However, I would note that "beaming down" of energy from the sun (or nuclear bomb, heat lamp, flashlight, etc.) will NOT increase the ordered state of matter,
But isn't a hurricane an ordered state of matter compared to a still atmosphere?
Why God Cannot Have Used Evolution....
by Shining One 107 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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DanTheMan
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AlmostAtheist
Don't forget in all of this, that evolution couldn't care less how life got started. There's a book yet to be written called "How life started" and the book on evolution is volume TWO of that set. If you feel that life could not spontaneously generate based on thermodynamics, then that's cool. But evolution is what happens to life AFTER it starts.
I'm still not comfortable equating "disorder" with "entropy". Nor am I terribly comfortable with the idea that evolution can somehow be described as an "ordering" process. If I throw a pot of spaghetti at a screen door, the water shoots through but the pasta sticks on the screen. Would that be described as "order"? And if so, would the laws of thermodynamics apply in describing it?
I think you may not be thinking of evolution as an overall description of what happens to the billions and trillions of individuals within their populations. You may instead be thinking of it as a "force" or a "will".
If you shake a box full of magnets, what happens? Each magnet will repel or attract its neighbor, and shortly you'll have an apparently well-ordered group of magnets. There's no direction to it, they are just obeying the natural laws. Individual creatures couldn't care less about the entropy of any system they are a part of, they get hungry and they eat something. For them, their world is not at all a closed system. If they can eat better than their neighbors (or avoid being eaten, or both) then they will pass on their genes to the next generation. And it all starts again.
Don't jump on my "shaking box" and say I've added energy to that closed system. The creatures on the earth are constantly "shaken" in this way by their environment, among other things. When this closed system (the universe) winds down and dies, everything will be dead. But until then, there's plenty of energy to go around, plenty enough to 'make interesting things happen'.
Dave
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Frogleg
Dan, yes. But if you're headed where I think you are, you're going to hit the quarter/sun problem again.
Dave,
You are correct. However, it sounds like you are thinking that I am leaning towards espousing god, which I am not. I do not know if god exists, and personally, frankly, absolutely, after what I've been thru: I couldn't care less. If he does exists, then, like Dezi to Lucy, he's "got some esplainin' to do."
Entropy is NOT disorder. Entropy is a measure of disorder, or, more precise by current usage: entropy is a measure of the order of arrangement the constituant parts of an object in respect to the number of possible other ordered arrangements of the constituant parts of the same object (to the point where we are still talking about the same object). Again, what is the number of arrangements in a stack of 52 playing cards as opposed to the number of arrangements of 10 playing cards? Which has higher entropy?
My questions/doubts about evolution deal with its discarding of physical law outside of chance. Again, why is a soap bubble round? Did nature try cubic ones, and pyramids, and duodecahedrons, before it finally settled on round? No, the shape is not dictated by trial an error, but by underlying laws/principles that appear to be immutable. The round bubble is not there because it survives longer than the cubic ones, but because there simply cannot be a free-standing cubic soap bubble.
I do not discount nor trivialize your magnets in a box scenario, but, in realistic comparison, one against the other, comparing magnet arrangements in a box and bacteria (I assume you meant bacteria) feasting on each other and thereby continuing to "live" and eventually procreating is, again, saying the sun is a quarter because they are both round. But, prehaps, that is a discussion of life itself and nothing to do with evolution. My original aspect was that evolution seems to be going in the opposite direction than the rest of the universe. There is no parallel to evolution within the cosmos. There are different stars, differening arragements of matter, but there are no early attempts at galaxies that are the precursors of "better" galaxies, no earlier forms of stars that have bequeathed their "good parts" onto more robust stars, just as there are no cubic soap bubbles. Heavier elementss above iron come from supernovae, this is known, but a star with these heavier elements is no better or worse than any other star. Nature (or natual law), across the board, seems to dictate that certain things are simply, absolutely, those certain things and nothing more. The whatever (principle/law/darn good idea) that dictates a continual lowering of entropy, (which, supposedly, determines the "arrow of time") is measurable, undeniable, except, so it seems, when it comes to "life" forms. This concept of "life form" evolution doesn't make any sense, except when viewed in an historic sense as major tenet of a new religion overtaking an old religion. (One question I've always had is that if survival of the species is the big deal, then why don't I have more than one sexual organ? Now, to the smart ass who answers back: "You mean you don't?", I can only say that you are the reason I evolved a middle finger.)
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zen nudist
the laws of thermodynamics, often quoted by creationists, are part of classical physics and as such may only
be a statistical illusion which only applies to a limited range of measured events and have nothing to do of necessity with reality itself.
in quantum physics there is the possibility that randomness truly exists on some level [and cannot be completely ruled out as all measurements to date attest] and all such "laws" are only observed probable states that need not be true in all cases.
the prejudice of human logic towards yes or no answers forces people to chose one over the other when neither may be true in all cases... sometimes the answer might be yes while the nearly same apparent event may yeild a no later for the same question... this is addressed by fuzzy logic but not by traditional binary logic of Aristotle.
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DanTheMan
Dan, yes. But if you're headed where I think you are, you're going to hit the quarter/sun problem again.
I'm sorry - ?
There are different stars, differening arragements of matter, but there are no early attempts at galaxies that are the precursors of "better" galaxies, no earlier forms of stars that have bequeathed their "good parts" onto more robust stars,
I don't know how you're defining "better", but a galaxy that starts out as a swirling cloud of dust that eventually coalesces into stars and planets is advancing from a less ordered to a more ordered state, isn't it?
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AlmostAtheist
However, it sounds like you are thinking that I am leaning towards espousing god
I really couldn't tell where you stood, honestly. I'm not even sure if you believe evolution, or want to believe it, or just don't. But it doesn't matter a whole lot, since my points would be equally obscure and not as good as SNG's or DanTheMan's.
You're right that evolution is a rare type of occurrence. I won't say there are no other examples of this sort of behavior, but I don't know of any offhand. One reason for its uniqueness is that it deals with life. Galaxies and rocks and molecules are cool, but they don't reproduce. Once an object has the ability to reproduce itself, it's a whole other ballgame. Now there's opportunities for imperfect reproduction, introducing changes that can compete with the originals.
Don't let entropy sit over you like a wet blanket, not allowing you to get past "but things HAVE to become less ordered with time." It isn't a violation of entropy for two creatures to exist in the same environment. One of the two of them is almost surely better suited to survive in that environment. If there is a pressure of some kind (predators/lack of food/weather changes), one them becomes more likely to pass on his genes. This isn't a violation of entropy, it's simple probability. Then it happens again, and again.
Dave
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FairMind
But evolution is what happens to life AFTER it starts
No, DEATH is what happens to life after it starts. Do I believe in evolution? No and I can't be swayed. I suppose it is all a matter of where you put your faith and understanding.
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AlmostAtheist
No, DEATH is what happens to life after it starts.
Hee, hee! Good reply!
Do I believe in evolution? No and I can't be swayed. I suppose it is all a matter of where you put your faith and understanding.
Hmmm.. I *do* believe in evolution, but I CAN be swayed. For me it's a matter of trying to understand, but rejecting faith.
Dave
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Frogleg
Dave, I am not letting entropy sit over me like a wet blanket. You seem to indicate that some "scales" or other drop from my eyes by accepting evolution. The problem with it is that it is based upon too narrow of a spectrum to be declared law or reality. I can, thru the math and thru practical demonstration, prove to you, with a length of nearly pure copper wire chilled to the temperature of liquid hydrogen, that electrical resistance does not exist. Now, does this prove that electrical resistance does not exist in nature? Obviously you can't believe this because you wouldn't be having this conversation (as your computer would have to be woking by magic). It would be dumb to deduce the all-encompassing nature of electrical resistance based upon my very narrow scenario, yet evolutionists cry assurity with even less evidence.
The problem with evolution, Dave, is that it is just another part of just another religion. Evolution is as absurd, as narrow minded, as ultimately insupportable as the JW tripe I'm lately rid of, and I don't need another religion, be it organised, disorganised, or entropic. The JWs didn't teach me all that much, but a couple of things I did learn was 1. how to spot bullshit and 2. to not sit quietly as its being dispensed. Do yourself a favor and look at the "proponents" of evolution throughout history and see what their agendas were really about. You love to trash Russell and Rutherford(albeit, for very well earned reasons), why don't you apply the same scepticisim to the crackpots that came up with the Evolution wizardry? Or will you be thrown out of some club? Personnaly, I'm not much impressed with a flock of jackoffs that couldn't hack med school and somehow see similarities between chimpanzees and human beings as meaningful. Don't forget, these are the same geniuses that brought us such wonders as phrenology and canals on Mars.
DanTM,
Yes, and if you pour water on your foot, it will get wet! All things in nature have results when natural law is applied, that is what I have been saying; firther, you "proof" evolution theory by pointing to cause and effect of some arbitrary activity is the same thing as saying: The sun is round, a quarter is round, therefore the sun is a quarter.
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DanTheMan
Yes, and if you pour water on your foot, it will get wet! All things in nature have results when natural law is applied, that is what I have been saying; firther, you "proof" evolution theory by pointing to cause and effect of some arbitrary activity is the same thing as saying: The sun is round, a quarter is round, therefore the sun is a quarter.
Is it just me, or does this make absolutely no sense? Somebody help me here!