Cells and entropy

How is that not creationism?

But all you ever do is make random assumptions. What on earth are you talking about?

Is this not a Creation Science argument? Since you discredit science, you conveniently throw out any legitimacy to your claims. Entropy was dicovered by a scientist, and is principally a subject of scientific concern. Yet you discredit science, which is equivalent to cutting your nose off to spite your face.

No, the centerpiece of Creation Science is its agenda to discredit science, because science discredits Genesis as a creation myth. You haven't actually ever discussed entropy, because you discredit science, and without science, entropy remains an undiscovered phenomenon. You still haven't made any valid connection between entropy and evolution. You think you have, but as long as you fail to acknowledge that entropy only applies to energy that can not be converted to useful work in a themodynamic system, then you are just making bald random claims.

which has nothing to do with evolution.

No, evolution is not a thermodynamic system

Meaning: I am trying to impose my bald assertions on science, which I loathe.

Because engineering is dealing with closed systems, and you are not, nor do you actually rely on engineering, nor do you have anything but contempt for it, as you have expressly stated.

You have not once even tried to draw a system boundary and calculate total energy. Until you do so, all of your ideas are left in the dust, buried under the mountains of facts and evidence accumulated by the millions of scientists who know how to draw system boundaries before they set out to infer what amount is lost to entropy.

You have not shown that order arises out of chaos. Life arises out of the elements, and most of them are the product of cosmic fusion (initially from hydrogen), which, by your definition, is the same as order out of chaos. So what's the problem here?

You say you are not a creationist, but you are vainly attempting to prove a creationist claim. You say science is wrong, but reach into the science grab bag and pull out random ideas, like entropy, and attempt to enshrine your creationist ideas on them. That's only the first layer of your fallacy. Beyond that, you completely obliterate relevancy by inventing your ideas about how the world works, without ever bothering to stop and fact check yourself. On top of that are layer upon layer of random invented ideas, analogies and claims.

But no substance.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Most machines are open to the environment, such as an outdoor AC. We still talk in terms of efficiencies which can lower slightly when taken outside compared to the development lab.

I was trained as a chemical engineer. I was in development, with the goal of making things more efficient. Engineers lower entropy in the world around them, like natural selection. We are cut from the same cloth. I would choose among alternatives that might work and improve on the final choice. If it didn't exist, I would invent what I needed. I often found if people think their machine is not broken they will resist any change. They may even fight you . A lot of time is wasted until after they learn to be comfortable.

You don't seen to understand the basics, so let me repeat. Natural selection reduces complexity by only selecting a fraction of the starting units. Do you have any problem so far? Do the math to see if after natural selection there is more or less. This reduction reflects loss of entropy via natural selection. This is permissible, but requires another layer increasing entropy, so the second law is not violated.

Loss of entropy, like natural selection, is not the spontaneous direction of entropy. It will not happen on its own. Natural selection is an effect. Natural selection can and does happen, as Darwin witnessed, only because entropy is increasing elsewhere. This is the cause, for the natural selection effect. Can you follow the logic?

Let me change this around a little, and instead of a bunch of animals, say we had a bunch of rocks. Which rock will natural selection choose? This sounds silly, but is quite profound. Natural selection will not choose rocks. Natural selection is not concerned with rocks but life. The entropy needed for the natural selection effect is within life itself. Natural selection is an effect, that is not spontaneous in terms of entropy, but rather stems from life, which increases entropy.

If we freeze life, start with dead animals or rocks, natural selection does not come into the picture. It is only when life appears, does natural selection appear. Life can generate a lot of entropy with natural selection, by defining lowering entropy, an effect derived from this high entropy cause.

If we had a herd of animals competing in the mating olympics, natural selection is made possible because life is in motion. If they also decide to postpone and sit it out, there is no natural selection that day, and the entropy stays high for another day. Tomorrow life competes and entropy is lowered. But this can only occur if we have entropy increasing via life.

This is deep so I will stop and take my dose of insults. Maybe before insulting you can show us where natural selection comes from, if my logic is off. This will be more useful to everyone that pure insult. Insults can be funny though.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

You appear to have the capacity to to speak as a scientist, and you claim to have the training. I do not dispute any of that since, obviously, I don't know you. But what you are saying makes no sense. If you were interested in communicating scientifically, it seem to me you would start out by explaining what you mean by "reduces complexity". What language is that? Perhaps your training occurred at a time or place when evolution was not available in the curriculum. But it's available to you through a million sources right here on the web. Why do you refuse to use the common language of scientists when addressing topics in science? Let's face it, the world is full of charlatans and pranksters who make all kinds of claims. I don't have anything to go by except your own words. If you are indeed a chemical engineer, then I am inclined to think this is a game. Why do you avoid the actual definition of natural selection, which has nothing to do with "reducing complexity" and everything to do with the struggle for survival and the promotion of traits best adapted to a niche? Speak to this, and you might convince me. Until then, I have nothing else to go on except the possible scenario that this is just a gag.

What math? First you need a system diagram. You need to account for energy transport. How do you propose to draw a diagram of evolution that represents a bounded thermodynamic system, in which we account for all the energy exchanges? These will have numbers, in Joules, and the amounts not accounted for are attributed to entropy. That's when the math comes in, when there's something to actually tally. Until you have done that, your claim is nothing more than an invention. Doesn't it bother you that you can't produce numbers that add up to a Joule value for entropy? Similarly, your assertions about randomness, without ever making reference to statistics, or why you think something is causal or deterministic or not, lead me to believe that you are bluffing.

Refer to your last statement: "Do the math", and when you have numbers, then we can go over them. in fact, I think the whole world would love to see that. It would be a monumental feat to do that.

The second law was violated the moment you discovered you were unable to diagram the thermodynamic system, draw its boundaries, account for energy transferred, and arrive at a number that equals the amount of entropy you say is associated with evolution.

You have no earthly idea what direction entropy has taken because you have no system.

Where is the dictionary definition of "natural selection" in your discussion? Why are you refusing to speak the commonly accepted language of science? The term "natural selection" only has meaning by reference to nature, that is, to a niche that carves out a specific set of traits that will be favored. Do you notice I never once mentioned any terminology from thermodynamics in that statement? Guess why? Because it has nothing to do with thermodynamics! That's not to say you couldn't begin, case by case, to construct models of natural selection, accounting for all the energetic interactions that occur, then diagram the system, including the system boundary, then enumerate all the energy exchanges, and evaluate the entropy in numerically, in Joules. Certainly that is hypothetically possible to do. But you haven't even begun to do that. You're just claiming that entropy reversed because you say so. Guess what - even if it turned out to be true, your disregard for treating this - the living world's biggest reason for doing what it does - without even a grain of analysis, leaves you out in the cold. So this goes nowhere.

It's the other way around. Natural selection is observed as the cause for mutations to succeed, and for new species to therefore arise. Again, you are avoiding the English language.

Wrong again, look up the meaning of natural selection. It's not an effect, but a cause. Evolution is the effect.

Silly is the wrong ballpark. It's absurd. Once again, you're either pretending not to know the definition of natural selection, or you just refuse to acknowledge what it is. In either case, you're so far off base, there is nothing on the table to analyze. It's all sytrofoam. And besides, natural selection affects speciation in ALL life forms, and not animals alone.

You have no system, no energy audit, therefore entropy is not even on the table. And the energy needed to sustain life is not within life itself, I'm sure you know that, and are reminded of it every time you get hungry. This is precisely why your attempts to characterize total energy are wrong. This is why you need a system boundary. You need to account for ALL the energy to conserve it under the first law, before you can even get to the second law. Life requires nutrients, water (and often sunlight) and it requires gas exchange (and some life forms have other energy requirements). But you haven't accounted for any of those. So you can't declare what is or is not lost to entropy.

The absence of water that makes it impossible for fish to survive on land is not an effect, but a cause, by which fish evolved primitive lungs and primative appendages, and climbed out of the water, and natural selection is the cause, not the effect, that those primitive forms evolved into amphibians. Again, you will notice I never once mentioned anything about thermodynamics, since it is not relevant to the discussion of natural selection. And also note, the absence of water on dry land does not "stem from life" as you would have us believe. But clearly, life on land stems from the fact that dry land is not submerged below water.

Really? So the dry land appeared only after primitive fish poked their heads up and said "Let there be land"? How insane is that?

False, and utterly bogus, for all the above reasons.

Absurd.

I think I've answered that, but if you haven't understood me, just Google "natural selection", "niche" and "entropy". That should cover all the bases. By the way, natural selection wasn't "born" so it doesn't have a creator, it doesn't "come from" anywhere. It's an observed cause for something else to be born: species. Until you acquire a working definition of natural selection, you have no basis for making claims against the prevailing science, and the prevailing explanation of biological phenomena, namely, evolution.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

And when there just as many again? Every individual DNA molecule within a species is more or less just as complex as any other one. Some will have certain additions or deletions in different spots on the strand but, on average, they are all simularly complex. Even if there are only a few of them the genome is no less complex than when there are a myriad of them. Each individual can be seen as a testing vessel of the genome(including all additions and deletions)to see if it survives to pass down his particular combination of mutations, if he passes the test his genes spread through the genome, becoming more common. The genome gains continuously the traits that are more successful, the genome becomes more complex as it never instantly discards the previous traits, it continues the testing in the next generation with new combinations on the basic genome.

No, but rocks can and do reduce their entropy(become more ordered)not through selection, but by the nature of their physical properties(something DNA is simply a very complex example of). Crystals are one example, as are salt formations and veins of minerals. The Earth itself decreased it's original complexity of mixed up substances into layers of materials of various densities, including most of the iron and nickle forming a core. And yes, that iron and nickle did kind of naturally select itself for moving into the core, it being denser than the rest. Order comes from disorder naturally all the time.

Grumpy

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

By the way, if you don't want to be identified as a Creationist, stop using the same debunked arguments and ideas.

 

Nope. In many cases, animals that "sit it out" and wait until a time that is more beneficial for offspring to be born, win the natural selection "game." The ones that mate that day may well lose the natural selection "game."

Note in both cases (animals decide to mate, animals don't decide to mate) entropy doesn't change between the cases. Over the next year it might - but at the moment they decide to mate, nothing significant changes in terms of entropy.

 

Mod note: Thread moved from B&G to Alternative Theories.