
Posted by: blf | November 10, 2008 1:40 PM
negentropyeater, I'm glad I put the café down before reading that follow-up. Even so, we need a warning on those sorts of posts. Something like:
TOYIMPDTCAFCYM...
Turn Off Your Irony Meter, Put Down The Café, And Firmly Close Your Mouth...
Posted by: Curt Cameron | November 10, 2008 1:42 PM
AS IF a creationist would have any hope of understanding entropy calculations!
The simpler path would just be to point out to them that their second-law argument would also prove that an embryo could never increase in complexity to become an adult. Either their argument is flawed, or we don't exist.
Posted by: tsg | November 10, 2008 1:42 PM
This has always bothered me, too. I've always wanted to point them at a bunch of Perpetual Motion nutters and say, "these guys think thermodynamics is bunk, so there goes your argument."
Posted by: Anthony Popple | November 10, 2008 1:43 PM
I have had this debate with friends and relatives before.
I usually ask them if they know of a child who has grown into an adult. If they say yes, I tell them that their argument is therefore clearly wrong.
To be fair, the argument isn't wrong so much as it is imcomplete. A thermodynamic argument is necessarily quantitative; you haven't made the argument until you give real numbers.
Posted by: Tom | November 10, 2008 1:43 PM
Boltzmann Constant. Named after Ludwig Boltzmann I believe. My favourite scientist, way ahead of his time. A tragic story too, if you care to look it up - Wikipedia describes him well. Statistical entropy is a cool theory (if you'll excuse the nerdy pun).
Posted by: Skeletor | November 10, 2008 1:44 PM
You can also think of entropy as thermodynamic equilibrium, removing the whole disorder idea all together.
http://www.entropysite.com/entropy_isnot_disorder.html
Posted by: Kalirren | November 10, 2008 1:44 PM
Sounds like a physicist's argument to me. He's only looking at organisms, and failing to take into account all of the possible states of the biosphere = (organisms + environment).
Although if you're dealing with a creationist that has that deep of a understanding about what a system, whether open or closed, really is, then you may as well go back to pointing at the sun.
I wouldn't disseminate that paper. It's just throwing them ammunition.
Posted by: rob | November 10, 2008 1:46 PM
why did the author pick the factor of a 1000 as the ratio of the initial and final entropies? the author writes:
"I regard this as a very generous rate of evolution, but you may make your own assumption."
hmmm...let's say that the final state is ONE BILLION times as improbable!!! heh, heh, heh...(evil scientist laugh)
in the calculation, we replace 10^-3 with 10^-9 and get
k*ln(10^-9)=k(-20.7233)= 3* k(-6.91) = 3 times authors calculation.
so, by increasing the improbability factor from 1000 to 1 billion, you only change the amount of entropy flux by a factor of 3, which is still much much less than the available entropy flux on the earth.
with this in mind, one might ask oneself if there is so much entropy flux available why don't we see advanced species like sharks with frickin'laser beams? how come evolution moves so slowly.
Posted by: Josh | November 10, 2008 1:48 PM
Link to the paper by Styer? Googling his name and the title you give only links to this page.
Posted by: Loren Petrich | November 10, 2008 1:50 PM
I once saw a similar sort of argument about William Shakespeare and the plays that he had written -- how does the entropy decrease of composing his plays compare to the entropy increase of his metabolism?
We can get a hint by considering the number of bits needed to write down his entire collective works. Project Gutenberg has a collection of his works that is a total of 5458199 bytes of plain-text file. Each byte has 8 bits, making 32749194 bits.
Entropy = k(boltzmann) * ln(2) * (number of bits) = 3*10^(-16) joules/K
-
William Shakespeare likely ate about 2000 food calories / day, which is 100 watts of energy consumption. About 20% of it would be used by his brain; that is 20 watts. His body temperature was 37 C or 98.6 F, meaning that his brain produced metabolic entropy at 0.065 (joules/K)/s.
This, a few seconds of metabolism result in an entropy gain MUCH greater than the entropy loss of all his works.
Posted by: Tom | November 10, 2008 1:50 PM
Another word about Boltzmann and then I'll shut up! From the wikipedia article:
Check him out. He is a relatively untold hero of the science story.
Posted by: G.D. | November 10, 2008 1:51 PM
Please, everyone, also take a look at this one from another science blog "Good Math, Bad Math" - an excellent piece (from an excellent blog); on information theory - which is, to put it mildly, pretty relevant to the topic:
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/08/why_is_randomness_informative.php#more
Posted by: Hans | November 10, 2008 1:54 PM
Love this stuff. Reminds me of how woo-woo types love to latch on to the uncertainty principle, and bloviate endlessly and irrelevantly. But when you go back to the science, and look at the equations, you realize that not only do scientists know what they don't know, they can tell you exactly how big it is.
In the words of xkcd's author: "Science: it works, bitches"
Posted by: Darth Wader | November 10, 2008 1:58 PM
Ω, Its Greek to me
Posted by: charley | November 10, 2008 2:01 PM
These creationists imply that wherever entropy decreases God is defying physics to perform a miracle. He must be so busy building each snowflake from random water molecules, and grabbing CO2 and H2O molecules to stack into oak trees and dandelions and the like. How does he find time for managing the rest of the universe and hating gays?
Posted by: michel | November 10, 2008 2:02 PM
just the number -302, followed by the number 420 x 10^12 made me laugh out loud.
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 10, 2008 2:03 PM
Link to abstract for "Entropy and Evolution" (for those who don't have access to AJP)
And here's the author's home page:
http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/index.html
Posted by: jackalopemonger | November 10, 2008 2:03 PM
blf @13:
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=1073734&postcount=232
That's the source, from what I can tell. Naturally, said fundie-nutter knew all about the sun, and clarified his position thusly:
Sorry, my mistake guys, I didn't explain why the Sun doesn't count. Here is the info on that from ChristianAnswers.net:
Is Energy the Key?
To create any kind of upward, complex organization in a closed system requires outside energy and outside information. Evolutionists maintain that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not prevent Evolution on Earth, since this planet receives outside energy from the Sun. Thus, they suggest that the Sun's energy helped create the life of our beautiful planet. However, is the simple addition of energy all that is needed to accomplish this great feat?
Compare a living plant with a dead one. Can the simple addition of energy make a completely dead plant live?
A dead plant contains the same basic structures as a living plant. It once used the Sun's energy to temporarily increase its order and grow and produce stems, leaves, roots, and flowers - all beginning from a single seed.
If there is actually a powerful Evolutionary force at work in the universe, and if the open system of Earth makes all the difference, why does the Sun's energy not make a truly dead plant become alive again (assuming a sufficient supply of water, light, and the like)?
What actually happens when a dead plant receives energy from the Sun? The internal organization in the plant decreases; it tends to decay and break apart into its simplest components. The heat of the Sun only speeds the disorganization process.
You were born perfect, now I don't mean perfect like muscly body and everything is the "normal" conditions. I mean perfect as in you haven't sinned. I doubt that anybody has come out of their mother and shouted the f word.
In response to Crimson King: Of course we use science to prove you wrong, but of course you just deny it. Jesus is the son of God so therefore can perform miracles. Raising from the dead is nothing short of a miracle. Creationists have their essential beliefs about God, and take those views and put them to use when they find scientific evidence. Those views more than always agree with the evidence.
Which I guess can be summarized as: if the Sun can't perform miracles and bring plants back to life, then evolution can't occur.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 10, 2008 2:04 PM
But who determined the LAW?!?!? There has to be celestial law bringer!
Posted by: Michael X | November 10, 2008 2:04 PM
I realized I was a child of the internet, when I read how much entropy we (highly overestimated!) humans cause per second as: -302 units of Just Kidding.
Is it just me? It's just me isn't it?
Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 10, 2008 2:05 PM
I wrote "Granville Stewart" in #8, when it should have been "Granville Sewell." It's hard to keep these bozos straight--especially when they're as pathetic as Granville is.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: QDA | November 10, 2008 2:05 PM
To anyone that can provide some insight:
Does acceptance of the scientific validity of evolutionary theory necessitate denying that a God might exist?
Yes, I'm a 'troll' as most of you would refer to me, but no, it's not a loaded question. A valid, respectful, insult-free response would be appreciated and I'll be on my merry little way. Thanks.
Posted by: uncle noel | November 10, 2008 2:06 PM
The 2nd Law argument is obviously bunk. I mean good lord: even condensation entails entropy reduction! But - just being the devil's advocate here - wouldn't the creationist respond that the biggest reduction in entropy occurs in going from inanimate matter to living thing? Doesn't the argument beg the question when we can't say exactly how that happened or how long it took? There seems to be a big difference in entropy between a prokaryote and a crystal. This may be a different issue than the one of whether evolution can occur, but it is related.
The 2nd Law argument is also used to "refute" the Big Bang theory. Again, it is the initial state that is tricky. "Let there be light" is not too different a theory. I mean, except for God and stuff.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 10, 2008 2:06 PM
did you see me lay down the law?!!!
I am the law giver.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghANtP1JPPg
Posted by: templewhore | November 10, 2008 2:09 PM
Science and math make me very happy.
Posted by: Sili | November 10, 2008 2:10 PM
QDA,
No. Or no, if that's your poison.
Posted by: Steve_C | November 10, 2008 2:13 PM
Nope QDA. Plenty of people accept the fact of evolution without ever giving up their superstitions. They just usually fold evolution into whatever "sacred" beliefs they have. The biblical story of "creation" is just so silly, how could they not?
Posted by: Glen Davidson | November 10, 2008 2:13 PM
Certainly not, at least not without the rest of science providing the same "agnostic" message as evolution does.
Evolutionary science simply fails to support the claim that God exists, along with the other divisions of science.
If, say, meteorology indicated a rational mind behind weather, the silence of evolution would do nothing to gainsay the evidence provided by meteorology. Likewise with cosmology.
The only reason evolutionary theory is supposed to be especially contrary to the idea of God is that religious folk have held onto life as "proof" of God in a more central manner, and for longer, than they claimed, for instance, that the weather was due to God/the gods. Then came Darwin, and he was blamed for "God's death," when theist Newton is at least as responsible--not least because evolution brings biology into the same realm of causation as the "celestial spheres" are, hence it is basically the extension of classical physics (with a smatter of QM) into biology.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 10, 2008 2:15 PM
No it says nothing about it. Now reaching that conclusion after understanding and accepting the validity of the Theory of Evolution and weighing it with a multitude of other bits of data, that's another thing.
your millage may vary.
Posted by: oldtree | November 10, 2008 2:16 PM
I would expect a correlation with time. The lack of a timepiece may be causing the person some distress. Entropy may look like decay to someone out of time.
Posted by: The Chemist | November 10, 2008 2:21 PM
Ha! I was just working an entropy problem before I came here, and I was earnestly thinking about evolution in the same context.
Quite stealing my thoughts PZ! My tinfoil hat shall defeat you!
Posted by: Greg R. | November 10, 2008 2:22 PM
PeteUK
Ah, but the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a LAW, created by God, while the theory of evolution is merely a theory, created by man. Fixed.
Posted by: Epikt | November 10, 2008 2:28 PM
Tom:
In (IIRC) Goodstein's graduate text on stat mech, there's a nice riff to the effect that the study of this stuff induces depression. It describes Boltzmann's work on the subject and his subsequent suicide. Ditto for Paul Ehrenfest. Then, to encourage the student, there's something like "Now it's our turn to study statistical mechanics."
Posted by: Lee Picton | November 10, 2008 2:35 PM
Sigh. I don't get the math (never having gotten past high school third year algebra), but then, I have the security of relying on experts who know what they are talking about. Having some expertise in other fields prompts me to mention that minuscule is spelled minuscule. You're welcome.
Posted by: Christian A. | November 10, 2008 2:40 PM
I am i bit annoyed I did not look into Pharyngula earlier today. That awesomestnerd bit is really the bestest quote evar!!!!!1!one It's a bit like a bullet stuck in my skull. I *feel* that quote from time to time moving in my head, especially when someone mentions evolution and entropy. It's a highlight of ignorance, kind like ignoring a bat when hit by it.
Posted by: tsg | November 10, 2008 2:42 PM
No, but it is one less thing for which god is needed as an explanation.
Posted by: Travis | November 10, 2008 2:45 PM
Suddenly I feel a song coming on
http://www.imeem.com/joshgreenslade/music/-EvoJAbV/flanders_and_swann_first_and_second_law/
Yeah - that's entropy, man!
Posted by: Randy Stimpson aka Intelligent Designer | November 10, 2008 2:47 PM
Hi Rev a #3,
Thanks for the page. Looks like I got back from vacation just in time. I am at work right now so my comment will be brief. Consider this strawman statement:
Of course creationists understand that entropy can decrease. We also understand that the earth is not a closed system. Some of us are even smart enough to wear sunscreen to reduce our risk of skin cancer.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 2:51 PM
Exactly! Here we can employ complexity theory and information theory in a framework of systems-thinking to once and for all present a fatal argument against that creotard nonsense. Life on earth is a self-organizing system without teleology. The entropy can decrease within the (interest-relative) boundaries of the system "earth", more specifically "life on earth", there can be a local increase in order/systematic complexity through self-organization, which we know occurs naturally (for more see Self-Organisation at Scholarpedia). There is always at least one system of which the system with local increase in order and complexity is a real subsystem, in which the entropy increases over time. And any system, even the most complex systems will "gravitate" in their behaviour towards certain attractors - these attractors can be very complex, and thus it is entirely explicable that such complex systems as life on earth or even human mental activity should exist - this does not conflict with thermodynamics because the systems gravitate to specific attractors in their energy-state and there is always at least one system that includes the initial one where the entropy increases.
I mean, I can see how the creotard idiot might impress someone who is generally hostile to evolution and might have heard about "thermodynamics" and "entropy" fleetingly. But surely it is impossible to be aware of the above facts about entropy and complex systems and still believe that evolution is thermodynamically impossible? Which leaves it to people like PZ, Daniel Styer and us to educate the people we meet - "immunize" them against creationist nonsense. I only wish more people took an interest in the world as understood by science...
Posted by: Chris Crawford | November 10, 2008 2:52 PM
When I was an undergraduate at the University of California at Davis, around 1970, a creationist by the name of Duane T. Gish gave a lecture in which he made the same claim about 2nd Thermo. He was corrected on it by one of the physics professors in the audience. These people don't seem to learn, do they?
Posted by: Nick Gotts | November 10, 2008 2:53 PM
QDA@55,
A "troll" is someone who comments on a blog simply to annoy or waste time, not to make a contribution to the discussion or ask a sincere question, so on the evidence so far you're not one - and have been answered politely. Incidentally, the original derivation of the term is apparently from a method of rod-and-line fishing, not from the mythical ugly creature that lurks under bridges.
Posted by: bill ringo | November 10, 2008 2:53 PM
When biophysicists are around biologists we talk physics, around physicists we talk biology. Amongst ourselves we talk about our grandchildren.
Nice paper, nice commentary by our host.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 10, 2008 2:56 PM
En-tro-py
And I-vo-ry
Live together in perfect har-mo-ny
Side by side on my piano keyboard
Tell me:
Why can't we?
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 3:05 PM
And of course, there is still no good measure for entropy of far-from-equilibrium systems!
That's the nailer that everyone pretends isn't there --- most measures of entropy, all the way to grand canonical, assume close-to-equilibrium conditions. On top of that, almost every real calculation of entry drops half the dimensions of that calculation -- the distribution of velocities.
So, not only is there a sufficient energy gradient to support the "negentropy" of life --- but in fact that negentropy might not exist at all, but is purely an artifact of improper entropy calculations!
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 3:07 PM
Hear hear PZ and Daniel Styer...!
We can employ complexity theory and information theory in a framework of systems-thinking to once and for all present a fatal argument against that creotard nonsense. Life on earth is a self-organizing system without teleology. The entropy can decrease within the (interest-relative) boundaries of the system "earth", more specifically "life on earth", there can be a local increase in order/systematic complexity through self-organization, which we know occurs naturally (for more see Self-Organisation at Scholarpedia). There is always at least one system of which the system with local increase in order and complexity is a real subsystem, in which the entropy increases over time. And any system, even the most complex systems will "gravitate" in their behaviour towards certain attractors - these attractors can be very complex, and thus it is entirely explicable that such complex systems as life on earth or even human mental activity should exist - this does not conflict with thermodynamics because the systems gravitate to specific attractors in their energy-state and there is always at least one system that includes the initial one where the entropy increases.
And since these systems are so complex as to be unpredictable without running a complete facsimile (like cellular automata, see Complex Systems at Scholarpedia and Cellular Automata on Wikipedia), we know with certainty that even deism or "god-guided evolution" is wrong because the only way god could have planned for any of what happens in life on earth today is if he already ran exactly this universe before he did ours... what a pathetic god that would be.
I mean, I can see how the creotard might impress someone who is generally hostile to evolution and might have heard about "thermodynamics" and "entropy" fleetingly. But surely it is impossible to be aware of the above facts about entropy and complex systems and still believe that evolution is thermodynamically impossible? Which leaves it to people like PZ, Daniel Styer and us to educate the people we meet - "immunize" them against creationist nonsense. I only wish more people took an interest in the world as understood by science...
Not only does science not show that evolution is incompatible with theormodynamics, all of science - especially systems theory, biology, complexity theory, information theory - show that Theism and even Deism are incompatible with the universe as we understand it scientifically and rationally.
Posted by: Adrian | November 10, 2008 3:18 PM
"Thou are a geek tho"
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 3:19 PM
...and by the way... which measure of entropy or complexity are these creationists talking about? Oh that's right... they haven't got a clue because they didn't think it through... they're just spouting pseudo-scientific bullshit.
When we employ the concept of Kolmogorov-complexity, we can clearly see that even very complex systems like neural networks, individual neurons or even an individual in thermodynmaic exchange with its environment over the course of its history will "gravitate" towards energetically relatively more stable points, ie it will move - energetically - on a gradient towards some attractors of lower-energy states for the system. We can even describe the learning of a neural network (ie learning as it occurs in creatures with brains, like us), and the learning of an individual neuron in a network in terms of entropy - this model is called "Boltzmann Learning". - And the heat-dissipation of even such complex processes of learning within a biological brain in context with its environment - even things as complex and "improbable" as this always dissipate enough heat not to make it impossible for the universe as a whole to move towards increased entropy... not even the entropy in the solar-system as a whole is increased much by it... as the paper PZ introduces explains. The kolmogorov-complexity of the complex, biofunctional systems is lower than that of total chaos because it observes patterns in which it transduces entropy/information... we have biofunctionality - the bifurcation of the complex thermodynamic system of life on earth... this is all perfectly within the grasp of science.
I find it so utterly abominable when creationists use pseudo-scientific thinking to make an impression on those who perhaps could be educated about the actual state of affairs, and how little these idiots know of real science.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 3:25 PM
Damn... sorry bout that double-post. I accidentally pressed post shortly before I pressed "Preview", then made the corrections and then re-submitted it since I didn't think it got through the first time... my browser was very slow and the submission of the preview timed out at my first attempt...
I apologize
Posted by: Vadjong | November 10, 2008 3:26 PM
The thermodynamics argument against evolution is refuted in every breath it is uttered with.
Simple.
Posted by: Eric Atkinson@msn.com | November 10, 2008 3:26 PM
I was exposed to thermodynamics in school and learned quite a bit more in the Navy. Boy It made my head hurt.
One snarky way of summarizing the three laws is as follows:
First Law. Heat can be converted to work.
Second Law. But completely only at Zero Deg. K.
Third Law. You can't get to Zero Deg. K.
Great post Dr Myers. Thanks. I love the way you put that old creationist saw to rest, if there isn't math its just opinion.
Posted by: Alex | November 10, 2008 3:31 PM
"they haven't got a clue because they didn't think it through..."
For sure. That's what they love to do. They cherry-pick parts of a complex scientific issue and poorly apply it as support for their delusions. It's complete dishonesty. They don't actually to the research. They're satisfied with a piss-poor supposition that they can tell their echo-chamber followers "disproves" evolution (or "proves" their deity), and maybe even let the real scientists chase a red-herring.
They have the scientific community at a disadvantage in that they can be sloppy and imprecise - and still manage to speak from authority. Of course, science has them at a disadvantage because science deals with reality, which always seems to decisively dismantle their poorly constructed notions.
Posted by: Kobra | November 10, 2008 3:31 PM
PWNED!
Posted by: Alex | November 10, 2008 3:34 PM
"Boy It made my head hurt."
While studying it in college, the course earned the moniker "Thermogoddamnics".
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 3:45 PM
Alex,
Absolutely! That's a good formulation.
Posted by: Dancaban | November 10, 2008 3:46 PM
If things are getting disordered as cretinists argue then surely they must do all they can to preserve what order we have left in the genome? Therefore they must weed out the undesirable elements and stop them reproducing as they are only contributing to this "disorder". Even better give them no chance at all to contribute to this disorder by rounding them up and putting them into special "safe" places. And if that doesn't work, well, "special" action might be called for. Anybody for the New (dis)Order?
Posted by: Pablo | November 10, 2008 3:52 PM
Maybe because it's not true.
Here is the Kelvin statement of the 2nd Law:
"It is not possible to create a system in which the sole result is the addition of heat and its complete conversion to work"
Notice that there is nothing in this statement about open or closed systems.
Given this statement, I can readily show that, for a closed system, dS > 0 for a spontaneous process. However, the SLoT also applies to everything, everywhere. It's just that the implications of the SLoT in an open-system are very different from those in a closed system. Mathematically, the best statement of the SLoT is the Clausius inequality, TdS > dq (I can derive this using the Kelvin statement).
So in the end, while it is definately true that creationists haven't got a clue about the SLoT, it is also important that we counter them with an accurate version.
It is true that the requirement that entropy must increase only applies to a closed system, and you can correctly point that out. But don't go about claiming the 2nd law "doesn't apply." It most certainly does.
Posted by: Robster, FCD | November 10, 2008 3:57 PM
So, if entropy affects all real processes, is god less powerful now than any point in the past? If so, then god will end up so much less powerful in the future, we can ignore it safely. If god isn't affected by entropy, by the creationist's logic, god isn't real...
Posted by: pboyfloyd | November 10, 2008 3:59 PM
Does he not try to be even more confusing(or authoritative) by claiming it is 'Newton's' law? A lot of 'em do.
I like it when they are trying to imagine where energy might come from. Some powerful force in the sky that makes the grass grow and the wind blow.
"Well, that sure 'sounds' like(wait a second, the Sun is shining on my monitor), what was I saying, oh yea, sure 'sounds' like GOD to ME!"
Posted by: Nick Gotts | November 10, 2008 4:00 PM
That's the nailer that everyone pretends isn't there --- most measures of entropy, all the way to grand canonical, assume close-to-equilibrium conditions. - frog@77
There's an article in November's Sci. Am. by J. Miguel Rubi, about extending applications of the Second Law to far-from-equilibrium systems. If any thermodynamicists have read it, I'd be interested in an opinion.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 4:00 PM
The thing is, the boundaries of any system (especially more more complex systems) are always interest-relative - there is no clear boundary, the boundary is defined by the property or properties according to which the observer distinguishes the system. Except - that is - for the universe as a whole. (Or perhaps multiverse - leave that one to the cosmologists) The universe/multiverse is necessarily all-encompassing - by the very definition of the term. And as such it is the only real system with non-interest-relative boundaries, and since it is complete, ie contains all other systems (where there are as many arbitrary subsystems as there are elements in the power-set of the set of all the constituents of the universe), it is only system which does not have information/energy-exchange with another... as long as the total entropy of everything together doesn't tend to decrease, thermodynamics is not violated.
And in any complex system you can arbitrarily define a subsystem whose entropy decreases, simply by picking out the spacetime-volume where locally the order increases while globally the entropy increases. So it is no surprise that we should find such pockets of low entropy - in fact, as we know, it's not surprising that we should exists in such a pocket of low entropy... only there can we exist.
Posted by: Paul Burnett | November 10, 2008 4:02 PM
"One of the more persistent perpetrators of this kind of sloppy thinking is Henry Morris..." - PZ
Make that a was, not an is - Henry Morris died in 2006, and is getting a well-deserved roasting along with Jerry Falwell and other Liars For Jesusâ„¢.
Posted by: Alverant | November 10, 2008 4:04 PM
The entropy argument is useful in one sense, anyone who uses it you know has limited knowledge of science and if they're above college age you know they don't WANT to understand either. It's a flag indicating there's nothing you can do to them to change their minds. The best you can do is humiliate them into silence by revealing their ignorance. As I told one of these jokers, "If you bothered to go to physics class in school and pay attention, you'd remember the 'closed system' part of the second law of thermodynamics." That shut him up rather quickly.
Posted by: Pablo | November 10, 2008 4:05 PM
Interesting comments, MPhil.
Which leads to my next observation: Assuming that we consider the universe to be a closed system, we can then say that an implication of the 2nd law is that the entropy of the "universe" must increase, right? Interestingly, that is only true because of the expanding universe. If the universe were collapsing (dV
Posted by: amphiox | November 10, 2008 4:07 PM
#32:
I think the most appropriate Egyptian deity is actually Aten rather than Ra.
Ra was a sun-god, but he was an anthropomorphic one. That is, although he was in charge of the sun, he was actually humanoid in form.
Aten, however, was the actual disc of the sun.
Posted by: Paul Burnett | November 10, 2008 4:08 PM
"One snarky way of summarizing the three laws (of thermodynamics) is as follows: First Law. Heat can be converted to work...." - Eric, #83
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't get out of the game.
Posted by: Pablo | November 10, 2008 4:09 PM
Personally, I challenge them to show me how evolution violates the Clausius inequality.
Posted by: SteveM | November 10, 2008 4:09 PM
Hardly snarky at all. The truly snarky summary is:
1)you can't win
2)you can't break even
3)you can't get out of the game
Posted by: Paper Hand | November 10, 2008 4:10 PM
I'm surprised no one's commented on this from the quote in #28
This guy doesn't even know his own religion's theology! What ever happened to Original Sin, hunh?
Posted by: Sili | November 10, 2008 4:13 PM
I thought the witty formulation was:
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't get out of the game.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 10, 2008 4:18 PM
On account of uttering the Anglo-Saxon word for "sexual intercourse" is a known sin. It's right there in The Holy Bible, seriously.Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 4:19 PM
Pablo,
I seem to vaguely remember something like that. And surely, if we "travelled" through spacetime in the opposite direction for the entire history of the universe, we would observe such things as exhaust fumes going back into the engine etc... and temporally locally there would be a drastic decrease in entropy - but we'd end up with the big bang, the initial conditions... and as we know, as we approach the big-bang, travelling backwards in time in a collapsing universe - the immense heat means a very high kolmogorov-complexity, no real order, high entropy, no complex subsystems. Neither at the beginning nor at the end of universe from our view of the direction-of-time have complex subsystems... only in the middle do we have these. Neither heat-death nor condensation at the big-bang allow for complexity. As such, the overall tendency is there because of inflation - but in a reversed space-time, a collapsing spacetime, we would also "end up" without order.
Posted by: SteveM | November 10, 2008 4:21 PM
Pablo and MPhil,
I thought Hawking showed that even if the universe were to stop expanding and recollapse, entropy would continue to increase and time would not reverse.
Posted by: Alex | November 10, 2008 4:23 PM
sin, blasphemy, prayer, holy, heaven, hell, angels, demons - all meaningless words designed to artificially prop up a non-existent, fabrication of reality.
Posted by: OilBoy | November 10, 2008 4:23 PM
Im confused about which entropy we are talking about. The 2nd law applys to thermodynamic entropy, but the Boltzman stuff is statistical entropy. The 2nd law doesnt say 'disorder increases' at all, rather its a mathematical statement of the usable heat energy that remains after a process.
Posted by: The skepTick | November 10, 2008 4:23 PM
302 J/K every second? That's the same units as thermal conductance (W/K). If so, then wouldn't it be correct to say that evolution has about a thermal conductance somewhere between Portland Cement (0.29 W/mK) and dry sand (0.35 W/mK)?
Posted by: Pablo | November 10, 2008 4:23 PM
I've heard this line before, but I will admit I don't really understand the third one. There are different ways of stating the third law, often involving the Nernst heat theorem and whatnot, but a common concise statement is, "The entropy of a perfect crystal is zero at zero kelvin."
How does this imply "You can't get out of the game"?
Posted by: Katkinkate | November 10, 2008 4:24 PM
Posted by: rob @ 41 "... with this in mind, one might ask oneself if there is so much entropy flux available why don't we see advanced species like sharks with frickin'laser beams? how come evolution moves so slowly."
We may eventually, if people or sharks don't go extinct first. It all takes time and there is several billion years yet to go before our sun goes nova.
Posted by: Bert Chadick | November 10, 2008 4:25 PM
Oh Noes! Now my Honda won't start! It seems that it only wants to sit and decay in order to comply with the second law of thermodynamics.
Posted by: tcb | November 10, 2008 4:27 PM
Of course, the sad part of all this is that such a journal article is even necessary.
My mother took her Mech.E. degree in the 1940s. When I was young I used to look at the pretty color plates in her old textbooks and try to figure out what they were about. Presumably as a result, the qualitative laws of thermodynamics seem like the tritest common sense to me. I finally understood(ish) classical phase space after reading a Sci. Am. article some time in the 70s or 80s.
Now, I can't be all that exceptional. We need to get some better physics (yes, physics - sorry) into K-12 classrooms in the hope that others will absorb the principles as "trite common sense."
The calculations are another matter, but not everyone needs to actually perform them.
Slightly OT - I was about to despair of seeing any more science posts on here; sorry for doubting you, PZ!
Posted by: PurpleTurtle | November 10, 2008 4:27 PM
Not a scientist, as you will shortly be able to tell...
I thought that a singularity was the highest form of order, and that increasing complexity was therefore an increase in disorder, no matter how well it appeared organized? Is this totally wrong, or as a scientific moron, am I just simplifying things to the point of unhelpful?
Also, is there a reading list knocking around along the lines of science for total beginners who don't want to read books aimed at 5 year olds?
Much thanx.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 4:31 PM
Pablo,
in addition to my last comment (I forgot to mention this)...
Complex systems which can be described as performing certain functions - ie automata-theoretic models (non-deterministic finite automata) of systems (we can view an organism as some form of automaton, and even life on earth as a general phenomenon) can be described with lower kolmogorov-complexity than complete chaos - we can describe the algorithmically, give a function which the system observes in a certain respect... for a completely chaotic system in contrast to a more ordered system like a brain or life on earth versus a chaotic distribution of particles over time in a certain space, the kolmogorov-complexity will always be higher. Even in an ideally minimal (non-redundant or pleonastic) language the description of a system like the universe entering heat death or the approaching the big-bang (backwards in time) will always require a more extensive description - since a complex functional system (like an eye, a pocket calculator, a brain or a PC) is ordered in virtue of being describable as performing a certain function (which can also be expressed in purely thermodynamic/information-theoretic terms)... I am currently doing research on this for the application in my master's thesis in neurophilosophy/philosophy of mind (I'm a student of formal logic, formal meta-science and philosophy, specializing on the philosophy of mind, Naturalism vs Dualism/"Supernaturalism", mind-brain relation)... this last bit of information just to explain the context of my posts...
Posted by: SteveM | November 10, 2008 4:32 PM
The law actually refers to an asymptotic process, effectively saying that zero K cannot be achieved by a finite number of processes. I assume that achieving zero K is effectively "getting out of the game".
Posted by: Alex | November 10, 2008 4:35 PM
"...why don't we see advanced species like sharks with frickin'laser beams?"
If you consider human acts as a function of Nature, then sharks with laser beams is no problem. It's something that can be easily done. Silliness aside, applied intelligence can affect entropy. Taking that one step further is when evolution creates a self-sustaining, self-replicating, self-improving AI - albeit by human acts. That's what's next.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 4:36 PM
Pablo,
in addition to my last comment (I forgot to mention this)...
Complex systems which can be described as performing certain functions - ie automata-theoretic models (non-deterministic finite automata) of systems (we can view an organism as some form of automaton, and even life on earth as a general phenomenon) can be described with lower kolmogorov-complexity than complete chaos - we can describe the algorithmically, give a function which the system observes in a certain respect... for a completely chaotic system in contrast to a more ordered system like a brain or life on earth versus a chaotic distribution of particles over time in a certain space, the kolmogorov-complexity will always be higher. Even in an ideally minimal (non-redundant or pleonastic) language the description of a system like the universe entering heat death or the approaching the big-bang (backwards in time) will always require a more extensive description - since a complex functional system (like an eye, a pocket calculator, a brain or a PC) is ordered in virtue of being describable as performing a certain function (which can also be expressed in purely thermodynamic/information-theoretic terms)... I am currently doing research on this for the application in my master's thesis in neurophilosophy/philosophy of mind (I'm a student of formal logic, formal meta-science and philosophy, specializing on the philosophy of mind, Naturalism vs Dualism/"Supernaturalism", mind-brain relation)... this last bit of information just to explain the context of my posts...
Posted by: Desert Son | November 10, 2008 4:44 PM
amphiox at #97:
Thanks for that follow-up. I was unfamiliar with Aten, so defaulted to the only Ancient Egyptian sun deity I knew. Good to learn more, and your suggestion makes much more sense!
No kings,
Robert
Posted by: Alex | November 10, 2008 4:44 PM
"...and that increasing complexity was therefore an increase in disorder, no matter how well it appeared organized?"
Order & disorder are loaded terms. They place a value-judgment. Using neutral terminology helps with the precision. However, using complexity to describe systems can be trick. Regarding geometric distributions of objects, it can be said there are 2 kinds of complexity (or order), grouping order, and symmetry order. As an example, the distribution of checker-pieces at the beginning of the game is symmetry order - reds on ones side, blacks on the other. An even distribution of red and black pieces over the board is symmetry order. It would seem that it could be described that the Universe is going from grouping order (lumpy) to symmetry order (smooth).
Posted by: George | November 10, 2008 4:44 PM
First, as others have noted it applies to a closed system. It also applies to entropy - the availability of the systems energy to do work. I do not recall the term "order" arising
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 4:49 PM
Damn - another double post. Again Pharyngula told me first that my comment would not be posted because I had already posted many in such short time - so I should try again later. I did - and get another double-post. I'm really sorry, people - I really don't mean to spam... it seems there's something wrong with my connections. My dlan has been acting up lately. Again, - I'm really sorry, folks!
On the subject of thermodynamic vs statistic entropy/disorder... since all information must be "embodied" somewhere - and every structure/system that isn't totally random/chaotic under any formal description of entropy/order/complexity also "embodies" some information (I think information has become an accepted quantity in the natural science, thanks to applied mathematics in information-theory, systems theory etc..) - we can say that anything that we can reasonably describe (pick out) as a distinct "process", changes the configuration of the system in a discernible way, the heat/energy throughput is a valid description of the system over time - there is also an information-theoretic description of the system. When the global entropy of a system increases, it means that it requires - overall - more extensive information to describe than a sub-region of that system where energy/heat decreases locally, where there is order, information, structure... and my thesis is that spatiotemporal structure is the central defining aspect of systems - this unites the thermodynamic, complexity-theory, information-theoretic and model-theoretic views of systems.
Posted by: Alex | November 10, 2008 4:49 PM
"...the distribution of checker-pieces at the beginning of the game is symmetry order..."
correction:
the distribution of checker-pieces at the beginning of the game is grouping order
Posted by: Watchman | November 10, 2008 4:49 PM
<zardoz>
"Pay no attention to the layers of sedimentary rock behind the curtain!"
</zardoz>
Posted by: Randy | November 10, 2008 4:50 PM
Like most engineers, I had to study thermodynamics including an entire 400 class on the subject so I really find it bemusing when religious fundamentalists attempt to lecture me on the subject.
Posted by: Alex | November 10, 2008 4:58 PM
"...so I really find it bemusing when religious fundamentalists attempt to lecture me on the subject."
There you go...you snobby know-it-all sciency types thinking you can explain everything! Have you ever given birth to a baby?! Do you know where we go when we die?! Do you know how the Universe was created?! Do you?! Do YOU!!?
[/hysterical god -botting]
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 4:59 PM
MPhil:
Symmetry-breaking? I've had a thought that what distinguishes non-equilibrium systems is the asymmetry that would shift entropy measurements to counting pathways rather than just component distribution -- the minimal case being where all pathways are possible, ie, equilibrium conditions with low asymmetry in all dimensions.
I sure wish someone would figure this out so I would stop wasting my spare capacity --- this problem keeps on sneaking into the back of my head. I guess it's the only real problem. How to count, that is.
Posted by: Somnolent Aphid | November 10, 2008 5:06 PM
yeah, closed system, point at the sun, utter silliness. Thank goodness they don't try using something REALLY mysterious like Gibbs Free Energy to prove the folly of evolution. Honestly, Entropy, that's so 1850's.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | November 10, 2008 5:08 PM
Taking that one step further is when evolution creates a self-sustaining, self-replicating, self-improving AI - Alex
It's arguable we are such systems. Human cognition is heavily dependent on invented symbol-manipulating processes, both external and internalised - so in that sense, we are partially artificial.
Posted by: Anders | November 10, 2008 5:31 PM
First time poster here
I didn't see this mentioned, but the major flaw in the reasoning is that it is assumed that the second "law" must be upheld. Science is all about observation, so *if* (big if) the argument that evolution goes against the second law, then - since evolution has actually been observed to happen - all that properly follows is that the second law is wrong and must be modified. Observation overrules calculation any day
Now, I'm not saying that the second law is wrong, or that evolution implies that it is, I'm just pointing out a flaw in the reasoning.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 5:37 PM
frog,
Symmetry-braking? Well, quite - bifurcaton of complex systems. In bifurcated complex systems, information is present as distributed, meaningfully-discernible structure. Lookning at life on earth as a whole, and human knowledge and technology (including language and media) specifically, we find that information is also "mirrored", transduced and processed in specific ways - through similarity relations. Like between a printed picture of the horsehead-nebula, our mental representation of the printed picture of the horsehead-nebula, the data stored in my PC's harddrive of the picture of the horsehead nebula and the nebula itself. Now, the system composed of all these things - the printout, my brain, the hard-disk shows - as a whole, a complex form of self-similarity, namely that specific parts of it are similar to other parts of it, - the spatiotemporal, and thus also informational structure of these subsystems are affine translations/transformations of each other.
In physical reality, we have to assume there is some lowest level, some fundamental constituent (strings, particles, local excitations of fields, whatever) - in contrast to the hypothetical infinite divisibility in abstract mathematical representations and quantifications. As such, there will be a lowest level. But otherwise, a good analogy (if not taken too literally) would be a fractal... as we zoom in, we find certain parts similar both to other parts at the same level of "zoom" and similar to structures at other levels. In such immensely complex systems as life on earth, perhaps even life on earth plus the things external to earth of which we humans have created informational representations... there is perhaps little similiarity between different levels of "zoom"... but there are certainly still many similarity-relations between sub-systems. This again brings us back to Complexity of description - algorithmic/kolmogorov-complexity.
Posted by: Robster, FCD | November 10, 2008 5:38 PM
Anders, that is technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.
If a person who is stating that evo defies 2nd thermo, then states that either evo or 2nd thermo is wrong is ignoring the possibility that they are in fact the one that is wrong.
I like it.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 5:45 PM
Anders,
Well, there is something to be said for this. But it's also a bit naive - all observation is theory-laden. Observation is more than mere perception. In observing (not merely perceiving) something, we conceptualize it in a certain way that takes certain things for granted. For example, when we data we got from an experiment (observation), we take a lot for granted when we draw conclusions from that - namely everything that is presupposed by all of science, plus everything that is presupposed by the specific methods we employ.
Thus, all observation is "tainted" by theoretical presuppositions (the scientific instruments of measurement of physicists for example are constructed and interpreted according to a specific theoretical understanding of that which is studied and observed, - which has to be true if the readings of these instruments are to be meaningful).
So, there is no strictly clear line of demarcation between "observation" and "theory".
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 5:47 PM
Mphil:
I like to keep it down to counting. What do we have to count? That's a tricky problem - as K complexity shows, since you can't count K, just give it an upper bound.
I hate putting it into words --- the problems are always due to words. If you can reduce all you're saying down to counting --- I'd find it a bit more digestible. All that nastiness of scales and self-similarity just make it harder to figure out what we're supposed to be counting.
Posted by: Anders | November 10, 2008 5:54 PM
MPhil,
I'm not sure what's so naive about the notion of falsifiability. It is the core of the scientific method. If something is predicted by a theory, but it is observed not to be the case (repeatably), then the theory must be modified.
In this case, if (font size 300 IF) the second law of thermodynamics did indeed predict that evolution could not happen, then - since we have observed it happening - we would have to modify the second law to take into account the new findings.
Of course, I don't think the creationists are really gunning for the second law, they hope their argument will be solely against evolution
And as many other posters have pointed out, the second law predicts no such thing, so it's bunk to begin with, but IF it did, the thing modified would have to be the second law, not evolution
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 5:59 PM
Anders: Science is all about observation, so *if* (big if) the argument that evolution goes against the second law, then - since evolution has actually been observed to happen - all that properly follows is that the second law is wrong and must be modified. Observation overrules calculation any day
Mmmm. I'd have to suggest that we put the benefit of the doubt towards physics.
First, evolution is not primarily observations --- but it's the body of theory that makes those observations make sense.
Second, the general rule is we believe the physicists first, and then the biologists. Simpler systems and more rigorous theories. The thermodynamic observations can be much more rigorously controlled than evolutionary observations, and thermodynamic theory can be worked from first principles in a way that evolutionary theory has not been.
So, if evolutionary theory actually contradicted physical theory --- then we'd be better off betting that biologists had been misinterpreting their observations than that physicists had. The latter is always possible -- but I wouldn't bet my mortgage payments on it.
Science isn't just about observations -- it's about a system of interpreted observations that are consistent. Usually, when your observations don't match the well-tested calculations, it's your observations that are wrong. But it is much more interesting when you find that the calculations are actually wrong.
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 10, 2008 6:04 PM
Anders,
correct, but these fruitbats are all about denying that Evolution is actually observed.
You know, they'll pull the old canard that only micro-evolution is observed, and then they'll use their mistaken interpretation of the second law to confirm their affirmation that macro-evolution has never been observed, as it is physically impossible that it occurs.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 6:05 PM
frog,
I think we have to distance ourselves from the focus on "counting". Some aspects can be formally described, not by literally counting - ie by a one-dimensional metric, but only by more complex formal, perhaps (but not necessarily) quantitative representations. Applying mathematics in theories in empirical science is all about relations - not merely between numbers on a one-dimensional metric (of the real-numbers for example)... but potentially about describing formally more complex relations - consider the properties of the Lorentz-attractor as a representation of the development of a chaotic system. The discernible structure is not expressible in a one-dimensional metric (ie "counting"). Or consider spacetime topology inside a system over time. We can formally describe a system over time as the configuration between its fundamental elements over time - and we can represent each intrinsic property of an element as a vector or a value of a dimension - and the topological relation between the elements, the dynamic behaviour of the system (including shifting electromagnetic fields etc) will be describable so that we can formally, strictly constitute homeomorphisms or topological isomorphisms in abstract vector-spaces.
These kinds of mathematics can be used in game-theory and decision-theory, as well as automata-theory and neural network theory. All completely scientific. But sometimes we need more complex and abstract methods of description than mere counting - constituting topological/structural and/or informational homeomorphisms in systems is one such instance.
It's still perfectly legitimate scientific, methodological thinking.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 6:14 PM
anders,
I was not criticizing falsification - absolutely not. I was making the independent point that observation is always theory laden - and that consequently, when a prediction turns out not to be observed, we cannot say with certainty where the error was specifically in the specific theory that made the prediction. And the theory as well as our means of testing it (interpreting our raw-data - our observations) take certain things for granted - and the error, the reason why the prediction doesn't match the observation can lie anywhere within the entire complex of assumptions of the theory and its presuppositions - as well as the pre-suppositions of the method we chose to test the theory.
Popper had it right that falsification is our primary method. But such people like Imre Lakatos, W. Quine, and P. Dunhem, Sneed and Suppes have shown that science has other aspects as well - for example the under-determination of theories by empirical data (a specific set of empirical data is never only compatible with one single theory-network) and theory-ladenness of observation (as the saying goes "the sciences face trial as a whole").
If this interests you, I'd recommend looking up the "Duhem-Quine thesis" (Wikipedia-Article
Posted by: EB | November 10, 2008 6:22 PM
OK, but what justifies the 0.001 reduction in microstates each generation? Why not 0.1, or 0.000001? Instead of Styers' approach, my problem with the creationist's argument is that they never talk in terms of microstates, which is the only way to deal with entropy. Creationists equate "humans" with "order" (i.e. few microstates), and "human ancestors" with "disorder" (i.e. many microstates). Where in the world does this argument come from? In fact, who's to say that evolution leads to fewer microstates... maybe if we do the astronomically difficult calculation of determining the microstates of a human vs. a dinosaur, there would be *more* microstates in the human?! i.e. we could have Sf > Si, rather than Sf
Posted by: Anders | November 10, 2008 6:27 PM
negentropyeater,
True, they never stick to one argument. When it's shown to fail, they move immediately on to the next, until they run out of arguments, at which time they start over again. If that energy could be harnessed, we would be well on the way to energy independence :)
But I still enjoy pointing out to them that their arguments, even if you accept all their invalid premises, still don't lead to the conclusion they hope
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 6:31 PM
Mphil:
Isn't topology just another way of counting as well? One hole, two holes, knot hole, ripped hole?
I don't think we're capable of any kind of "mathematics" that doesn't ultimately reduce to counting -- in some dimensionality (i.e., we can count more than one box at a time). The proliferation of words may be perfectly methodological --- but it's also dangerous, if it leads us to think that we're doing anything other than counting.
That's why entropy is so satisfying -- it brings back all the nastiness back to how many pigs we can fit in the pen, and how to find the fattest one.
Posted by: Anders | November 10, 2008 6:36 PM
MPhil,
Sure, we are all making assumptions all the time, to make life easier (and more full of jesus images in toast).
But it is still the fact, that if you make a direct observation that turn out to be contrary to the predictions of a theory, something has to be changed. Assuming the test setup is correct, within the framework of accepted scientific theory, some part of some theory has to go. You don't change the observation. It may be some theory involved in creating the testing equipment, or it may be the theory that made the contradicted prediction.
But you don't just throw out the observation, and that is what the argument sounded like to me (evolution can't be right, no matter how often it is observed, since it violates the second law of thermodynamics!)
Posted by: gaypaganunitarianagnostic | November 10, 2008 6:38 PM
1. You can't win
2 You can't break even
3 Things will get worse before they get better
4 They will not get better
Posted by: Anton Mates | November 10, 2008 6:48 PM
frog:
Depends on the nature and quality of the observations. Biology and geology trumped physics in the debate over the age of the solar system, because the sun is not a sufficiently simple system, and it involves energy-production mechanisms that contemporary physicists had not yet taken into account.
Posted by: Randy Stimpson aka Intelligent Designer | November 10, 2008 6:51 PM
I think Raven's argument at #10 is fairly representative and well said. But is there anyone here who can put their critical thinking cap on and explain what is wrong with his argument or all you all just a bunch of ditto-heads?
Posted by: Anton Mates | November 10, 2008 6:54 PM
Who are you talking to?
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | November 10, 2008 6:59 PM
Randy,
If you have a point to then make it. Making ambiguous statements and/or asking us to make your arguments for you is a non-starter around here.
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 7:04 PM
Anton Mates: Depends on the nature and quality of the observations
Well, yes, of course -- it's not about institutional priority, but scientific principle. So your solar age counter-example is good, but off-point. No one tried to use the incorrect physical datings of the solar system to, say, disprove thermodynamics (which was one of the sources of the calculations).
The bets were "unknown energy source", not accounted for, which turned out to be nuclear physics. The equivalent here is that we're calculating the entropy of the system incorrectly; just as in the solar case we calculated the rate of burn and output incorrectly.
But if we can every eliminate that, I'd bet against biology. Just as if we could have actually eliminated all "unknown energy source" from the solar case, I would have bet against geology!
Fortunately, we still have a long way to work on entropy -- and we found the "unknown energy source" -- so I don't have to bet against either physics or biology.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 7:04 PM
Anders,
Indeed. That's the way it is. But it's also a fact that we cannot know where the problem lies - we don't throw away the observation - but we must also question the assumptions underlying our interpretation of the raw data (and observation is always an interpretation of perception). For example - we have reason to take it as given that a certain instrument of measurement shows a certain value (for example that a digital thermometer shows +290.3 degrees Kelvin), but if we predict something about a system and measure it with highly complex instruments, and the prediction doesn't match the observation - the error may also lie in the assumptions underlying our belief that the output of the instrument tells us something about a real property of a system... ie the theory that underlies the functioning of the instrument.
No, we don't throw away the observation - but we must be aware that we can never give a definitive answer to the question "where exactly the error lay" when a prediction doesn't match the theory. We may be fundamentally in error in our scientific interpretation of the world - that's the skeptic challenge. The construct of all the accepted scientific theories (accepted as "working-hypotheses") cannot prove its own truth - that's why there is no final verification of theories in science, as we all know. But we have task-independent measurements of the quality of an explanatory approach: Parsimony, broadness of explanation, Corroboration, increase of logical and structural coherence when introduced into a framework of background-assumptions, and being (part of) a progressive (not stagnant or regressive) research-program.
Then we have some reasonable pragmatic rules of scientific methodology - for example methodological naturalism, which says in essence nothing more than "'Magic' is just not an explanation". This leads us not only to all our scientific insights, but also to the conclusion that we have no reason to accept the hypothesis that any sort of deity exists. We cannot prove that we are right - but this way, we can show that such a rationalist worldview as we hold is the best we can do, and that creationist nonsense is entirely inadequate. It's not coherent, not parsimonious, wildly arbitrary and has no explanatory value whatsoever, because it postulates "magic" as an explanation.
Posted by: trollfeeder | November 10, 2008 7:06 PM
No. One is a scientific theory. The other a religious concept. They have nothing to do with each other.
FWIW, the Pope accepts evolution and AFAIK isn't an atheist.
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 7:15 PM
MPhil: No, we don't throw away the observation - but we must be aware that we can never give a definitive answer to the question "where exactly the error lay" when a prediction doesn't match the theory.
Actually, in practice we do -- all the time. It's only when you get 10, 100, a 1000 "wrong" observations (depending on field) that we start to suspect that the theory's got a hole in it, instead of throwing away the data.
Just imagine a graduate student goes to their boss and says, "See this little stem cell dish? Well, a little George Bush formed in it!" What's the boss say --- "That's just fungus. Go repeat your experiment". Next day "I've got Palin in a dish!" -- "Go repeat it. That's just fungus". Next day "I've got Jeb in a dish!" -- "Okay, wash out the entire apparatus and start from scratch".
Repeat for 5 years. If you still have incompetent little stooges growing in your dish, your boss (and committee) may consider letting you publish on this.
Posted by: Anders | November 10, 2008 7:18 PM
frog,
But if we can every eliminate that, I'd bet against biology. Just as if we could have actually eliminated all "unknown energy source" from the solar case, I would have bet against geology!
But the issue here was that a physical theory made a prediction about something in biology. Are you suggesting that if that prediction turns out to be wrong, it is still right, simply because it is physics?
You also said
and thermodynamic theory can be worked from first principles in a way that evolutionary theory has not been.
I'd like to see you try to deduce from first principles that no energy is ever created or destroyed. I also can't quite picture what a proof from first principles of entropy would look like.
These things are all derived from observation.
Posted by: Anders | November 10, 2008 7:21 PM
frog in #151,
That's why I said "repeatable" observations. I think "repeatable" is stronger than "repeated"
Posted by: Kel | November 10, 2008 7:21 PM
No, it's not a necessity at all. Otherwise most scientists would be in trouble there.Posted by: Anders | November 10, 2008 7:23 PM
MPhil,
I agree with you completely, we can't know for certain where the problem lies without a lot more work.
But my original point here was just that the creationist argument "if the theory says it's wrong, then it's wrong, even if it's observed" is clearly bunk.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 7:25 PM
frog,
I'm just saying that this, what we're doing all the time - namely deciding upon a specific evaluation of our observations and their relations to our theories... is not something where we can 100% certain. We're just going with what works best - but we have no 100% guarantee that we're right - the skeptical challange: we cannot even prove logically (ie with mathematical certainty) that anything outside our own minds exists... so how could we be 100% certain that any conclusion, any scientific judgement we arrive will be true? We cannot - not even about where the error lay. We can make educated guesses, but we cannot exclude the logical (we deem it remote) possibility that some underlying assumptions in the general framework for our interpretation of our perceptions are wrong.
That's why we have relative measures of explanatory adequacy of theories that do not necessitate knowing with absolute certainty that the theory is true or false... namely parsimony, explanatory broadness, corroboration and elimination of anomalies between underlying background-assumptions.
Our best current scientific theories are always the best bet because they are the most methodological and thus reliable informant for our view of the world. We cannot prove anything of it is true - (we can only prove tautologies), but we can show that science is the best we have - and that it simply works! It works wonderfully, in fact.
Posted by: MPhil | November 10, 2008 7:33 PM
Anders,
Absolutely! I was just remarking that even with all the effort we can put into questioning where the error lay, why there is a mismatch between observation and theory, there is a specific fundamental uncertainty which we cannot eliminate - namely that all observations have underlying assumptions and all ways to find out where the error lies work on the basis of certain assumptions as well... scientific thinking cannot prove that scientific thinking is anywhere absolutely true. But, as I said - we can show that compared to myths, pseudo-science, post-modernist ideology and or wishful-thinking, science and methodological rationality as exemplified in empirical sciences, structural and informational sciences, analytical philosophy etc does far better and is for all intents and purposes preferable.
This is also something the creationists and religious don't seem to understand.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 10, 2008 7:38 PM
where did you go Randy? Coward! you think that all of this is wrong, tell us. don't just sit back and throw stones
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 10, 2008 7:45 PM
One hundred billion. Please. Did you pay any attention in Evil Medical School?
Sure you can. Just not in a closed system. Harhar.
BTW, it's "Kelvin", not "degree Kelvin".
Since when is there a 4th Law of Thermodynamics? I only know about the 0th...
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 7:50 PM
AM: But the issue here was that a physical theory made a prediction about something in biology. Are you suggesting that if that prediction turns out to be wrong, it is still right, simply because it is physics?
Nope --- I'm just saying which way I'd bet until it was absolutely, iron-clad conclusive. Iff physics made a prediction that contradicticted a biological observation, I would bet that something was incorrectly interpreted in the biological observation. Just as the fools who say that the "observed" increase in biological order entails a a decrease in entropy --- and we can see that it's a misinterpretation of the biology and the physics.
I'd like to see you try to deduce from first principles that no energy is ever created or destroyed. I also can't quite picture what a proof from first principles of entropy would look like.
These things are all derived from observation.
Bzzzz --- wrong!
Which observations show you that no energy is created or destroyed? "All" observations? Which experiment could falsify conservation of energy, in practice? No conservation of energy implies no conservation of momentum, it means a completely different understanding of force -- it wrecks everything about physics. Without conservation of mass-energy, you can't interpret your experiments in the first place --- it would be a reboot in physics.
It would take a hell of a lot more than a few observations to do that!
It just ain't that simple -- it's not a unidirectional flow from observation to theory. We're more than willing to eliminate marginal observation that messes up a really satisfying and powerful theory. It's a balancing act between observation and theory, in practice.
In particular, entropy is easily derived from counting the ways you can arrange things, defining your set of equivalent arrangements and then figuring out what the probability of the different sets of arrangements are. Iff the world is the kind of place that is consistent, energy meaningful, and counting appropriate, the increase in entropy is necessary.
Pick up Feynmann's book on statistical mechanics. He does not start with experimental results -- he starts with a first principles derivation of entropy. Of course, observations led us to derive entropy --- but the experimental results are not sufficiently constraining to define entropy --- the logical mapping from randomly moving particles to homogeneous bulks was just (if not more) important, which we then went forward with to explain and find further experiments.
Posted by: Anton Mates | November 10, 2008 7:52 PM
frog:
No, but they were used to disprove what I would say was an equally fundamental component of physics at the time--the constancy of the elements. (Rutherford actually spun the discovery of radioactivity to Kelvin that way--he credited Kelvin's calculation for proving, through its absurdity, that there must be an unknown source of energy in nature!)
True, but there's a difference between performing the steps of the calculation incorrectly, and basing the calculation off incorrect theoretical assumptions. Kelvin's math was right--his theory was wrong, in a big way.
If it turned out that animals were actually dumping entropy into another dimension or something, I think that would count as more than just a calculational error; it would signal a fundamental change in our understanding of thermodynamics.
Thing is, that's exactly what Kelvin thought he did. He observed that the sun's heat must be gravitational in origin because "no other natural explanation, except by chemical action, can be conceived."
He was wrong, of course, but that's because you can't actually eliminate unknown energy sources--or unknown entropy sinks, for that matter. That follows from their being unknown! All you can do is eliminate the known ones that are implied by your current understanding of physics.
But, as you say, our current theories of physics are entirely consistent with our current theories of biology. Except for bumblebee flight, which is clearly a matter of divine fiat.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | November 10, 2008 7:53 PM
Isolated system, Randy. A system where neither matter nor energy can enter or leave. Living beings are not isolated systems. That's why growth is possible, why life (DNA repair and stuff) is at all possible, and why evolution is possible.
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 7:55 PM
MPhil: we can show that science is the best we have - and that it simply works! It works wonderfully, in fact.
Agreed. The keyword is show. At some point the whole thing just holds together --- and you just point at the multicolored jacket. We have TV's, nuclear power, cars, computers, extra-solar satellites --- either accept science or go live in a cave: no other alternative is acceptable.
I'm aiming at the folks who claim an elementary school type of science where you hypothesize, experiment, then repeat! That's not science -- that's a science project!
Posted by: Howard A. Landman | November 10, 2008 7:59 PM
I once heard an estimate that the average human being has 4 or 5 mutations that their parents don't. Assuming these are SNPs and are randomly distributed over about 3 billion base pairs, we get that the number of possible mutation-sets is around 9 billion to the 4th or 5th power, or roughly 10 to the 40th or 50th. Let's assume 1045. Since 103 is roughly 210, that's 2150, so mutation is generating about 150 bits of uncertainty (informational entropy) in the gene pool for each person born.
Natural selection reduces this uncertainty by eliminating individuals and genes (mutations) from the population. In a species with stable population and stable genome size, these two tendencies cancel each other on average. The total information content of the species gene pool stays about the same over time, though the specific information will change.
It can go up if the genome gets bigger (gene duplication, chromosome duplication, full-genome duplication, or lateral gene transfer from another species), if the population gets bigger, or (a little) if the environment temporarily favors more diversity.
This is probably one reason why full-genome duplication has been so widespread (the vertebrate line has gone through at least 2 rounds of FGD and has a quadrupled genome; some fishes at least 3 and octupled). It's the easiest way to get a lot of "blank paper".
Posted by: frog | November 10, 2008 8:01 PM
AM: If it turned out that animals were actually dumping entropy into another dimension or something, I think that would count as more than just a calculational error; it would signal a fundamental change in our understanding of thermodynamics.
I think we're agreed. It would require a fundamental change in our understanding of thermodynamics -- which is exactly why it's the last possible choice we'll make, after we've exhausted ever other possible mistake we could be making.
Like writing code -- first, you assume a local bug. Then a global bug. Then, that you need more sleep. Next, a library bug. Then finally, an operating system bug. At which point you give up, get drunk and come back again.
Posted by: Anton Mates | November 10, 2008 8:05 PM
Not entirely. The uncertainty principles do falsify classical conservation of energy and momentum, and it's still up in the air (as I understand it) whether these quantities are conserved on a universal scale. But none of these exceptions are sufficiently in-your-face to make the classical conservation laws unusable for most experiments and situations we encounter.
Likewise, if the 2nd law were found not to hold in the case of evolution, the violation would necessarily be extremely subtle--we already know the 2nd law works just fine for predicting all sorts of behavior in all sorts of systems. So I don't think you can conclude that "either the 2nd law is correct, or physics breaks."
Posted by: Anders | November 10, 2008 8:18 PM
frog,
We're more than willing to eliminate marginal observation that messes up a really satisfying and powerful theory.
You're an engineer, aren't you.
When I talk about "an observation" now, I obviously don't mean just one single instance. I did say "repeatable". I also assume that it has already gone through the usual stages of peer review and reproduction by independent parties.
If at that stage, theory conflicts with observation, then the theory must be modified. There is no other option, if you want to continue calling yourself scientific.
The size of the error in the theory isn't really relevant. Even a small error, if it can be shown to not be due to methodological problems, must be taken into account when designing a theory.
And no, discovering that energy could be destroyed would not require a reboot of physics, because all previously made observations would still be true. All that would happen is that a new theory is built up, which incorporates the newly discovered phenomenon, along with everything else previously discovered - just as Relativity reduces to Newtonian mechanics on scales where the relativistic error is small enough.
Posted by: Eric Atkinson | November 10, 2008 8:30 PM
"First Law. Heat can be converted to work.
Second Law. But completely only at Zero Deg. K.
Third Law. You can't get to Zero Deg. K.
Sure you can. Just not in a closed system. Harhar.
BTW, it's "Kelvin", not "degree Kelvin"."
I don't think so bub. You can get close to -273.15Deg.C with
cryocoolers, but as far as I know 700nK is about the coldest
temp. produced. So how do you get to zero k in an open system?
True, people say 0.0 Kelvin, but the scale is based on the Celsius scale, so to me it sounds like saying " the temperature is 79F." Six of one and half dozen of the other
Posted by: Michael | November 10, 2008 8:34 PM
Best post for a few weeks -- I'm so glad someone covered entropy from this perspective
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 10, 2008 8:54 PM
Ahem.
ΔxΔp ≥ ℏ/2
So far, the above has met observation, as far as I know.
Or were you being facetious?
Posted by: noncarborundum | November 10, 2008 9:15 PM
DaveScot over at UhDuh, for one, says right out that he violates 2LoT every time he sits down to type at his keyboard. At first blush you might think that, if we can violate 2LoT any time we wish, that must mean it's no big deal if evolution does too -- but no. Apparently it's his spiritual component that does the violating; his physical body couldn't do this by itself. Thus the only way for the development of life through violation of 2LoT can occur is if it's similarly driven by a spiritual force.
Posted by: Vincent | November 10, 2008 9:53 PM
I do not get why such a complicated case as to be made.
Here how I would rebuck it :
the second law of thermodynamics states that entopy of CLOSED systems increases.
Atoms/Molecules/DNA/Cells/Organism are NOT CLOSED.
end of it.
A drawing about that :
http://bp1.blogger.com/_8DsgTX-uczM/SFHn5JNanKI/AAAAAAAAA78/AXPpVfo92_8/s1600-h/youtube.jpg
:-)
Posted by: noncarborundum | November 10, 2008 9:55 PM
Just to be clear, about 40% of U.S. scientists believe in a personal God, and the rest express "doubt or disbelief", according to 1996 survey. I haven't found the breakdown, but one might suspect that the doubters outnumber the outright disbelievers, as they do in the society at large, in which case it's true that the majority don't find that denial is necessary. On the other hand, if you focus in on the subset of scientists who are members of the National Academy of Sciences (whom the survey team calls "'greater' scientists"), things change quite a bit. Nearly 3/4 of them express personal disbelief and only 20% are agnostic - leaving only 7% believers.
Posted by: abb3w | November 10, 2008 10:01 PM
Since it bears repeating: see "Natural selection for least action", by Ville R. I. Kaila and Arto Annila (Proceedings of the Royal Society A, doi:10.1098/rspa.2008.0178). To boil that down: when the second law of thermodynamics expressed for connected subsystems with mass-energy flow between, natural selection is a mathematical consequence.
The Steyer paper is doi:10.1119/1.2973046 if any one cares (or for that matter, even if they don't).
Posted by: abb3w | November 10, 2008 10:05 PM
Vincent: it's more effective to be able to note that not only does their "entropy increases" Second Law require closed systems, but to be able to note that for open systems connected by mass-energy flows, evolution is a direct result of that Second Law.
Posted by: Kel | November 10, 2008 10:25 PM
For personal God it's not a huge amount, but if you take God as any concept from personal to pantheist I thought the number was around 60%.Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 10, 2008 10:55 PM
PurpleTurtle (#113):
You're trying to reason with some frightfully ill-defined terms, which is rather a recipe for trouble! "Singularity", for example, is meaningless in this context. It is true that, generally speaking, making a system more "complex" means that more information is necessary to describe it. This is the sense that the string of characters "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" is simpler than, say, "QOP4E3YP8709UPWYTENVAPIWYT5OH". For a string of the former type, all you have to say is, "Type so-and-so many As in a row", while the latter string probably doesn't have a description much shorter than itself.
"Entropy" has a precise, technical meaning, and scientists have technical definitions for "complexity". It's when you try to map these ideas onto woolly words like "order" and "disorder", which have all sorts of emotional baggage of their own, that difficulties are likely to arise.
Anything by Larry Gonick, anything by Carl Zimmer. For what you might find to be a useful perspective on entropy and how it relates to "order", try Richard Feynman's The Character of Physical Law. A few parts are out of date, mostly in the last chapter; Feynman's QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter is a good way to start catching up. (The only things I'd add to the latter book are that yes, we did find the top quark, and the work of Ken Wilson and company has somewhat drawn the fangs of the "renormalization" problem.)
Posted by: Michael | November 10, 2008 10:56 PM
I love when creationists claim to care so much about the Laws of Thermodynamics while in the process of arguing for the ultimate perpetual motion machine.
Posted by: Gary Bohn | November 10, 2008 11:18 PM
QDA,
Well that depends on which god you happen to consider the 'real' god. In the case of the creationist's god, who supposedly created humans from whole cloth, sorry, dust, had his creations mess up on him which of course forced him, an omnipotent, omniscient but apparently childishly temperamental superdude, to punish them while kindly including a future out from eternal damnation for some of their descendants, the answer is a resounding yes. Without the salvation that comes from the death of god's alter ego and sacrificial lamb* Jesus, modern Christians have no link to god, so evolution, which shows Adam and Eve and their subsequent offspring could not have existed, pretty much removes the reason for their faith.
To a Biblical literalist, common descent and an old Earth both mean god didn't do what he said he did.
However if the 'real' god is just your average 'hide in the gaps' kind of guy, evolution really can't even suggest he doesn't exist because even as the gaps become fewer and fewer, eventually he will retreat to an area where evoluton just doesn't apply ... unless you conflate evolution with atheism and atheism with abiogenesis, star evolution and the BB.
Unless we eventually understand everything perfectly there is always a place for a nameless intelligent designer.
How's that for a non-answer?
*If you or I needed to sacrifice ourselves to ...** ourselves... even though we are immortal and not sacrificable, before we could forgive our creations for being naughty children as we knew they would be, we would be quite correctly considered nuts.
**substitute dramatic pause for '...'.
Posted by: jufulu, FDC | November 10, 2008 11:18 PM
Life is a meta-stable state.
Posted by: Eric Atkinson | November 10, 2008 11:40 PM
"Daniel Styer has published an eminently useful article on "Entropy and Evolution"
Anybody got a copy they want to share?
Posted by: John Morales | November 10, 2008 11:44 PM
Gary @179, nice explanation.
BTW, re "modern Christians", that would be those belonging to one of the 39,000 Christian denominations. It can be fun to lurk on Christian boards and watch the venomous internecine feuding between those who profess love and forgiveness.
Posted by: John Morales | November 11, 2008 12:02 AM
EA @181, that was funny.
Posted by: John A Anderson | November 11, 2008 1:42 AM
I always answer the entropy argument by pointing to my house. After all, it started with a disorganized pile of lumber, nails and bricks. Now look at it. It's a filthy, crappy heap worth half what I paid ... Oh, yeah. Maybe they're right.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 2:09 AM
Well it seems that Randy Stimpson has STILL managed not to show himself and argue for his presumed rightness. I guess he wants to remain delusional. Besdies, The 2nd Law isn't a law of energy so much as statistics. I've read Brian Greene's books The Elegent Universe and Thbe Fabric of Spacetime, and mostly it is just that things are easier to break than unbreak, snd that is the statictical aspect that makes it a law, the part that says it won't suddenly decrease for no reason.
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 11, 2008 4:04 AM
abb3w,
?? Please explain ??
Posted by: AJS | November 11, 2008 4:47 AM
The bit the Creationists missed is simple.
It's not absolutely impossible to create a local decrease in entropy -- it just requires Work to be done.
The fact that an air conditioner works at all, shows that a localised decrease in entropy is possible. The electricity meter counting down faster while the aircon is on, shows that Work is being done while this happens.
Posted by: Valhar2000 | November 11, 2008 5:04 AM
Well, as soon as I hear someone calling entropy "disorder" I know the coming argument will be only mildly informative at the very, very best. I never thought that making a usable estimate of the change in entropy caused by evolving life was currently possible, however. This is very cool.
Posted by: Mark | November 11, 2008 7:38 AM
When people tell me they don't believe in evolution because of the second law, I ask them if they believe in refrigerators.
Posted by: Stefan | November 11, 2008 7:40 AM
> I knew we kept physicists around for something; they are so useful for filling in the tricky details.
Thank you. I've always had the suspicion that my job might be a useful one.
Posted by: jim | November 11, 2008 9:10 AM
@Loren Petrich (#43): You're overestimating the Bard, I'm afraid. A byte from a file of ASCII text doesn't have 8 bits of entropy; if it did, you wouldn't be able to compress text, when in fact it compresses very well. The actual entropy is about 1 bit per character (Shannon estimated it as between 0.6 and 1.3), so you're probably out by a factor of 8.
Re the Three Snarks of Thermodynamics: The usual followup is to note that all the major belief systems of the world are based on denying one of the laws. Capitalism is the belief that you can win; communism is the belief that you can break even; religion is the belief that you can quit the game.
Posted by: St | November 11, 2008 9:13 AM
Don't ask about refrigerators, ask them if they believe that water can freeze in winter. Ice has lower entropy than liquid water...
Posted by: samson | November 11, 2008 9:19 AM
Hey guys.I have a creationist friend who says the argument goes like this.Thermodynamics doesn't stop order.It stops complex biological systems from forming.Prigogine showed that simple things like crystals can form,but creationists know that energy is not enough to violate thermodynamics.It requires a machine that can do work.That machine must already be complex or already contain the information for complex machinery.Since something like an embryo or seed already contains the information and complexity to do work,it is able to evercome the second law."biological machines" are not simply in order, rather they are complex. One cannot separate one part from other otherwise there would be no function. Crystallization of ice is much different from complexity of a cell.
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 11, 2008 10:00 AM
Meaningless. Obviously FALSE. Meaningless. What does "it" refer to ? No, it doesn't have to overcome the 2nd law, as it simply doesn't apply to an obviously open thermodynamic system such as an embryo or a seed.Tell your creationist friend that ridiculous mumbo-jumbo is not considered a valid scientific argument.
Posted by: Cancuk | November 11, 2008 10:38 AM
In 1984 I attended a lecture given by Prigogine called "the meaning of the second law" which was given at the ETH, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich, the school Einstein went to. I doubt that the creationists even understand, in any real sense, exactly what the second law means.
A number of things come together here to make it more than likely that life could arise and evolve. Prigogine's demonstration of order arising out of chaos, the notion that a flux of matter and energy are readily available in the biosphere and that there is no violation of the second law in this system, and the ideas that have arisen from Wolfram's research on the game of life - that a tiny number of very simple rules of behaviour, applied repetitively, iteratively, can produce structures of astonishing complexity.
I don't think these guys have a clue about the case FOR evolution. They have a predetermined pitch they want to make, and they say any stupid shit to support it.
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 11, 2008 11:19 AM
"eric williams"+panspermia = Charlie Wagner, crackpot
Posted by: Daniel Cring | November 11, 2008 11:19 AM
As a biological anthropologist, I'm interested in explaining why creationists exist, and why they appear to be growing in activity, if not in numbers. Creationism is but one symptom of religious revitalisation movements in many of the world's religions- not just the biblical big three: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Posted by: Jason A. | November 11, 2008 1:48 PM
"Prigogine showed that simple things like crystals can form,but creationists know that energy is not enough to violate thermodynamics."
Is this like the thermodynamics equivalent to the 'microevolution not macroevolution' thing? You friend says that, okay, a little order can arise, just not too much.
Where's the cutoff between 'simple' order like crystals and 'complex' order like life forms? What causes it? As it is, all he has is a special pleading fallacy
Posted by: Jason A. | November 11, 2008 1:49 PM
Oh, and:
"creationists know that energy is not enough to violate thermodynamics"
What exactly do creationists think thermodynamics is about, if not energy?
Posted by: Anita | November 11, 2008 2:52 PM
I truthfully don't think you people (evolutionists) are thinking logically here at all.
For one thing, what happens to a pen when you throw it up into the air? Yes it has all this great trusted energy as its going up, but than it eventually comes crashing down.
The calculations for disorder done in the opening paragraphs of this forum suggest that the sun allows for more order. However I think that this is just an temporary illusion. In the long run (just like the pen) things become completely disordered and do not have any more energy to appear ordered. Such as water running upstream, or ice melting and crystallizing, metabolism, digestion, condensation, or a seed and an embryo.
These things are just temporary illusions. Thus in the overall scheme of things, they are becoming disorder.
Life (such as a seed or embryo) has only the exact amount of thrusting energy it needs to allow it to grow and serve its purpose. This "information" was ALREADY previously assigned to it in the blueprint of its DNA (assigned by the creator). There is no mechanism that shows us that DNA can evolve... meaning it has no available assigned energy left other than to procreate and pass on its genetic material. A living thing only has enough time and energy to be born, live and die.
Conclusion... Entropy is eventually closing in on all of us. The Universe tells us this! It is steadily loosing gas. This means less stars are being born and eventually the lights will all go out.
Additionally, the Human geno can only replicate offspring so many times before things go haywire. That is why we should not have kids with our brothers or sisters.
All these little technicalities concerning entropy or the labeled 2nd law of thermodynamics are just inconsistencies that serve for nothing. It serves no purpose in arguing about these technicalities especially when one opens their eyes and truly LOOKS - our resources are diminishing.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 11, 2008 3:02 PM
Aaaaaaaand fail. You sure tried to sound like you had a point, then you brought the ultimate get out of science free card.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 11, 2008 3:07 PM
Anita, may I respectfully ask you to consider the concept that you don't have anyh idea what you're talking about?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 11, 2008 3:10 PM
I wonder about creobots. They claim that the second law doesn't seem to apply to evolution, but where do they present their information? Why do they post it here, instead of writing up a nice paper following the rules of science and submitting it to an appropriate peer reviewed journal for publication? Maybe because they know their arguments are just sophistry, not scientific, and will not pass peer review. Very telling about the strength of their arguments at the end of the day.
Posted by: SC | November 11, 2008 3:13 PM
Personally, I prefer Pete Rooke's "arch-Darwinists."
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 11, 2008 3:16 PM
Dharn htypos
Posted by: Steve_C | November 11, 2008 3:21 PM
Wow. I thought she was gonna go all woo-new-age on us...
She's completely lost.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 11, 2008 3:49 PM
I'm working on the assumption that Anita@201 is yet another "humourous" Poe. Personally, I don't find the "pretending to be a pig-ignorant spankweasel" genre particularly amusing.
Posted by: Matt Heath | November 11, 2008 4:00 PM
Well that is true. No one is saying otherwise. Any decrease in entropy will be local both in space and time. As Keynes had it in the long run we are all dead. And in long run all or societies will collapse and any thought we had including any concept of a god will be forgotten. All species, including our own, will one day be extinct. Each planet that has supported life will eventually stop doing so. At some point the universe will be too disordered to support anything as complicated as life.We aren't IN the long term. Not by physics' standards. all of life on Earth is the short term. We are simply a somewhat interesting temporary blip in a vast universe. Learn to love the impermanence.
Posted by: samson | November 11, 2008 4:09 PM
Anita basically said much of the same things my friend said.Only,at least she sounded like a 5th rather than second grader.That must be on one of the creationist websights they go to.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 11, 2008 4:17 PM
No, this isn't required. The apparent problem of information increase from one generation to the next in general constructive automata (self-replicating machines) was a conundrum until the 1949, when it was resolved by John von Neumann. IIRC, the parent machine passing along a complete blueprint of itself (which, of course, all living things do via DNA inter alia), only places a lower bound on the information in the child machine. McMullin gives a pretty good historical summary of work on variations of this problem. Of course, it is also empirically observed in biology, so this creationist canard holds no water whatsoever.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 11, 2008 4:19 PM
If anyone wants a spare definite article, there's one in my #211
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 4:19 PM
MY GOD!! (or rather, MY VOID!!) i can't believ i never posted this link :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life
any and all complaints should address these specific possibilities and how they are wrong and violate the 2nd LoT
Posted by: ConcenedJoe | November 11, 2008 4:32 PM
Man ask dem creabots to chew on this a bit...
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-nature-breaks-the-second-law
Damn scientists always making things weeell... complex and controversial! Gosh god is much easier to understand!
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 11, 2008 4:39 PM
Recipie for an anitalicious post
You will need :
-a few scientific terms : eg entropy, energy, disorder, information, ...
-a few undisclosed definitions of said terms, of your own imagination
-a random generator
-text to fill, to your own liking
First, with the help of the random generator, start by assigning the definitions to the terms and repeat until you have a sufficient quantity of freshly processed terms.
It is important in this process that you make absolutely sure that you, nor anybody, understands what these terms could possibly mean.
Sprinkle the freshly processed terms in the available text.
There you have it, a wonderful anitalicious post, ready to provide endless wonder and bemusement for all.
Posted by: SC | November 11, 2008 4:41 PM
Emmet - you're best! I'll put it aside for future. Thanks!
Posted by: Kel | November 11, 2008 4:42 PM
What I don't get about the SLoT creationists is how they think babies are made. We see descent with modification every time there is a birth. Why does that not violate the 2nd law of Thermodynamics yet the same process over a long period does?
Posted by: PurpleTurtle | November 11, 2008 4:51 PM
@Blake Stacey (#177)
Thankyou, and noted :)
Posted by: samson | November 11, 2008 5:15 PM
Posted by: Kel | November 11, 2008 4:42 PM
What I don't get about the SLoT creationists is how they think babies are made. We see descent with modification every time there is a birth. Why does that not violate the 2nd law of Thermodynamics yet the same process over a long period does?
Hey kel.The response i got was that living things already contain the information to do all of those things.(of course implying here that a god created and programmed this to happen)And of course that followed by the old most mutations are bad argument.
Posted by: Fatboy | November 11, 2008 5:36 PM
Matt Heath already beat me to my main response to Anita. I did notice one more thing, though.
Some of us manage to find enough time and energy to comment on blogs, too.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 5:40 PM
i always thought there was a sort of caveat for the second law, and that was that overall, "disorder" would have to increase slower the futher in time we were to go from a specific event, due to the fact that disorder of a pile of papers on a desk isn't going to be altered if this stack were to topple over and spread out. it is simplistic, but the idea is that entropy makes big differences the futher back in time we go (which is precisely how the 'arrow of time' came to be defined). I am only making a guess as to this property, but i have been compelled by it nonetheless.
A separate issue, how is talkorigins.org NOT credible? i ran into someone else on another blog who thinks this and i am at a loss as to why that would be the case.any help guys, i would appreciate it.
Posted by: Anton Mates | November 11, 2008 6:02 PM
Barring air resistance, Anita, a pen comes back down with the same energy it had going up. That's what makes the crash, in fact.
Posted by: Kel | November 11, 2008 6:08 PM
Yeah, that's pretty much been my experience too. I've even tried explaining it in very simple terms (I started with "when mummy and daddy love each other") and got ignored for being condescending. Which is fair enough, for someone who kept saying evolution couldn't happen because of thermodynamics they demonstrated the intellect of a 5 year old.And that's one thing that really grinds my gears. It seems all creationists love to use the phrase "I'm a fan of science", and make it out like they aren't being hostile to science - yet they are just ignoring it. It's just the same as the "I'm not a racist, but" comment where people are admonishing their own guilt by trying to make it seem like they are onside. Nothing but mental manipulation, it might work on others but it won't work on anyone who actually knows anything about science.
Posted by: bombay mix | November 11, 2008 6:19 PM
Why can't evolutionists and creationists accept the fact that you are probably all wrong?
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 11, 2008 6:23 PM
... and fornicate. Don't forget fornication.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 11, 2008 6:26 PM
Bombay, there is overwhelming evidence showing that evolution has occurred. There is no evidence to support creationism. So we are right, they are wrong. When the creationists finally admit they are wrong, we will get along.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 6:48 PM
um, so no one has an opinion on what i said huh? *sigh* you can argue with idiots anytime, but i'm here to learn something guys.
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 11, 2008 6:59 PM
Because reality has a known liberal bias?
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 11, 2008 7:02 PM
Word salad, Charlie. Pure word salad.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 11, 2008 7:04 PM
EW, can you reference a peer-reviewed journal article for your claim? Or are you just hot air?
Posted by: IST | November 11, 2008 7:16 PM
EW> Organisation you say? So, the overall decrease in the complexity of matter over time as a result of the expansion of the universe, supernovae, etc isn't a decrease in organisation? The concept of heat death seems to me to be a massive increase in entropy, local increases aside.
Logical entropy? or local, did you mean? Increases in LOCAL entropy can be readily observed... Hint: ever heard of a nebula?
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 11, 2008 7:19 PM
Shorter Eric Williams:
How many yellow dreams smell like buffalo?
Hah! Take that, evilutionists!
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 7:42 PM
what do you mean owlmirror "liberal bias" they would still be scientifically correst right?
EW: ARE you for real?! what the hell is logical entropy? What about snow, you dumbass, it happens all the time; millions of trillions of water molecules organise themselves in very ordered faxhion and guess what? Clouds have no brains!
Posted by: Zarquon | November 11, 2008 7:43 PM
Protons organise themselves into more complex helium nuclei without intelligent input.
4p -> α + 2e+ + 2ν
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 11, 2008 7:43 PM
EA, failure to cite a scientific journal to back up your claims means you are nothing but hot air.
Nothing to see here. Go about your business.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 11, 2008 7:47 PM
You did, as an embryo. Crystals and snowflakes do. Ants.Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 7:55 PM
he won't accept embryo, cus there's DNA in there. Ants also have instict and rudimentary intelligence. Zarquon, what about all the other elements up until iron which are produced in fussion as well? what about the forming of a galactic disk from gravity? what about the structure of the entire universe for christs sake, which was produced by the hyperinflation of spacetime in the early universe (which by the way, dramatically lowered entropy. that's more than one example. you fail
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 7:58 PM
people who say intelligence have one big problem to overcome: we are all entirely composed of unintelligent matter, so what you say is baseless in the first place. The "life from life" argument was refuted the very first time they synthesised urea
Posted by: Kel | November 11, 2008 7:58 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yldmXWu745wPosted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 11, 2008 8:01 PM
EA, if you such a hotshot argument, you should quit bothering us with it, and write it up properly and send it to an appropriate scientific journal. If it disproves evolution, I would recommend Science or Nature to ensure your Nobel prize.
But then, if you are full of hot air......
Posted by: Kel | November 11, 2008 8:03 PM
Ahh, irreducible complexity. That problem was solved almost a century before we had even heard of Behe.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 11, 2008 8:04 PM
eric williams @240
Fuck off with the copy'n'paste from Charlie Wagner's website, you pathetic troll.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 11, 2008 8:08 PM
Well, well, EA (CQ) ain't long for this blog.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 8:08 PM
ok i get your drift, you're saying irreducable complexity:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200.html
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 11, 2008 8:10 PM
Of course. That's the whole point. talkorigins cites reality-based science. Creationists perceive that very citation of reality based science as "bias".
BTW, "Reality has a known liberal bias" is a joke originally made by Stephen Colbert. Except it isn't actually a joke; anti-evolutionists are opposed to reality.
PS: "eric williams" is a sockpuppet for Charlie Wagner, as I pointed out above.
When you see the same arguments being made in the same style over time, you just automatically recognize them.
Have you read a book on developmental biology or cellular biology or evolutionary biology yet, Charlie? I bet you haven't.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 11, 2008 8:11 PM
CW, not CQ. DOH *headdesk*
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 8:15 PM
yeah, that is what i thought it would be like owlmirror. thanks.
DAMN YOU KEL!!! not only did you refute him first, but your article is better than mine. Damn you! i just loved how you all pounded him at nearly the same millisecond. hilarious
Posted by: abb3w | November 11, 2008 8:15 PM
negentropyeater: ?? Please explain ??
Again, see the paper on it: "Natural selection for least action", by Ville R. I. Kaila and Arto Annila (doi:10.1098/rspa.2008.0178). When the second law of thermodynamics is expressed for connected subsystems with mass-energy flow between, natural selection is a mathematical consequence.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | November 11, 2008 8:16 PM
Oh FFS. So, it's a drooling imbecile sockpuppet rather than a sniveling sycophant plagiarising a drooling imbecile.
Is that better or worse?
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 8:23 PM
#252
now i know why they say athiests are angry and hateful. Geez
Posted by: Anton Mates | November 11, 2008 8:28 PM
What features of the mousetrap itself tell you that its function is to catch mice, rather than to catch voles, or to catch the fingers of people reaching into dark places, or to be a one-shot percussion instrument?
If that's the important point, you will no doubt provide evidence that such adaptation requires insight, rather than just asserting that it does over and over again.
Have you tried?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 11, 2008 8:30 PM
Rickroll, CW has been banned:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/plonk.php
He shouldn't be posting here.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 8:30 PM
the base of a mousetrap is unnecessary. You could use the floor as a base. Therefore the mouseztrap isn't irreducibly complex
Posted by: Monado | November 11, 2008 8:31 PM
#48: what charley: said: if entropy precludes evolution, it precludes snowflakes!
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 8:34 PM
still, my point stands, nerd. a simple "aloha" is good enough. he doesn't deserve our replies, mush less our anger
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 11, 2008 8:37 PM
Rickroll, when a person is stupid enough to sockpuppet, which is using a second moniker to either create controversy or evade the ban, that is another crime committed, so we can lambaste them. We aren't polite to those who don't obey PZ's rules.
Posted by: Monado | November 11, 2008 8:38 PM
#13, I believe that PZ blogged about this in "Creationists almost discover the sun."
The sun doesn't count!? Who makes the damned rules?
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 8:39 PM
still, my point stands, nerd. a simple "aloha" is good enough. he doesn't deserve our replies, mush less our anger
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 8:44 PM
i didn't mean to post it twice lol. actually, i use a differnt moniker sometimes (not on this site), but only for a specific subject that makes it seem like "the enemy" isn't telling them to do it:
http://johnshoreland.com/2007/09/16/what-the-atheists-taught-me/
see, nothing evil there lol
Posted by: Kel | November 11, 2008 8:44 PM
Have you read Orr's review of Darwin's Black Box?Posted by: Kel | November 11, 2008 8:46 PM
Jerry Coyne's review is well worth the read too.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 8:48 PM
nope. I don't read psuedo science (unless Hofstadter is psuedo scitntific. *gasp* i hope not)
Posted by: Kel | November 11, 2008 8:54 PM
It's well worth the read
Posted by: negentropyeater | November 11, 2008 9:13 PM
abb3w,
thx, restating the evolutionary principle by natural selection in terms of statistical Physics and chemical thermodynamics, but that's simply ... great stuff !
(Sorry hadn't noticed that you had already provided the link in your previous comment)
Posted by: IST | November 11, 2008 9:26 PM
EW/Creationist Troll> I responded to your question reasonably, as did others... care to reply? Or is that beyond you today? Of course, you can simply rehash Behe's refuted arguments again if you prefer...
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 11:22 PM
i think he was axed i don't even see his comment anymore IST. oh well, no big deal i guess.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 11, 2008 11:27 PM
Rickroll, IST, it looks like PZ went through and deleted all the banned persons posts. He won't be back under that moniker.
Posted by: Kel | November 11, 2008 11:37 PM
But he'll be back under another. The guy just can't take a hint, even when that tap on the shoulder is done by a sledgehammer. If he can't learn how evolution works, how's he going to learn his inane ramblings are unwelcome here?Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 11:50 PM
yep indeed. so what do you think about my statement of slowing of entropy, Nerd?
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 11, 2008 11:54 PM
nerd has left the builing. i still want someone to comment on what i said, i want to know if i'm way out in left feild on that one. how about Kel?
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 11, 2008 11:56 PM
And not just evolution. He doesn't want to learn anything about how science in general works, either.
I pointed out that his steady-state universe was contradicted by the big-bang model of the universe, and his "eternal regress of life" was therefore contradicted by basic cosmology and astrophysics. Did he pay attention to this? He did not.
He's a silly old crackpot.
And he'll probably be back.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 12, 2008 12:06 AM
but while he's gone we don't need to talk about him. all this bad mouthing is counter-productive. he's wasted enough of our time while he WAS here, quit helping him steal our sanity
Posted by: Kenneth Barr | November 12, 2008 2:20 AM
We dont even need to do entropy calculations (which i think were grossly underestimated). Biochemistry gives us the answer. All lifeforms get their complex macromolecules by some set of reactions that increase entropy. We do it largely through the breakdown of glucose into water and carbon dioxide. Not only that, but every step in our metabolic pathways gives an overall increase in entropy!!!!
So evolution has drastically increased entropy, as it has lead to this entropy-increasing metabolism we have.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 12, 2008 2:52 AM
indeed Ken-bar, protazoans use alot less energy and disperse less of it than say a tree. and the same tree uses monumentally less energy than a shrew, which is an incredibally entropic critter. But i think that intelligence (while itself the faculty of which is very energy intessive- the brain uses some thing like 80% of our energy) actually seeks to lessen the effect of entropy on the world (all of our inventions utilise this property). i think that really, though energy increases, this also allows more flexability with it as well
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 12, 2008 3:15 AM
i think really, though that as ENTropy increases, this also allows more flexability as well
Posted by: jo5ef | November 12, 2008 3:18 AM
OK this is a great discussion on a subject I find endlessly fascinating so while we've got you all here:
If seems all agree that living organisms can be seen as a special type of ordered system that can arise from a disordered environment under certain conditions given sufficient energy input. However it seems no one has any idea why this should be (Note I am talking about the origin of life here, I have no problem with evolution by NS). Obviously the religious folks will seize upon this and say Aha! You cant explain it therefore god is the causative agent, however what I'd like to see is someone come up with some scientific principal that will predict how and why this should occur. I think that if the puzzle of the origin of life is framed in this way, we might have some hope of arriving at a satisfying explanation. It appears to me that it may to come down to the complex relationship between information and thermodynamics which my feeble brain has been mulling over for 10 years and, with the kind of brainpower I see here on these subjects I think we have a chance to crack this.
It appears to me that there are two possibilities: there are such principles but we don't yet know what they are (the Laws of infodynamics?) or: we don't need any new laws or principals to explain the origin of life (in which case why has no one come up with a convincing explanation?). I'm inclined to the first but am open to other points of view, any takers? (I know im going to get shredded here, but it'll be worth it).
Posted by: Arnosium Upinarum | November 12, 2008 3:29 AM
It's always been obvious that creationist/ID/anti-evolutionists who use the complexity-vs-entropy argument to dismiss evolution (or ANY process) as capable of producing local pockets of complexity within a larger system, have no intention of arguing WITHIN any understanding of the science, but IN SPITE of it: their entire "argument", of course, consists of wanting to sound and look scientific.
They use the word "entropy" or raise the concept of the 2nd law of thermodynamics as a means of striking a blow against evolution (the target idea which they do not resist on any scientific grounds in the first place, but literally "hate" purely on ideological grounds). Their ground of argumentation is must obviously be mired entirely in rhetoric...or "the sell".
Always glad to see ANOTHER nice treatment that puts the nonsense away, but this one better helps to specifically target their claims.
Alas, they won't understand it, but they don't have to in order to sound sufficiently knowledgable to those who listen to them as they pretend to refute it. They KNOW that the folks they're talking to who throw money at them know as little as they do, and will continue to listen attentively. The moolah is a powerful inducement. Cultivating it as a sustainable resource is desirable. The product of the harvest are most desirable. Such are the beneficial fruits of Good Housekeeping Salesmanship.
Sean Carrol #12: you're right. Those aren't strictly the same. (The reduction in the # of microstates with generations isn't strictly the same as the degrees of freedom rearranged). It IS "possible to fix that part up just a bit" - and there are some other things that might stand it to. Cleans it up; "same conclusion, obviously". Looking forward to seeing how you do it.
The mathematics are definitely indispensible, but only to those who can grasp it; yet there are LOTS of ways to demonstrate or express all of this and they don't have to be hidden within a language that's opaque to non-mathematicians. It is not only possible but OKAY to translate the concepts in "plain language" for the consumption of the general public...WITHOUT dumbing it down, PLEASE! That's the most injurious cop-out (or outright incompetence) of institutional "outreach" programs. The VERY WORST of the trend comes about by these institutions salivating over the success of popular modes of stroking the public, as in intensively striving to emulate Hollywood. Every time I see an example of that, I succumb to a twinge of despair.
It's a duty of every scientist to help out in educating a public that is not only uninformed but alarmingly proud of it. It will NOT be accomplished by feeding the public "science bites" with the equivalent of fast food, like all the other junk that is served to them on the chief priority of "the sell". It can only be accomplished with real and sincere communication. That's MUCH harder than pitching a sale, and it will take time. but at least it has the possibility of a positive result.
Otherwise? All we're really doing with this public outreach stuff is EXACTLY the same thing that the creationist/ID/antievolutionists are doing. And we don't realize it EITHER.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 12, 2008 3:34 AM
i'm sure then than you have looked up the wikipedia article on this very subject then huh? Well Jo3, one of the best examples i got was the thesis of Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglass Hofstadter: any sufficiently powerful system by definition has the inate property of self referance. Meaningless information therefore aquires meaning despite itself.
i think that this is an essential way to frame the problem, even though the book is now rather antiquated. Please do yourself a service and read this escellent book. it may help you out on this.
Posted by: IST | November 12, 2008 7:27 AM
He's gone? nice... a chance for an intelligent discussion...
K. Barr and Rickroll> Obn the Biochemical entropy argument: Does the synthesis of macromolecules, using energy resulting from ATP pathways, actually result in an increase in entropy? I've not bothered calculating (although my students may be doing that as a review today just so I can see the results), but it seems that this wouldn't be the case. Only the final decomposition of organisms would result in an increase in entropy. Again, not a closed system, so it doesn't matter, but I would take issue with that statement until it is demonstrated otherwise. It's also possible I misinterpreted what you meant, and that you were implying that the acquisition of macromolecules or energy from outside sources constitutes an increase in entropy (mirroring the input from the Sun), in which case I have no argument.
Posted by: Velok | November 12, 2008 8:06 AM
@Anton Mates #161:
I hope you were joking about the bumblebees and how they can't fly?
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1076/is-it-aerodynamically-impossible-for-bumblebees-to-fly
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 12, 2008 8:22 AM
There's always that one drive by comment that takes the level of teh dumb to another level.
Posted by: Mike | November 12, 2008 9:53 AM
The continued use of this by creationists leads me conclude they are:
a) too lazy to read the scientific explanation
or
b) too stupid to understand the explanation
or
c) too dishonest to admit the correctness of the explanation
or
some combination of the above
Posted by: frog | November 12, 2008 9:53 AM
Anders: And no, discovering that energy could be destroyed would not require a reboot of physics, because all previously made observations would still be true. All that would happen is that a new theory is built up, which incorporates the newly discovered phenomenon, along with everything else previously discovered - just as Relativity reduces to Newtonian mechanics on scales where the relativistic error is small enough.
????
Nope -- not unless it's a really marginal observation. I don't think you really get how observations are made, and how dependent they are on our analytic technique.
The "observations", without a 99.999% (as Anton so kindly points out) matchup, would be as useless as the experimental results of the phlogiston scientists. Observations do not pre-exist theory: the mapping is necessary.
Now, most of the time our theory changes so little in relation to observation that we can adapt previous observation in our new theory --- at the end of the day, relativity is not very different from Newtonian physics. But Copernican astronomy made much of the "observation" -- and not just theory -- of Aristotelian astronomy useless.
We throw out both observation and theory in a dialectic. That dialectic is the key to science and distinguishes science from the purely aesthetic realms of "knowledge" that preceded it.
In the short term -- science looks as you describe it. But in the long-term, it's a dialectic. How much pre-Darwinian "observations" do we actually use in biology? Not much -- they were looking at the wrong things.
Posted by: currious? | November 12, 2008 10:42 AM
Can someone please explain to me why if we have increased entropy such as in digestion or metabolism that in the long run we still end up eventually dying?
How could such processes create evolution? And why aren't we "positively" seeing it?
Basically, what I want to know is how evolution (Darwin's theory) can defy entropy?
There has certainly got to be some good scientists here on this forum that can satisfactorily answer this question for me.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 12, 2008 10:47 AM
It doesn't
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 12, 2008 11:01 AM
I'm not a physical chemist, but with all this talk of entropy, what is being missed is that the free energy (delta G) of the reaction is what drives whether a reaction will go or not. Entropy (delta S) is just one component of the calculation, along with the heat difference (delta H). If the heat given off (or absorbed) is sufficient, the entropy contribution, even if unfavorable, can be overwhelmed. So, if applied to an individual, as long as more heat is being absorbed (sunlight for plants say) or given off (all those that eat plants), the free energy is favorable to run evolution. Entropy is just a red herring.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 12, 2008 1:26 PM
IST @278: dude, i suck at chemistry, don't ask me. I was merely talking in general terms about metabolism and entropy.
#285: On that not Redhead, this post is officially done with. thanks for killing it Nerd
Posted by: Currious | November 12, 2008 2:15 PM
#284
Than I'm not clearly understanding something. Please tell me what the whole argument is about?
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 12, 2008 2:50 PM
Perhaps this will help:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF001.html
Posted by: Kel | November 12, 2008 3:40 PM
Evolution is descent with modification.When a child is born, about half the DNA comes from the father and half from the mother. But there are also some copying errors or random mutations. If these mutations are advantageous they are more likely to be passed on to the next generation that children that don't have them. Over enough time an isolated population has enough mutations that they cannot produce fertile offspring with other populations of the same species. We call that event speciation. Once two populations cannot exchange DNA, they will continue to diverge.
Now what part of that violates the second law of thermodynamics?
Posted by: Currious | November 12, 2008 3:42 PM
Ok thanks for that #288! (even though your verbiage was still confusing to me).
But now I have other questions? Firstly, the earth can be looked at as both a open system and a closed system. I tend to view it as a closed system (Earth complete with Universe)because when I look at the Universe "at large" everything seems to be corresponding to the influence of something else (a type of equilibrium). This is likened unto our human body and the cells that work within it, (I would consider a human body to be a closed system in which nothing else can come in except for food and nutrients to sustain it). When we boil everything down, it all deduces to atoms which are composed of everything. If I am wrong in this thinking please correct me.
Secondly, I can see that there are many processes where things that are in the process of disorder can become ordered, but I see these things as only temporary things. Just like food and nutrients entering the human body where it is used only to "sustain" it for short periods of time before it needs more.
Thirdly, what I would like to know is if these small increases in entropy can really be seen as "evolution"? Or rather, can this system truly produce enough energy to change all sorts of living species into another?
I am dismal to think it can. This is because I don't think this is the "right type" of increased entropy inside of a closed system that can generate things to change.
Please correct me if I am wrong in this thinking.
Posted by: Currious | November 12, 2008 3:59 PM
Hi #289 (thank you for that).
You said: When a child is born, about half the DNA comes from the father and half from the mother. But there are also some copying errors or random mutations. If these mutations are advantageous they are more likely to be passed on to the next generation that children that don't have them. Over enough time an isolated population has enough mutations that they cannot produce fertile offspring with other populations of the same species. We call that event speciation. Once two populations cannot exchange DNA, they will continue to diverge.
I comment: But from what I understand about DNA and copying errors, this is not any sort of evolution. From what I am told, a "mutation" is not an added gene of any sort, rather it is a gene that is missing which usually amounts to a defect that is not favorable. I am also told that tandem repeats in genes do not spell mutation either. I was also informed that not one single "added" gene has ever been observed in any living thing. Additionally I was informed that not even with "natural selection" does it change (add or subtract) the genes, however there are many tandem repeats, but a dog still remains to be a dog.
Posted by: Kel | November 12, 2008 4:12 PM
No, not all mutations are defects. Most mutations are actually neutral, and each one of us has them. It's just that we see the bad mutations in a macroscopic way. Mutation is the mechanism of change, natural selection is the quality control and genetic drift is the mechanism of speciation. (all in the basic sense) http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html What criteria are you looking for? You can only modify what's there, that's evolution. And a human is still a human, and a goldfish is still a goldfish. But if breeds of dog are kept apart from long enough and there are enough of the right kinds of mutations then eventually the isolated breeds will no longer be able to reproduce with fertile offspring. That point is called speciation and after you have that, give enough time and you'll have divergence in morphology.Again, what of this violates the 2nd law?
Posted by: phantomreader42 | November 12, 2008 4:18 PM
currious @ #291:
Then you have been lied to.
Every one of these things you have been told is simply a flat-out LIE.
Mutations include additions, deletions, duplications and rearrangement of genes (among other possibilities I may have left out). The claim that only deletions count is a LIE.
Some mutations are beneficial to the organism, some are harmful, most are actually neutral. The claim that all (or even most) mutations are harmful is a LIE.
All these types of mutations have been observed in real, living creatures, both in the lab and and in the wild. To claim otherwise is a LIE.
Your last sentence is completely incoherent, and to claim it is even intelligible is a LIE.
The bottom line is, creationists are liars. They have to be, because their delusions cannot survive without being propped up by a never-ending supply of lies.
Posted by: Kel | November 12, 2008 4:27 PM
I really don't get the argument from the 2nd law. What does natural selection, mutation and speciation have to do with thermodynamics?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 12, 2008 4:37 PM
Kel, what I am reading is that several biological properities, like expanding to fill all ecological niches, appear to behave similar to gas laws, where the expansion of a gas into a smaller cylinder is due to entropy effects.
I'm still not convinced it is entropy, even though it has the appearance of entropy. But then, I'm a bit weak in physical chemistry.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 12, 2008 4:39 PM
i find it impossible to beleieve that "a dog is still a dog" makes sense to you, you can't brred a female chiuaua with a great dane. What you're saying is erroneos from the get-go. Blue eyes, actually, ar a mutation that has spread, and it can be traced back to one man. if that isn't adding infromarion, i don't know what is. adaption to environments is the factor that separates the various populations of a speceies and causes different breeds to engender speciation. In fact, "species" is an incredably variable term, because of the amout of evolution that occurs all the time. this is also stated in Talkorigins.org
Posted by: Kel | November 12, 2008 5:48 PM
Fair enough.What I don't get though is how to match that to our observations on biology. We can see descent with modification, evolution is simply that process over a longer time scale. If evolution violated entropy, surely we wouldn't be able to have offspring. When we have observed mutation, natural selection, genetic drift and speciation, what else is there that could possibly violate thermodynamics?
Posted by: AJS | November 12, 2008 6:42 PM
Logistical difficulties with the traditional method notwithstanding, great Dane sperm will actually fertilise a Chihuahua egg if introduced artificially and the offspring will be fertile.All domesticated dogs can also interbreed with wolves to produce fertile offspring. Breeds of dog (including the wolf) are not distinct species.
Posted by: Anton Mates | November 12, 2008 8:47 PM
The same is true of many pairs of distinct species, however. Sometimes the reproductive barrier is behavioral rather than physiological.
Wolves can also interbreed with coyotes and jackals, however, who are considered separate species.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 12, 2008 9:28 PM
what about the mule then huh? that is a special example in and of it's own. as soon as you use the word "artifiscial" you aren't talking about nature. your argument makes no sense. besides, there is this tendancy of "ring species that form around mountain ranges. There is a few entrys in talk origins in the CC index.
Posted by: Currious | November 12, 2008 10:15 PM
#293
You said: Every one of these things you have been told is simply a flat-out LIE. Mutations include additions, deletions, duplications and rearrangement of genes (among other possibilities I may have left out). The claim that only deletions count is a LIE.
I say: Okay, I have double checked with certain sources. I think it is you who is misinformed and uneducated on the subject. Yes, there are as you say deletions, duplications and rearrangements, but there are no "additions". These are just tandem repeats of the same existing information... THIS IS NOT NEW INFORMATION.
Still nothing new is happening here (evolution wise). The word "mutation" is a scary undefined word.
Posted by: Kel | November 12, 2008 10:24 PM
How is it not new information? Just how do you think evolution works? It only modifies what's there. Gene duplication and modification can lead to increased information.Posted by: Kel | November 12, 2008 10:32 PM
Maybe this will help you
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13673-evolution-myths-mutations-can-only-destroy-information.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html
Posted by: Currious | November 12, 2008 11:51 PM
Kel said: How is it not new information? Just how do you think evolution works? It only modifies what's there. Gene duplication and modification can lead to increased information. Maybe this will help you
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13673-evolution-myths-mutations-can-only-destroy-information.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html
I say: Only modifying what's there is called "natural selection". And natural selection is not mutation (and many scientists are careful to claim that it is). Since it uses the same genes. The gene sequence can duplicate itself, but again its still using the same information. A rat is still a rat, it cannot change into a cat.
One of the articles that you supplied said: Rather than get bogged down trying to define what information is, let's just look at a few other discoveries made by biologists in recent years. For instance, it has been shown a simple change in gene activity in sea squirts can turn their one-chambered heart into a working two-chambered one. Surely this counts as increasing information?
I say: I am familiar with this, but what this article fails to tell us is that something like this does not happen naturally in nature (it has never been observed) only in a laboratory.
Posted by: Kel | November 13, 2008 12:04 AM
If you think a rat changing into a cat is evolution, then you really need to go and read up on the basics. Because a rat will never change into a cat. Not in 1 generation, not in 1,000,000 generations. Evolution doesn't work that way, it doesn't work anywhere near that way. A rat and a cat share a common ancestor. Just as a rat and a human share a common ancestor. But under no circumstance will a human give birth to a rat, we simply don't have the genetic code in us to make it so.All we can give birth to is slightly mutated humans and over time given enough isolation and genetic drift, the descendants of mine may not be able to reproduce successful offspring with your descendants. At that point there will be two species of human rather than one, and that means that future mutations will not be shared across species.
No, modifying what's there is called mutation. Whether those mutations survive and mix back into the genepool is a combination of natural selection and genetic drift.
Nylon-eating bacteria. Mutated and observed in nature. Not that it matters whether it's observed in nature or the lab, just that it's observed. Being in a lab offers several advantages too, we can control the environment far more and that way we can take our variables in order to increase our understanding of the processes at hand.
So what does all this have to do with the 2nd law of thermodynamics?
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 13, 2008 12:16 AM
Sigh.
It is modification of a repeated gene that can give rise to a new gene that does something genuinely different from the original gene it arose from.
A simple example is that we know that the human genes for detecting red and green wavelengths arose as a duplication of a gene for detecting a single wavelength in that frequency range (it's actually more complicated than that, but that's the simple version).
New copy of pigment gene + modifications of original and copy of pigment gene = full color vision (as we understand color, anyway).
It doesn't happen quickly, but the whole point is that it absolutely does happen.
Posted by: Randy Stimpson aka Intelligent Designer | November 13, 2008 12:22 AM
Kel said,
Not much. If you think of entropy only in terms of thermodynamics then there isn't much of a connection. Think instead of how entropy applies to information. If you begin to randomly modify information (such as DNA) you eventually have nonsense. Evolution argues that random modification of information creates more information rather than turning it into nonsense.
Posted by: Kel | November 13, 2008 12:31 AM
No it doesn't, and I'm really surprised that you can think it would. I've asked for clarification several times in the Texas Petition thread about the matter because after pondering the question I couldn't see how you would come to that conclusion.In nature:
Good mutations = more likely to be passed on.
Neutral mutations = no more or less chance to be passed on.
Negative mutations = less likely to be passed on.
Extremely negative mutations = will never be passed on.
Any vital code that becomes "nonsense" will be eliminated from the genepool and won't get passed on. Any mutation that inhibits the organism will be less successful. Any mutation that aids the organism will be successful. In information theory, you have specified information that can only degrade from perfection. You don't have that in nature, there is no single code for humanity. Now a lot of the code does specified functions, so if any of that code is detrimental then the organism won't survive to passed on. Our code will never descend into nonsense because if any of the vital coding sequences break, the line stops there and others who don't have that coding sequence error keep on.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | November 13, 2008 12:32 AM
I thought it was Shannon Theory of Information that said that.
Of course, I doubt that's the kind of information you're talking about: The longer description you need to use to produce the string means it has more information, or something like that.
Of course, the "nonsense" thing is nonsense: DNA isn't a message that gets garbled. It's roughly analogous to building instructions that can be improved by changing them. Unless you're going to argue that DNA started out perfect, or that all changes are detrimental, I don't see much point to your line of argument.
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 13, 2008 12:38 AM
Precisely because of selection. Those modifications that lead to "nonsense" (which is to say, an absolutely fatal flaw in development) are not viable. They die. They do not develop; they do not reproduce. They shuffle off the mortal coil; they push up the daisies; they join the genome invisible. They are EX-genes.
Dammit, this is still all in the FAQ.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF005.html
Posted by: Randy Stimpson | November 13, 2008 12:41 AM
Yes it is. That's why we will all die. See Genetics of Aging
Posted by: Kel | November 13, 2008 12:45 AM
Ageing != reproduction. Evolution is to do with reproduction.Posted by: Owlmirror | November 13, 2008 12:47 AM
Do you actually have any understanding at all of the differences between meiosis and mitosis?
Posted by: Randy Stimpson | November 13, 2008 1:01 AM
Owlmirror,
From this point on you can assume that I am educated and that I have read a couple of books on genetics and that I have also read much talkorigins.org.
Posted by: Randy Stimpson | November 13, 2008 1:04 AM
Kel,
As you pointed out, I ignored natural selection in my last comment. So would you agree that we are arguing about whether or not natural selection is able to overcome entropy?
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 13, 2008 1:17 AM
Randy, you have said directly to me that Talkorigins isn't credible. You ignored my question on Your post that merely asked "why?" Then come over here to resume this attack on sanity. The genetic degeneration an individual faces has little to do with evolution. Evolution has to do with populations and species, not individuals
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 13, 2008 1:19 AM
let me clarify, oh wait i don't have to:
Posted by: Kel | November 13, 2008 12:31 AM
If you think of entropy only in terms of thermodynamics then there isn't much of a connection. Think instead of how entropy applies to information. If you begin to randomly modify information (such as DNA) you eventually have nonsense.
No it doesn't, and I'm really surprised that you can think it would. I've asked for clarification several times in the Texas Petition thread about the matter because after pondering the question I couldn't see how you would come to that conclusion.
In nature:
Good mutations = more likely to be passed on.
Neutral mutations = no more or less chance to be passed on.
Negative mutations = less likely to be passed on.
Extremely negative mutations = will never be passed on.
Any vital code that becomes "nonsense" will be eliminated from the genepool and won't get passed on. Any mutation that inhibits the organism will be less successful. Any mutation that aids the organism will be successful. In information theory, you have specified information that can only degrade from perfection. You don't have that in nature, there is no single code for humanity. Now a lot of the code does specified functions, so if any of that code is detrimental then the organism won't survive to passed on. Our code will never descend into nonsense because if any of the vital coding sequences break, the line stops there and others who don't have that coding sequence error keep on.
Bother reading it this time
Posted by: Randy Stimpson | November 13, 2008 1:32 AM
Let me illustrate how devastating modification is to information. Consider the following sentence.
"Kel is a computer programer."
There are a vast number of single character modifications that could be made to this sentence. I let you do the math to compute the number of modifications possible by changing a single character, adding a single character, or deleting a single character. I think there is only one modification that will improve the information. I misspelled "programmer"; so the information can be improved by inserting an "m" at the right place.
So I think you are fooling yourself when you say that most mutations are neutral.
Posted by: Randy Stimpson | November 13, 2008 2:02 AM
Rickr0ll,
Correct me if I am wrong ... Isn't talkorigins.org written by activist atheists? If you are going to reference talkorigins.org its a little like being a republican quoting Karl Rove.
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 13, 2008 2:06 AM
Randy, don't be foolish. genes are instructions, noy declarative sentances,quit being so dense about it. besides, your definition of imptovement has no beasring on whether or not it is an actual improvement. you are making all sorts of linguistic and grammatical rules to fit that statement in, while a larger amout of changes might result in A. a better sentance (i.e. more complexity and literature value) B. the sentance in a different langueage, or C. something completely different and valid. After all as a writer, people weed out words that they feel to be not descriptive enough, or are misspelled, or add whoole other peices of vocabulary. Restricting your example to a single sentance is completely intellectuall disengenuous, as opposed to the tomes of information stored in DNA
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 13, 2008 2:10 AM
Consider the following sentence.
"Kel is a computer programer."
Consider instead
"$%%^%&*&*^(*(*((Kel%^&%^*&**((&()()()is&^%*&^*&*&*&*&*&^*&(a^%&^%*&(*(*(*(computer^&^%&^&*&*&(*(*(*)()((*)programer*^&((*&)(_)(*^)(*_))^(".
Most mutations will be neutral.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 13, 2008 2:16 AM
Correct me if I am wrong ... Isn't talkorigins.org written by activist atheists? If you are going to reference talkorigins.org its a little like being a republican quoting Karl Rove.
Ridiculous ad hominem; talkorigins.org offers arguments, which stand on their own merit regardless of who wrote them. And "activist atheists" is not a synonym for "evolutionary biologists".
But by your logic ... isn't anything you write written by idiot? If you're going to offer up your views, isn't that a little like you quoting zippy the pinhead?
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 13, 2008 2:19 AM
holy shit, Randy, you just parroted Stephen Colbert rith there. ROFL: "reality has leftist tendancies." Wow, just wow. argument from authority, means nothing in respect to this argument
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 13, 2008 2:23 AM
From this point on you can assume that I am educated and that I have read a couple of books on genetics and that I have also read much talkorigins.org.
But we don't need to assume that you're an idiot who isn't capable of understanding what you read ... that is evident.
Posted by: truth machine, OM | November 13, 2008 2:29 AM
Stephen Colbert
Rob Corddry: "it's become all too clear that facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda".
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 13, 2008 2:47 AM
actually there was another one that was even better in response to me on another post (but which one, DAMN this site is too busy lol!) tm
Posted by: Kel | November 13, 2008 4:01 AM
There's nothing to overcome! That's the problem Randy, DNA is not specified information in the way that information theory dictates. There's no one perfect being that as it gets replicated over and over it slowly degrades like Shannon Entropy does. Indeed, it would be a huge problem for evolution if there was such little genetic variation as there would be from a single source.Consider the Cheetah, about 10000 years ago the population size dropped to as little as 7. Now every cheetah in the world has so little genetic variation it's like they are all siblings. Skin grafts taken from one can work on cheetahs all around the world. They have the same problems that are associated with inbreeding.
Did you ever watch the NOVA series Evolution? Fascinating show, highly recommended. Anyway in there they had an episode on why sex. Because by using sex we are only passing on 50% of our own DNA. Wouldn't it be better to pass on all our own DNA? Well no. They took two different populations of fish in South America I believe. One reproduced asexually the other had sexual reproduction. What they found was the asexual fish had problems with bacteria that the sexual fish did not.
Then came a drought and a small population of the fish were isolated. What they found was because there was so little genetic variation in the sexual fish because of the low population, they were now the ones affected with bacteria. It was like they were inbred! Then they took some other fish from a lower pond and put them into the genepool and the problem went away.
What all this means is that genetic change is not only a useful function of evolution, it's a vital function! We need to keep mutating because we are always in an arms race for survival. For us it's the microscopic world. For the Zebra, it's against the cheetah. For the Peacock, it's against the Peahen. We need genetic variation in order to survive, we need mutations because other organisms are mutating too. Why do you think Smallpox ravaged South America but the Conquistadors were unaffected? Because their ancestors had developed a resistance to it and they became carriers for a germ that wiped out an empire.
Shannon Entropy doesn't apply to evolution because change is a part of the process. The phrase "Mathematics is the language of science" is specified information that can only come about through intelligence, DNA however is not specified like that.
When you have the code
AUG UCU AAC GGU AAC UAA
How is that any different from
AUG UCG AAU GGG AAU UAA
?
Posted by: Kel | November 13, 2008 4:05 AM
Ahh, the monkey at the typewriter argument, I really should get back to finishing my post about how this doesn't apply to DNA.Posted by: Kel | November 13, 2008 4:36 AM
You have hundreds of mutations in your code from your parents and the overwhelming majority do not affect your survival or reproduction strategies one bit. It's only on the odd occasion do we hear of mutations that manifest on the macroscopic level and most of them are harmful but there are a few that are useful. The harmful ones get destroyed by natural selection while the advantageous ones get passed on.If it doesn't impede on your ability to have fertile offspring, how is it harmful?
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 13, 2008 4:42 AM
Blue iris coleration is a mutagenic trait! it has been traced back to one man in history. that alone dismisses your entire premise Randy!
Posted by: Kel | November 13, 2008 4:47 AM
What DNA really tells us...
On common ancestry with Chimpanzees
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXdQRvSdLAs
Posted by: Rickr0ll | November 13, 2008 4:49 AM
ands here's the article:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/2045q6234h66p744/fulltext.html
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 13, 2008 7:45 AM
#include *facepalm*
#include *weary sigh*
And that, too, is in the FAQ.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-god.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA601_1.html
Which is why assuming that you have read anything, or more importantly, understand anything that you have read, is a very very bad idea.
Posted by: Kel | November 13, 2008 7:53 AM
If he's meant to understand how evolution works by reading Talk.Origins, then why is he making the same terrible argument about information theory?
Posted by: Owlmirror | November 13, 2008 8:22 AM
More to the point, evolutionary biology is not done by "activist atheists", it's done by evolutionary biologists.
And only someone utterly and profoundly ignorant, or a disingenuous lying moron, would assert otherwise.
See also:
http://ncseweb.org/media/voices/religion
And:
http://www.findingdarwinsgod.com/excerpt/index.html
Posted by: abb3w | November 13, 2008 10:45 AM
Randy Stimpson: If you think of entropy only in terms of thermodynamics then there isn't much of a connection.
Wrong. AGAIN, see paper: "Natural selection for least action", by Ville R. I. Kaila and Arto Annila (doi:10.1098/rspa.2008.0178). When the second law of thermodynamics is expressed for connected subsystems with mass-energy flow between, natural selection is a mathematical consequence.
Posted by: phantomreader42 | November 13, 2008 11:40 AM
Currious @ #301:
Once again, your "sources" are lying to you.
One particularly interesting example of a beneficial, additive mutation occurring in a living creature (which your "sources" have told you is impossible) is of bacteria that gained the ability to metabolize nylon, opening up an entirely new food source. This change was the result of a point insertion mutation, the addition of a single base pair. This actually happened, the genes of both the original and mutant strains have been analyzed, it IS an addition. And no matter how many times your "sources" lie about it, it won't change the facts.
Though maybe you should consider why you keep getting such bad information from these "Sources" of yours. Do these "Sources" by any chance include convicted felon Kent Hovind or known piglet rapist Ken Ham? You can't learn anything about evolution from creationists, they're liars, and they go to great lengths to avoid learning anything on the subject, and to misinform at every opportunity.
Currious again, not living up to the name:
Only because you don't bother to look up the definition or learn anything. Doesn't sound like the way a "currious" person would act, avoiding new information like the plague. Though an irrational fear of the truth is normal for creationists...
Posted by: currious | November 13, 2008 12:23 PM
All of this is just crazy! One says one thing and someone says another... do any such scientific test really prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt? Can we really say for sure considering that what we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning? Furthermore, when we discuss such issues as to evolution, entropy, natural selection or mutation. These are all wide-ranging words encompassed by many different POINTS OF VIEW. Just because a well accredited, or notorious scientific person gives his/her heehaw on the matter does not mean it is by any means CORRECT!
Whoever in this forum said it was an ATTACK ON SANITY, was correct!
There are just to many fine lines and inconsistencies, as well as points of view that are building anger, and to which only serve to downplay the creators works.
However, I would suggest that we caution just what "FACTS" we think are so, since if someone can get people to believe something that is not true, and that belief leads to those people taking actions to change the world (in terms of scientific views) in a manner that the claimant wishes, this could be more devastating to an "open" society than a nuclear bomb! Darwinism and evolutionism may be that very theory through which evil strives to take the "morality" away from humankind. For what hope have we left if evolutionary biology is correct. It would only serve to pull all our heavenly desires to a grinding hopeless halt.
Yes, I am a CREATIONIST in the highest degree! All said and done, I will be leaving now.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 13, 2008 12:26 PM
Well Duh!. We figured that out a while back.Posted by: Randy Stimpson aka Intelligent Designer | November 13, 2008 12:58 PM
Kel,
I was hoping you would notice the difference between my argument and the monkey at the type writer argument. Its not the same.
I've been reading your blog. It looks like we can continue the discussion over there at a slower pace. I've got too much work right now to be responding to everyone else. I'll try to post a comment there today or tomorrow.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 13, 2008 1:10 PM
Only if you ignore the thousands of articles cited and referenced.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 13, 2008 1:17 PM
*yawn* Only if all your "heavenly desires" require myths to be "true" and empirical observation to be "wrong."Posted by: Currious | November 13, 2008 1:50 PM
Some last comments before I move on...
#342 said: *yawn* Only if all your "heavenly desires" require myths to be "true" and empirical observation to be "wrong."
Well than, you might as well kiss your "life-after-death" goodby. Oh and BTW, what was your point in making "points" in all your posts here, to what means and purpose did they serve if it is all for naught (no life-after-death)?
You might also be alarmed to find out that all of your input here was based on "FAITH" (the substance of things not seen, but believed).
Either way, there is no escaping G-d!
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 13, 2008 1:53 PM
Very easy to do. He/she/it doesn't exist.Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 13, 2008 1:54 PM
I second his yawn.
Posted by: abb3w | November 13, 2008 1:59 PM
currious: do any such scientific test really prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt?
In the sense that you might wish to prove that you have a brain inside your skull instead of a piece of cauliflower? Yes.
currious: Can we really say for sure considering that what we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning?
To the degree you can really say for sure that you have a brain inside your skull instead of a piece of cauliflower? Yes... though technically, these are inferences from observed evidence, not themselves observed evidence.
currious: Just because a well accredited, or notorious scientific person gives his/her heehaw on the matter does not mean it is by any means CORRECT!
No. However, to determine whether or not it is "correct", you must use the methodology of Science.
currious: There are just to many fine lines and inconsistencies, as well as points of view that are building anger, and to which only serve to downplay the creators works.
Presumes there is a creator, and that any alternatives are "better" than evolution in terms of "fine lines and inconsistencies".
currious: However, I would suggest that we caution just what "FACTS" we think are so, since if someone can get people to believe something that is not true, and that belief leads to those people taking actions to change the world (in terms of scientific views) in a manner that the claimant wishes, this could be more devastating to an "open" society than a nuclear bomb!
Indeed... which is exactly PZ and others oppose religions, whose claimants appear to be behaving in a manner exactly as you describe.
currious: Darwinism and evolutionism may be that very theory through which evil strives to take the "morality" away from humankind.
Presumes... a heck of a lot. Mainly, that "evil strives", and that a better understanding of evolution won't lead to an improvement of humanity's morality.
currious: For what hope have we left if evolutionary biology is correct.
First, Science may contradict Faith, and precludes Belief, but cannot preclude Hope. Second, we may have Hope and even Belief that while we may not exist forever, something very much like us may continue to exist after we are gone... and perhaps, be better than we ourselves are.
currious: It would only serve to pull all our heavenly desires to a grinding hopeless halt.
Presumes any of our desires are "heavenly", and that mundane desires for the future are not worth considering.
Posted by: Currious | November 13, 2008 2:02 PM
Yawning signifies loss of oxygen to the brain.
I can hear the desperate jauntiness of an orchestra fiddling away for dear life on a sinking ship.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 13, 2008 2:04 PM
Yes the giant vacuum that is your ignorance is sucking it all out of the room.
Posted by: abb3w | November 13, 2008 2:05 PM
Currious: You might also be alarmed to find out that all of your input here was based on "FAITH" (the substance of things not seen, but believed).
That's a sloppy definition of faith. For myself, I reserve the term "Faith" for the primary tenets that must be believed without possibility of proof, as opposed to propositions proven as inferences under some rule (which itself is a proposition). I refer to the latter as "Inference"; "Belief" includes both.
The input here is inference, based on the primary propositions of Faith that Logic (EG: Wolfram's Axiom) is valid for philosophical inference, that jointwise affirmation of the Zermelo-Fraenkel Axioms is self-consistent, and that Reality is at all relateable to Experience.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 13, 2008 2:10 PM
Currious, you said you were leaving two posts ago. Just another Liar for JebusTM. And yyyyaaaawwwwwnnnn.
Posted by: Sven DIMilo | November 13, 2008 2:39 PM
If all of your endeavor in this life is pointed toward another one after death, then it is you who is wasting time. I'd say you're going to be disappointed, except you won't be. Being, y'know, dead and all.And what in the world does the veracity of biological evolution have to do with your hope of life after death, anyway?
Posted by: Currious | November 13, 2008 2:46 PM
I am leaving as I finish with some closing points. I realize that I had not responded properly to #301
#301 phantomreader42 said: Once again, your "sources" are lying to you. One particularly interesting example of a beneficial, additive mutation occurring in a living creature (which your "sources" have told you is impossible) is of bacteria that gained the ability to metabolize nylon, opening up an entirely new food source. This change was the result of a point insertion mutation, the addition of a single base pair. This actually happened, the genes of both the original and mutant strains have been analyzed, it IS an addition. And no matter how many times your "sources" lie about it, it won't change the facts.
I say: This is still working with "existing information" is it not? Bacteria becoming immune or even an immunity to the AIDS virus is still not "IN MY POINT OF VIEW" anything truly new.
Point of view my friend, POINT OF VIEW! However, you still choose to argue the point.
#348: What could be sloppier about faith? Faith is faith... hope and belief in the things not seen.
Faith is belief or trust in something (including devotion) to something without any logical substantial proof.
It is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not yet seen.
The whole premise of evolutionism is subject to this very bases since we cannot find the transitional fossils that led one species to the next. We surmise all this and tell ourselves that indeed this very evidence is fleeting right before our eyes especially when we can see the resemblance between monkeys and man. BUT WHERE IS THE TANGIBLE EVIDENCE MY FRIEND? And if you really think they are there, than you need to take a closer look again. THEY ARE NOT! Again, this is a good example of the fine line drawn between POINTS OF VIEW.
Therefore, (without tangible evidence) and while not even realizing it, evolutionism is a RELIGION unto itself which is based off of FAITH (things hoped for, not seen, but believed).
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 13, 2008 2:51 PM
God doesn't exist, which makes religion and faith irrelevant. You won't get the last word, so quit trying.
Posted by: Currious | November 13, 2008 2:53 PM
#350: Its about "morality".
Without morality, it can destroy the whole human society. Its not just merely about life-after-death it can also spell the havoc for society. There would be crimes, killings, lying cheating, steeling... ext...
Can you imagine what it would be like without morality or moral laws?
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 13, 2008 2:55 PM
Wrong, wrong, aaaaand...wrong. You don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. Your POINT OF VIEW is based in ignorance. You're making a fool of yourself.Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 13, 2008 2:56 PM
Morality can be had without god or theology. To say otherwise is a huge lie. God doesn't exist, so man defines what is moral and what is not.
Posted by: Currious | November 13, 2008 3:04 PM
Nerd of Redhead said: God doesn't exist, which makes religion and faith irrelevant. You won't get the last word, so quit trying.
I say: You wouldn't have said that if you were one of the 6 million years who witnessed G-d's thunderous speaking firsthand at Mount Sinai. THIS IS AN ENTIRE NATION. It is called a NATIONAL REVELATION! And it is documented in the Torah as an eye-witness to this event.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | November 13, 2008 3:04 PM
So...if biological evolution has in fact occurred (and contrary to your silly statements, all available empirical evidence is clear that it has), then there can be no morality?
You're nuts.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 13, 2008 3:05 PM
You obviously have no clue what you are talking about.
No transitional fossils? Seriously, that is one of the dumbest most ridiculous things that can be said.
Posted by: Currious | November 13, 2008 3:07 PM
#355 Nerd of Redhead:
Do you have any idea where the morals of our society originally came from?
Try looking in your Bible for once (starting with the 10 commandments).
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 13, 2008 3:08 PM
Ok I'm tempted to call Poe. What are you smoking?
6 Million years witnessed god speaking?
Huh?
What the hell are you even talking about.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 13, 2008 3:09 PM
Currious, you are getting more incoherant as time goes on. The earth is 4 billion years old, give or take. Life evolved here on earth with needing divine interference. You god is imaginary. People define what is moral and not, and have been doing it as long a humans have been around.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT, OM | November 13, 2008 3:10 PM
Are you suggesting that the idea of not killing or stealing started with the 10 commandments?
Posted by: Currious | November 13, 2008 3:11 PM
#360 I meant 6 million people (the entire Jewish nation).
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | November 13, 2008 3:11 PM
Currious, guess who wrote the bible. Humans. No god involved since god doesn't exist.