Comment on Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment? by Sean Pitman M.D..
BobRyan: I think you have missed a key piece of the problem.
At every stage entropy is increased even WITHOUT considering the open system molecular reactions on the sun. (as it turns out).
A simple illustration. I can spin a coil around a magnet and generate electricity that powers my computer that generates a design or a report.
At EVERY stage as the electricity goes through the wires and then through the various circuits — entropy is INCREASED regardless of the information content in the computer itself. You never need to “go out to the sun†to account for the room temperature while spinning the coil. You can simply take the electric charge as imput to the transformer-brick on the batter as “the start†and completely ignore where that charge comes from – becuase you cannot preserve the energy in the charge at every step. Some will always be lost through friction etc.
This isn’t true when it comes to thermodynamic entropy. The potential to do useful work can be maintained on Earth at the same level because Earth is not a closed system. It’s thermodynamic entropy need not increase at all as long as it is getting more energy from the Sun.
Just because your computer generates heat, doesn’t mean that the Earth’s thermodynamic entropy is therefore increasing – it isn’t. Of course, the thermodynamic entropy of the universe is increasing since it is a closed system.
The fact that the machine itself also happens to be “designed†to process information does not change the increase in entropy when it comes to usuable energy.
The usable energy doesn’t run out since the usable energy comes from the Sun. The electricity that feeds your computer comes from the Sun. It doesn’t run out until the Sun runs out. What does run out is the informational capacity or physical structure needed to convert the available energy from the Sun to do useful work. That is where the concept of meaningful/functional informational entropy comes into play…
Thus at every stage from zygote to human adult – the use of energy by the cells is ALWAYS preserving the increased-entropy law for Gibb’s energy even without trying to measure Gibb’s values on the sun. That is because energy transfer never hits 100% and certainly never 101%. So it does not matter WHERE along the chain “you look†— the energy transfer transaction at the point where you are watching — still obeys the law.
You can’t avoid looking at where the energy of a particular subsystem ultimately came from. For a living organism on this planet, this energy came from the Sun. The cell is not a closed system. The energy it uses comes from outside of itself. It doesn’t matter if the energy transfer is not 100% because there is so much more of it available that 100% efficiency is not required for continued useful work which could go on indefinitely as long as the Sun shines – – and as long as the system itself doesn’t gain informational entropy.
When the evolutionist appleals “to the sun†to try and account for his story telling about entropy – he/she is clearly wandering off into wonderland.
I disagree. A lot of people confuse informational with thermodynamic entropy. The evolutionist comeback that evolution clearly does not violate the law of thermodynamic entropy is correct. However, their problem is that they don’t consider informational/functional entropy…
By contrast “information entropy†has to do with the fact that the information going into writing the software the computer is running – must always exceed the organizational level of the software itself. Thus the human mind has to be more advanced – more organized, more creative — than the software it creates.
Evolutionist’s genome-morphing “pulled up by their bootstrap†stories, violate this principle all the time.
That rule is also preserved here without looking at an “open system†that either appeals to the Sun or that appeals to the Creator of all intelligence.
If higher level meaningful/functional information were being fed into a particular system, then that system would not be considered a “closed” system with regard to this sort of information – – just as the Earth is not considered to be a closed system with regard to thermodynamic entropy.
The increase in informational entropy and thermodynamic entropy is an observable verifiable law without having to go into the open system of outer space to discover that it is true.
Again, I disagree. The ultimate source of both thermodynamic energy and information is very important to the concepts at hand…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Sean Pitman M.D. Also Commented
Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?
David Kendall, BMus, MA says:
Hi Shane,
I am not sure you can make a strong connection between the statement in the excerpt and common ancestry. DNA research does point to varying degrees of relatedness among species. This does not have to conflict with a recent six day creation, though some may make the argument that it must.
What it argues for, and what Grismer clearly believes, is the idea that all life is related through process of common descent by innumerable tiny modifications from a common ancestor life form – a process that required hundreds of millions of years of time.
This notion strikes directly at the concept of the relatedness of all life because of its source in a common Designer of all the basic “kinds” of life on this planet, produced during a literal 6-day creation week in recent history.
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?
Ron Nielsn: @Sean Pitman M.D.: Sean, I am not a geologist, and I haven’t read much about this, but your argument doesn’t make logical sense. Where does the sediment that is “washed off†go, except down slope, and as long as the uplift is equal or greater than the erosion rate, there is always going to be sediment at the top
Your argument assumes that all rock is sedimentary rock – it isn’t. Only a thin layer of sedimentary rock covers the underlying granitic or metamorphic rock. So, the obvious question is, how has the very thin layer of sedimentary rock avoided being completely washed off of the underlying non-sedimentary rock if it has in fact been exposed, as an erosional surface, for tens of millions of years?
You do see how the argument for continued mountain uplift does not solve this problem? – right?
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
Are LSU professors breaking the 8th commandment?
BobRyan: Thus evolutionists who quickly admit that molecule-to-human-mind evolutionism (storytelling) requires “a massive DECREASE in entropy†as the net result over billions of years (at the local isolated system level of course )– are leaving themselves with no place to go.
Not true. A local decrease in thermodynamic entropy is possible using the Sun’s energy to produce the local effect (at the expense of an increase in the Earth-Sun thermodynamic entropy of course).
Recall that in the case of the dropping ball, and the iron rusting and the water evaporating — the definion for “universe†that was needed to observe those examples demonstrating entropy was simply “an isolated and localized system and it’s immediate surroundings†EVEN if that system is standing out in broad daylight (or in complete darkness). No need to “reach for the sun†before you can see the increase in entropy as iron oxidizes. Speaking of “oxidation demonstrating entropy†– our biology courses admit to that oxidation process as well.
You forget that the reverse of all these processes you use as examples of increases in local entropy can be reversed as well, by using energy derived from the Sun. The ball can be driven uphill, as can the water in the rivers that run downhill. Therefore, local reductions in entropy can be achieved by using the increase in entropy of the Earth-Sun system…
Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com
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